![]() What else would the pinscreen represent? The beginning of Plateau Island has the representations of each island at the beginning, clueing you in that this area has something to do with mapping, and then you've got the machine showing what looks like terrain matched to a grid (and the only other thing that has a grid is the marble machine). Eh, it honestly doesn't seem like that much of a leap to me. ![]() However, with The Witness Blow seeks to fix "one of the things that's most broken about Myst and that whole genre of games." Namely: pixel hunting.ġ. The only thing to do is wander around the island solving puzzles. You exit a strange cave and enter an island devoid of all other life. That's a big part of why The Witness is the game that it is."īlow says that The Witness is "very deliberately an homage to Myst," and for anyone who's played both, this is clear from The Witness' earliest moments. These days, looking at the design of Myst, there are things that I would do very differently. "That was before I became a professional game designer. ![]() When the game became available on Windows PCs, he jumped at the opportunity to finally check it out. Blow had always been drawn to Myst's intriguing world, but he didn't have a Mac back then. Technically, the roots of The Witness extend all the way back to the mid-'90s, when Blow was a college student and the popular Mac adventure game Myst had finally made the transition to Windows. I think there are like two computer versions too. Safecracker - Set in the modern day, had some good puzzles, but because I played the DS version, there was a glitch with one of the puzzles. Probably the best Myst-like outside of Riven. But you are reconstructing a mystery of what happened to those who came before you. Riddle of the Sphinx - Not very lore heavy, you're mostly just exploring a real place in the present day. Not too bad-looking either, except for the humans. Rhem - Not very lore heavy, just some mysterious place you drive to and then a lot of puzzles. Felt very.well what the hell can I click? Physicus - If you want to learn while you play video games. Also, some weird lore changes to the series. One of them even needs a patch to even work at all, IIRC. Myst IV - Its good.but there are two puzzles that are just straight-up bullshit. Don't remember any bullshit going on, but I've played it almost as much as the original and I probably have any of it memorized. Myst III: Exile - A very good sequel, despite the change in studio. There are sword fights, and I think you can't win the sword fights anymore. Things seem to happen, and then you have to shoot a crossbow at some guys who want to kill you. Mortalus: The Quest for Immortality - Very dark game, weird game. Has an in-game walkthrough right until the end, which I suspect is where most playthroughs of the game ended.įrankenstein: Through the Eyes of the Monster - It has Tim Curry in it. Lots of combat too.Įntombed - Egyptian-themed, mostly nice. Not a lot of exploration either.ĭragon Lore - Better than Atlantis, but like Altantis, more of a journey rather than exploration. I like the genre a lot, but I tend to try to ration them so I don't run out.Ītlantis: The Lost Tales - Cryo game, nice-looking, nice lore, but puzzles are usually just figure out what is what. Just going to go over the ones I've played that you haven't mentioned. So basically, what I look for in those games is open exploration, interesting (but not overdone) lore, and clever (but not needlessly obtuse) puzzles. Is it good enough to contend with how ugly UE looks? Obduction - I have it installed, but haven't really played it yet. Also, pixel-hunting in full 3D isn't fun, and it being completely linear ruins the open-world feeling. Quern - got a few hours into it, the lore seemed intriguing but the puzzles were too meh and repetitive/backtrack-y. The lack of it makes all the pretty scenery really pointless. Wouldn't mind it to have more narrative - well, some narrative at least. While in theory having all the puzzles be variations of the same mechanic is clever, and there are some clever variations indeed, by the end of it, it gets really old. ![]() The Witness - certainly pretty, but way too pretentious and overstays its welcome by a long shot. But then I got stuck with late-game puzzles, saw in the walkthrough how bullshit they are and quit in frustration. Riven - At the beginning, I liked this one even more as being set on a single large and open world added to the sense of exploration. The difficulty also seemed right most of the time. Just the right mix of exploration, puzzles and general WTF-ness. The one that started it all, and arguably still the best (at least to my limited knowledge). I've been getting into Myst-likes recently and would appreciate some recommendations.
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