Myst

Video game fandom
Video game fandom
Name	Myst
Developer(s)	Rand Miller and Robin Miller / Cyan Studios
Release date	1994
External link(s)	https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/Myst_(Game) , https://cyan.com/games/myst/
	Related articles on Fanlore.
	Contents 1 Series; 2 Fandom 2.1 Basics and "Assistance" Fandom; 2.2 Physical Props and Arts and Crafts; 2.3 Adventurers - Mystsonas; 2.4 Conventions - Mysterium; 2.5 Uru: Myst Online and it's IRL Story; 2.6 Let's Plays; 2.7 Speedrunning; 2.8 Conlanging and D'ni; 2.9 AO3 and Fics; ; 3 Resources;

Myst or The Myst Series is a series of games, with a few novels. Starting from several versions of Myst coming out in around 1994, it, the main series, has stretched until 2005. A list of the games and novelizations will be shown below. The first game, Myst, was what might be described as variously as a puzzle/exploration/adventure game or some combo of these, though "adventure" may (an that's a big may) be most apt, howver it was coming out before these genres were really set in stone, an while it's arguable whether it originated any of these, it certainly helped solidify the genres. It's popularity also spurred the development video game escape rooms. Now it is often, but not always described, and even more often marketed as a "puzzle" game, with modern meaning attached. This disconnect may or may not cause friction in some ways in more modern interactions with the source material. - The gameplay is made and set out in the form of a series of pre painted scenes created using digital painting, which were strung together using a protocol of links similar to xml or html, to give the sensory experience of walking through a flowing world. (Later games would include updates in graphics and movement, and more semi 3-d experiences). The layout of the world and music/sound is fairly central, and the story is told through recordings, diaries, and letters left by the other characters and accessed through locks and puzzles.

The "main character" or "player character" is a only lightly defined open ended character who stubles on a doorway into these worlds. Often known by fans first and now developers as "The Stranger", though that's more of a placeholder name.

The Storyline follows, through your interactions, mostly the story of one extended family (Centered around the partnered characters Catherine and Atrus) who, while mixed in origin, have the knowledge of a society called The D'ni, who were able to make books that would let people "link" to or visit a variety of universes (called "ages"). The story mostly concerns adventure and sometimes dark family dynamics, but given the themes of travel over large distance deals with themes of colonialism, whether it can be avoided, (fantasy) cultural superiority complexes, resistance, and similar. Having both lighthearted and dark moments.

Series

Warning: contains many spoilers ahead:

These are brief summaries.

Myst - Follows you as you discover a "linking book" to Myst Island in another linked universe, unknowing what it is. Follows your discovery of the "main part" of the family as you unlock paths to different worlds that have writings by Atrus and his two Sons, Achenar and Sirrus. WHo are all trapped or missing and who make acusations of eachother of killing Achenar. Each blames the other and close looking shows the accounts and accusations do not align. You can chose who you think acted wrongly, and who you side with and assist, leading to a variety of endings from "bad" to "good". In a quick summary: It turns out that the brothers became corrupt and began to act semi-colonially and destructively in the worlds you explored and trapped Atrus together to stop his investigations. He however even if saved hints at a larger story that comes after that threatens him and his wife.

Riven also titled Riven: The Sequel to Myst - Throws you into the world of Riven, and introduces Atrus's father Gehn, who has used the D'ni technology toattempt to subdue and exploit Riven, to (in his justification) bring back the D'ni civilization after the recent genuine cataclysm. Riven is a fragile and unstble world, and the game centers around Catran/Catherine who is married to atrus and natively from Riven, Gehn's past cruel fathering of Atrus, and Atrus and Catherine's resistance and independence movement (aka The Moiety or The Rebels).

Gehn is not the only one with thoughts of D'ni recovery, and several other people are working towards it including Atrus, who is writng a new linking book for them.

Myst 3: Exile - (A new kid, Yeesha is born) Concerns this new book, and centers around a character called Saavedro, a one wronged by the brothers, who steals the new book and is planning and motivated for revenge. And flips between sympathetic/collaborative and heavily antagonistic. You in the end can help him reverse damage rejoin with survivors from his people. Or take less sanguine alternate routes. ("Bad ends")

Starting somewhat with Exile, but really continuing here in Revelations and after, there were different parts handled by different new studios that gained legal-type rights. And there were genre shifts and "recons" that are seen differnently and some feel were handled quite divisively. This may have reflections in fandom.

Myst 4: Revelations - It is shown that in the first game the brothers had been "sealed away" on isolated worlds for their crimes, Catherine and Atrus want you to mediate as to what should happen to them. They also may have designs on the now young daughter Yeesha. Yeesha is experimenting with a crystal from "Serenia" which grants mental and dream related powers and forsight through time. One brother Achenar, attempts escape and revenge through attempting mind control on Yeesha, while the other, Sirrus works through split loyalties and ends up switching sides and self-sacrificing.

Uru: Myst Online - (A bit different, as it was structured as an MMORPG, but in the style of some of the other Myst games) First to have a visible character/character creator screen. Takes place after a bit of a time skipAnd follows two overlapping or related strands, an exploratory arch/anthrpological expedition into some discovered D'ni ruins - and The Bahro, who you do not know much about at first, but who were non-human D'ni slaves, and now-adult Yeesha and her attempts to get some sort of justice for them.

Myst 5: The End of Ages - (Not an MMO) Follows on somewhat from Myst: Uru, with more 3d and new controls. Shows you as an explorer branching out to Bahro lands and dealing with Yeesha's questions (plus angsts) and dealing with a bahro artifact known as The Tablet.

Novelizations: The first The Book of Ti'Ana Follows Atrus's great-grandparents and Grandparents, especially Anna, who ends up stumbling on the D'ni civilizatoins main city and learning to use the linking books, (and marrying one of the D'ni, Aitrus). But is also caught in the civil war and end of the D'ni from xenophobia.

The Book of Atrus covers before the games, Atrus's meeting of Catherine, and his childhood.

The Book of the D'ni covers and novelizes the time period roughly ath the end of the game series, and the re-building of a new D'ni town.

Fandom

The fandom really got started almost immediately, within months - a year of the first release at most. here are a (quick) sampling of some fan stuff or fan activities:

Basics and "Assistance" Fandom

(A quite early starting form of fandom.)

By it's nature, Myst didn't / doesn't have a "easy mode" or a "hard mode" with getting to places or puzzles. Cooperation was common, and heped fill that role, this was not an unexpected thing or seen as cheating at all by some developers or fans. Some cooeration was in person, but also many forums or e-mail rings developed. There were some "official" really semi-official guides with hints. But a Lot was various levels of collaborative and fan made.

The journals and such in the game were also hand written, which some computers didn't render well and some people had more difficulty reading than others - so a second wave made various transcriptions (typed out versions of the journals online) more common.

Physical Props and Arts and Crafts

Because (by the "holes" theory of fandom) one of the big "holes" left by Myst was the lack of physical materials - the graphics were good and there was some worldbbuilding, but that just made the lack of touch, smell, hearing etc. more obvious, a fair amount of fan ideas went into, and still go into, (besides costumes) making physical replicas of in-game items. Some stick close to canon, some after doing it, go past that to come up with their own ideas. Common items include (but are not limited tl) Jewelry, the rebel (moiety) daggers from Riven, and "Working Linking Books". These last are kind of a big thing, and while they won't "work" (sadly) in the sense of transporting you to different worlds, they were and are made by taking books and modifying to hold a small or embeddable computer in the right position to make a moving video image within the book, looking much like the original linking books. Sometimes using various levels of care for matching aesthetics. Some were and are made with a slightly morre powerful (small) computer and set up to be able to play Myst on them on the screen.

Adventurers - Mystsonas

Some are more simple about it, which is ok and good, but some like to flesh out different character ideas for who their "The Stranger" could be and what they are like. These are known as many things, like "Mystsonas" (aka, like "fursonas") or "Adventurers" and are often talked about and then put down in art/animation or occasionally stories. This is probably related to, but not the same as, the many crossovers dumping a group of characters into the Myst world.

Conventions - Mysterium

Mysterium is the main Myst convention, still going on today, although the last tow years have been online. It is semi official with some official Cyan Studios appearances and fan run pannels. There are also small meetups at times, but Mysterium is the main one.

Uru: Myst Online and it's IRL Story

Uru: Myst Online was a attempt (not judging successful or not here) to make a MMORPG in the Myst style about Myst things so you could have cooperative online game play. It used new graphics and controls partly. Some of which are clunky now and had a lot of fan complaints on specific aspects back then too. Eventually server costs, and the fact the money was split between projects meant they had to shut down the active hosting. However, it was more connected to the original studios than some parts, and more connected to the players. So therefore, on shurtting down, tey released the game and server code as open source (not sure of all the legalites, but that's the overall thrust) Even now there's many "fan servers" that run it and people both do the original content and use the code and their own graphics skills to build their own "levels". which was forseen and encouraged in the release. This may have also influenced the small modpack for Minecraft , Mystcraft, which adds some Myst elements. The fifth Myst game "End of Ages" was also heavily tieed into this process and possibly shows some small influence.

The game Uru would probably not be here today like it is if not for fans and fan activity. Now they've released a ne official version tweaked to have a more cohesive story when played single player (and capable of being played offline single player) called Uru: The Complete Chronicles but the other servers are still out there and there's fan prescence going strong.

Let's Plays

There are some let's plays of Myst for sure. Which come in a few different forms at least. Some of the longest Let's Players, or those known for their carefulness and explanations of lore are mainly the two - Dilandau300 and ShadyParadox, both being on youtube. There are also many other levels of let's plays some blind, some more experienced. There's Been a uptick in bilnd let's plays since the release of some versions of the game on Steam. But still not a ton, but nice.

Speedrunning

Speedruns are a thing and leaderboards and let's speedrun vids can be found.

Conlanging and D'ni

The Game has several somewhat built conlangs, the main being D'ni and seconly Narayani. There are fan dictionaries and courses for D'ni and Narayani. And both people in the games, and fans IRL meeting up greet eachother in D'ni.

AO3 and Fics

AO3 has ~ 200 fics in Myst Series on it at this time.

Resources