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Cyan's Classic 'Myst' Arrives in App Store

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Apr 12, 2001
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The classic game of Myst has arrived in the App Store. Myst is a 1993 game that was originally developed for the Mac under Apple's Hypercard tool. While rather simplistic by today's standards, the game was both a critical and commercial success becoming the best selling computer game up until that time.
The game starts you on a strange island where you must explore your surroundings, solve puzzles and figure out the backstory.

The interface is entirely point-and-click driven. Switches, clues and other hints are explored by tapping on interesting items on the screen. There are also many puzzle elements that must be solved in order to complete the game.
Click to expand...
A video of the game shows it from the launch which should bring back memories for fans of the original game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTFyj-L4mrs

The game comes in at a massive 727MB and 1.5GB free on your iPhone or iPod Touch for installation.

App Store Link: Myst, $5.99

Article Link: Cyan's Classic 'Myst' Arrives in App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/05/03/cyans-classic-myst-arrives-in-app-store/
Awesome, I'm getting that. But 727MB... thats insane! Developers need to make apps a small size because if all the good 3D games were like that, you could only have 5 games. Or Apple needs to make an iPhone with a larger HD.
 
alexbates said:
Awesome, I'm getting that. But 727MB... thats insane! Developers need to make apps a small size because if all the good 3D games were like that, you could only have 5 games. Or Apple needs to make an iPhone with a larger HD.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing optimizing it for size would've taken more work than they'd have liked.
 
:)

Definitely buying this game...
Space is not an issue for me... 700+mb or not -
of course with the hopeful release of spotify in the near future, means i will be able to support many more games/apps this size - i would rather have a brilliant classic opposed to one scaled down and minimised due to size restrictions...
 
Oh yes, that does jog memories. I love the music from the original Myst.

BTW is this the 3D-ified version of the game?

Edit: Oh no, its the actual original! Woah.
 
As long as it's such a large size because the music is high quality, I'm fine with it!

Not that I have an iPhone or Touch, but I still approve.
 
oh man i loved Myst. does anyone know where i can get it for Leopard. preferably free.

on a side note does anybody remember the sequel to Myst called Riven? i didnt like it as much.

EDIT: looked around and there does not seem anywhere that one can play it online. but since the iPhone runs os x i would think that pretty soon that one will be available to download or play online.
 
7th Guest

I want the 7th Guest now that would bring back memory's. I wonder if I still know the puzzles.
 
BlizzardBomb said:
I'm guessing optimizing it for size would've taken more work than they'd have liked.
Click to expand...

The game isn't 3D, it's prerendered. "Optimizing it for size" would've been as simple as using Imagemagick and doing something like:

convert -resize 50% -quality 80 input.jpg output.jpg

Which they probably DID do. There are thousands of images in Myst. The original game was massive too. It's the nature of the beast that is Myst.
 
The General said:
The game isn't 3D, it's prerendered. "Optimizing it for size" would've been as simple as using Imagemagick and doing something like:

convert -resize 50% -quality 80 input.jpg output.jpg

Which they probably DID do. There are thousands of images in Myst. The original game was massive too. It's the nature of the beast that is Myst.
Click to expand...

I didn't say it was 3D :p I know there are a lot of images in the game, most of the game is basically images. But there's also video and audio to account for too. I'm not saying they didn't optimize it, just I'm "guessing" (key word in my first post ;)) they didn't fiddle with it as much as they could've given a larger budget and more time.
 
Glad to see the dead horse that is the original Myst is still being beaten.
 
alexbates said:
Awesome, I'm getting that. But 727MB... thats insane! Developers need to make apps a small size because if all the good 3D games were like that, you could only have 5 games. Or Apple needs to make an iPhone with a larger HD.
Click to expand...

I believe it's that size because of the embedded video clips and pre-rendered scenes (aside from the hq audio). There weren't any machines capable of rendering them real-time back then (these all have fog/shadows/and lighting effects). Every control was rendered and animated. They did do a 3D version, which was real-time rendered - perhaps they will port that eventually. But, it doesn't play like the original and that's what they're brought to the iPhone. It doesn't foreshadow any new development paradigm - this is a unique port. (There are some apps which have embedded video and/or high quality audio - they're large too.)
 
The General said:
The game isn't 3D, it's prerendered. "Optimizing it for size" would've been as simple as using Imagemagick and doing something like:

convert -resize 50% -quality 80 input.jpg output.jpg

Which they probably DID do. There are thousands of images in Myst. The original game was massive too. It's the nature of the beast that is Myst.
Click to expand...

The original game was massive for its time. But that was 1993 when you could buy a mac classic II with an 80MB hard-drive. I believe Myst came on a CD, so it couldn't have been 797 MB.
 
I think this is awesome,
I do wish 'Real Myst' could have made it :) but I can understand why not.
this is still very awesome. The memories. The Myst Series is still one of my absolute favorite games of all time.
 
I was too young and didn't have the patience for Myst when it came out. With this release I am excited to try it again.

Weren't there sequels to Myst? Also, weren't there parodies? Pyst? Think I remember something like that.
 
That's pretty freaking awesome. I might wait and see if they can shrink it a bit through some optimization, but I have to say, I'm very impressed.

Now, will someone get to work on a port of The Journeyman Project?
 
raggedjimmi said:
Glad to see the dead horse that is the original Myst is still being beaten.
Click to expand...
Obviously it isn't dead if people are getting excited about it and wanting to buy it.. there's no other way to play it than getting the original and hoping it'll run.

Here's hoping for 7th Guest, 11th Hour and the Lucasart's classics.
 
MoncoZero said:
I was too young and didn't have the patience for Myst when it came out. With this release I am excited to try it again.

Weren't there sequels to Myst? Also, weren't there parodies? Pyst? Think I remember something like that.
Click to expand...

Myst
Riven (Myst 2)
Exile (Myst 3)
Revelation (Myst 4)
End Of Ages (Myst 5)
Myst:URU (Myst Online/URU Live, Path of the Shell, Complete Chronicles, etc...)

RealMyst (Myst done in 3D, I believe this was Cyan trying out their 3D engine the would later use for URU)
 
I'm not a MYST fan but I think it's very cool this has come out. It gives me hope that we may see 7th Guest come out for the iPhone too. THAT would be awesome. *crosses fingers*
 
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