Games From My Childhood: Myst IV Revelation (VEDS 2018, Day 15)

[@Madbutcher305]

I think it's really interesting to hear a critique of this game from a narrative perspective rather than a game design one, since the latter is probably the part of the game I've thought more about. In my opinion the biggest flaw with Myst IV is the difficulty of the puzzles, which I think starts to take away from the immersion of the Ages towards the end. The three prior games are all sometimes quite difficult but are mostly pretty simple and give you all the information you need to complete the puzzles without too many stressful brain-teasing moments, but Revelation gets too heavily invested in central "mechanics" for each age. A broad sweep over the Myst games sort of generates 3 different design factors for each age: - "Immersion", or how well the puzzles are integrated into the ages themselves (this is extra important and is what the imitators of Myst, like The Witness and others, tend to fail at) - "Objective focused", as in a core objective that completing the puzzles goes toward - "Mechanics focused", where each age is sorted around exploring a central mechanic as much as possible The first Myst game is largely "mechanics focused", as Ages like Channelwood and Stoneship play around with their central mechanics, like the water levels and the water flow. That works for that game since each age is quite short and the puzzles aren't very hard. The exception in that game is Selenitic, which is more "objective focused" and uses information from Mechanical, and that age is probably the worst of the bunch because it sort of requires you to bring in knowledge from a prior age in a kind of knowledge trap for that underground train thing. However, mostly, because the ages are simple, the mechanics based approach works. There are some problems with the immersion aspect in Myst, but Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood get it right. Riven is objective focused, and because it's one, big, central age, the puzzles can be harder and require information from more different places without feeling as cheap or overwhelming. You want to be able to reach Gen, so you explore and find the power dome, and the domes with the linking books to Gen; you also want to get the prison book, so you want to link to the Moety people's age, so you learn the numbers and the animal sounds. All pretty tidy and not that many different central puzzles, and to complete them you essentially bring in small bits of knowledge from a variety of sources you find exploring the Age (the numbers, the linking book locations, the island shapes and sizes from Survey Island, the animal sounds), which makes the seemingly complicated central puzzles actually not all that difficult to complete. Additionally, it requires you to understand the world of the game more and allows you to explore a lot more freely, so the puzzles aren't like Myst or Revelation where the serve as gates to obstruct progress. Myst III is also objective focused, and works as a harder version of the basic formula of the first game as a result. You get presented with puzzles that play off central objectives (rescue the big bird, power up the airship, make it so the big marble completes its course), and the puzzles along the way to those central objectives don't necessarily play off a big central mechanic, like the water levels in Stoneship. They can therefore make a series of puzzles where you learn how to do solutions to different problems, and not just increasingly hard and complicated solutions to the same ones like in Revelation's hardest moments.They tend to be hard, but not overblown in terms of overall difficulty, and whilst they can serve to gate off progression (like in Edana, primarily), they're more like small challenges on the way to a big objective. Myst IV is Mechanics focused, and in trying to make it as hard as Riven and as immersive, it fails to be as functional as a puzzle game. Spire and Haven have sort of big, final puzzle challenges at the end of each age, but instead of exploring the ages with a clear objective, you aren't given one, and instead only have a central mechanic. Because the ages are longer and harder than in Myst, it can be unclear and sometimes overwhelming to try and complete the ages without a central objective and instead rapidly increasing depth for the puzzles. It's probably worse on Haven, because the final puzzle controls badly and has an annoying time limit of sorts, along with its central conceit as a puzzle. I think the big problem is that they tried to make the same couple of mechanics on each age progressively more difficult, instead of exploring new ones that don't require too much depth or referring back to old journals and parts of earlier puzzles. This comment got wayyy too long but hopefully it's interesting-ish to read.

[@CodedLockFilms]

Following the Myst series in this way has been interesting. I never had many narrative-focused games growing up, so it's cool to learn about various artifacts like this.

[@JosephDavies]

This is interesting to me, because growing up the majority of the games I played and stuck with were the narrative-focused ones, which is why the shift away from them in the popular genres over the last two decades has been frustrating. They're still out there, but it seems they'll always be considered the "forgotten gems".

[@ClassicalCentral]

Based solely on what you've described plus my own reading of the "Myst" lore (since I've never played the fourth or fifth game), the concept of the prison books being altered like that is a shame. What made the prison books so foreboding was that it wasn't just that they were prisons, but rather that they were prisons that suspended you in this empty abyss for seemingly all of eternity. One could only imagine the eventual insanity that would take over one's mind from that. Changing the lore like this seems like it greatly diminishes the intensity of the concept.

[@JosephDavies]

As I said in a reply to another comment, it's possible to hold both types of prison books in the same continuity, and I think it works without too much mental gymnastics based on how they're meant to function and Atrus' abilities. I agree that it might diminish the eternal torture aspect a bit, but only barely, in the good ending storyline that is the assumed throughout the series. If you fail, everyone (save one) is trapped for eternity, so that threat is still real. It's only because you succeed in Myst and Riven that the brothers are eventually given a reprieve to prove themselves, and it's possible Gehn remains trapped in the void as Atrus would not risk releasing him. If the prison books are ordinary linking books altered to have non-completing links, both types of traps can exist, and could follow the storyline as given without issue. It only requires two assumptions: that trap books are only subtly altered linking books that would otherwise have worked correctly, and that Atrus has the ability to fix a trap book to complete a link in progress at a later time. Given his illustrated ability to maintain Riven while not breaking the link containing his wife (and us) I'd say his skills are at least conceivably up to the task. The first assumption is confirmed by Atrus in Riven: "[...] by altering key lines of text but slightly, a normal Linking Book's connection can be partially severed, such that anyone who attempts to use the Book will be permanently trapped in the dark void of the Link - that is, unless someone else then uses the Book, at which point that person would become trapped, and the first person displaced back into the world. " The fact that people can be displaced seems crucial to the idea that the void is not an unrecoverable link, either. So it all just comes down to whether Atrus could accomplish it. Might be an interesting question to send to RAWA: Can a trap book be altered back to an ordinary linking book?

[@ClassicalCentral]

Believe it or not, that very thought entered my head shortly after I posted my comment, and then I let the idea roll around for awhile. I suppose I do like the thought of the prison books being so tightly-constructed that they couldn't be changed. This way, the prisoner couldn't be freed by someone else who knew the Art (admittedly not that many people by the time the first game gets going), especially for some kind of nefarious purpose. I do find the idea of modifiable prison books to be a fascinating one, though. In this regard, you could have, effectively, "Ranked" prison books: ones whose prison was absolute / eternal and could not be changed, and ones where the imprisonment was briefer, and therefore could be modified in some capacity. Each "Rank" could also have differing levels of accommodation, such as the aforementioned abyss for egregious crimes, or simple rooms for lesser ones. Nevertheless, thanks for sharing the thought! :)

[@JosephDavies]

"[...] rather than trying to find a scrap piece of paper and hurriedly write things down." Why would you do that instead of keeping a proper Myst journal? They provided one with the game for a reason, after all. It was no accident! "It's almost like a _parody_ of a Myst game." I think that's really my biggest problem with both of the non-Cyan games. They don't capture the proper tone and measured use of the design elements. They both duplicate the parts without really understanding how they contribute to the whole. Even Obduction ends up getting this right better than Myst 3 & 4 do. "And of course Yeesha we're only just now starting to get to know." Untrue. This was actually a deepening of the character which was introduced properly in Uru the year before. Myst IV serves as a prequel/origin story for her actions and attitude we first were exposed to in the (sadly overlooked) spin-off game. While none of that is necessary (a smart move that this game can stand on its own), I think it's definitely an intentional aspect seeing this part of her life after we've met her as an adult previously, due to the role she plays in both stories. So this isn't really a "getting to know" the character tale as much as it's a "how did this character we already know come to be this way" sort of story. For the most part, I agree with you on the prison book change being jarring and difficult to accept. I _do_ accept it though, at least on its own terms. I think it's more consistent with the game worlds and lore to have Prison Ages, it's just unfortunate that it comes at the cost of obvious continuity problems. Neither this retcon nor the Middle East -> New Mexico "we always meant it to be this way, but we lied" retcon pleases me, but they don't break things _quite_ enough for me to give up.