Its plot unfolded as the game progressed – players had little to go on at the start and were almost immediately plunged into exploration and puzzle-solving to work out what was happening and what was expected of them. Getting through the game was never going to be easy, and for many successful players the price was sleepless nights and a heavy dose of mental gymnastics.
But Myst had something that other games yearned for – an ability to captivate the player, dropping them into a world they could believe, for the duration of their time in it, was real. In this, Myst achieved the Holy Grail of computer gaming – a truly immersive experience.Myst proved itself to be one of the most popular games of all time, and, not surprisingly, it spawned a sequel – Riven Riven wasn’t quite so well received. Its puzzles seemed tougher, and its plot just that little bit too obtuse for the average player. But the overall atmosphere and the gameworld itself were consistent with that of Myst, and between them Myst and Riven notched up over 10 million sales worldwide.Now, nearly 10 years on, comes the third game in the sequence, Myst III: Exile.
Behind the scenes there have been changes of both development company and ownership. The Learning Company, publishers of Myst and Riven, sold Game Studio, its entertainment division, to UbiSoft in March this year, just two months before Exile was launched in the US. By the time of the sale, few alterations could have been made to the game itself, even if UbiSoft had desired it.A more significant change was the replacement of Cyan, developer of the first two titles, with the San Diego-based Presto Studios right at the start of the development cycle for Exile. Presto had a strong pedigree, having been associated with the likes of Stephen King and the Star Trek game franchises. But their new challenge was to retain the features that had made Myst and Riven so popular, while at the same time taking the saga forward.Michel Kripalani, president and CEO of Presto, explains the company’s approach: “We looked at what had been done before and identified the elements we wanted to keep.
The non-violent nature of the game was important – its emphasis on puzzle solving rather than battles was crucial and had to stay.”The use of island worlds was central, so we have retained that. The fact that a person at home in front of their computer is the main character, and there is no role playing, was also central. Of course, we also needed to retain the look of the original games.”But we also wanted to add some stuff of our own and to create a new game that could stand alone. So we’ve provided what we think are some interesting characters, and we explain some of the history of the earlier games. The goal there was to give people with experience of the first two games a feeling of continuity but also to allow Exile to stand on its own.”During the development of the game, Presto came up with a number of technical innovations. “We didn’t really like the way you moved around in the earlier games, so we invented a 360-degree scrolling system.
