The developer of the puzzle and exploration classic is celebrating the 25th anniversary of
Myst with a seven-game crowdfunded collection.
Released in September 1993,
Myst helped push the graphical adventure genre in breathtaking new directions.
As an early adopter of CD-Rom technology, it produced a novel level of visual and aural fidelity for those that wandered within its cryptic, interlinking world.
And though
Myst and its descendants were remarkably light on storyline, instead focusing on location-spanning breadcrumb trails and the sort of intricately designed puzzles that have ensured its lasting value, it was steeped in a fictional history and language that helped further characterise the franchise.
Its legacy can be traced through to a crop of recent high-quality additions to the genre – from the well known, such as
The Witness, through to other solid picks such as
Quern,
XING,
The Eyes Of Ara and
Infra.
Now it’s time for Cyan Worlds’ masterwork to return as part of the
Myst 25th Anniversary Collection, a
Kickstarter campaign which is pitching for (and has already exceeded) a US$247,500 (RM958,622) goal.
Included in the November 2018 collection are
Myst, equally ambitious sequel
Riven, Mysts III to V, mid-cycle spin-off
Uru – Ages Beyond Myst, and the free-roaming remaster
realMyst.
Those games have been upgraded by PC gaming webstore and archivists GOG – formerly known as Good Old Games – to run on Windows 10; Cyan has expressed its desire to update, rebuild and explore other options in making some or all of them suitable for Mac OS in future.
Beyond the basic US$1 (RM3.87) no-frills entry point, there are five backer reward tiers, from a US$49 (RM190) package of Steam or GOG downloads (backer’s choice) up through a variety of physical mementos inspired by the series.
As well as reaching its goal, Cyan also saw all 25 slots for the top-tier US$1,000 (RM3,874) Collector edition go within the campaign’s first day, netting those backers an original concept sketch for
Riven on a first-come, first-choice basis. — AFP Relaxnews