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By Brad Cook It’s all too easy to jump into your Mac and get lost in the world of Myst. The environments are intriguing — similar to our own world, yet strangely alien. Millions of players have spent as much time enjoying the visuals as they have playing the game. In fact, it’s the sort of game that makes you want to grab a cup of tea and relax while playing it.
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Another Mysterpiece.
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A Cold Dish
Of course, that’s based on what little information the game’s developer, Presto Studios, and its publisher, Ubi Soft, would divulge before its release. The secrecy surrounding the project has been tight.
This much we can tell you: When Myst III begins, Atrus and Catherine, the husband and wife who were rescued in the first two games, have made contact with the survivors of the once-mighty D’ni civilization (who wrote all those books that link the ages in the Myst games) and are working with them to rebuild their homes.
But a mysterious villain — he’s so shrouded in mystery that even his name is a secret — who has ties with Atrus’ past has resurfaced with plans to derail the D’ni rebuilding process. He’s mad because Sirrus and Achenar, Atrus and Catherine’s sons, destroyed his home, and he wants revenge.
But is this villain really as bad as he sounds?
So Many Questions
“Loneliness, separation from loved ones, and the desire to return home to a place where you know you are loved is something that I think everyone can appreciate,” explains Presto Studios writer Mary DeMarle, who helped create the story.
But who do DeMarle’s words describe? You the player, who are trapped in the five new ages of Myst III until you can solve all the puzzles, defeat the villain and return home? The game’s villain? Atrus and Catherine, whose home is located in one of the new ages that are threatened by the villain?
Just in case you thought it was only gamers who have questions about Myst III, DeMarle has some of her own.
“Another very prevalent theme in Exile is the idea of personal responsibility,” she explains. “If someone we know does something wrong and we fail to stop them, are we responsible? How much influence do our past actions have on the people we are today? How much does that past affect who we can be tomorrow?”
And why is the subtitle of the game “Exile”? Who’s been exiled? The villain? Atrus? The player?
You’ll learn the answer to all those questions, of course, when you play the game.
Stop and Smell the Virtual Roses
As in the first two games, you journey through Myst III by moving from screen to screen, instead of wandering freely through the environment.
Download the Myst III Mac OS X Patch
You click in the direction you want to go or on the item that you want to activate. When you leave one screen, you enter another, and the process repeats.
The screens in Myst III have full-motion video and animation, and you can use your mouse to pan back and forth across the scene. In one age, lightning flickers through the sky as you look out over the water. In another, plants and animals writhe and slither and hop around you while you examine a puzzle.
Members of the development team photographed textures in places such as the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the American Southwest and then mapped them onto buildings and other structures to give them a real world feel.
“A prerendered environment was chosen because of its photorealistic ability to present the world in a convincing way,” explains Dan Irish, Myst III producer at Game Studio. “The 360-degree camera view also allows you to experience it in a way that makes it feel real.”
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The characters in the game also enliven the scenery. Played by actors who filmed their roles in front of blue screens, they were digitally cut and pasted into the various environments.
Trivia buffs will be interested to know that Atrus is played by Rand Miller, who created the original Myst with his brother Robyn, and that Brad Dourif, best known for his Academy Award-nominated role in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” portrayed the unnamed villain.
At one critical moment in the story, you confront this villain; a scene that DeMarle says was her favorite.
“Brad was very, very helpful in identifying moments where the dialogue could allow players to gain true insight into this complex characters I had created,” she recalls. “I rewrote some of the scene’s dialogue after that meeting and now, whenever anyone sees it, the section I rewrote always draws a tremendous reaction.
“Of course, much of that reaction is due to Brad’s acting. I can never say too much about him. He really brought my character to life.”
As it turns out, Dourif was a serendipitous choice to play the part. Irish assembled a list of potential actors that included Sting, Christian Glover, Gary Oldman and Dourif and called their agents. Dourif was already a fan of the series, and he was also a fan of Presto Studios’ earlier Journeyman Project games.
