myst has temporarily restored my sense that “games can be good, at all”, so thanks Millerboys
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I’m very excited for your Rivenposting ngl, that game is a trip even coming straight off of Myst
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the hardest puzzle in Myst, literally:
you have to close the elevator door yourself before the thing works, dummy
although i shudder to think about tonedeafness + the piano shit
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I am here for any and all future adventure-posting from @meauxdal . It is seriously my favorite genre, but for some reason I only sporadically jump in. Once I’m in, I’m usually out of reality for a couple of days, in a feverish haze, and thinking only of the numerous ways I might be able to use a spoon or cup.
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YES MY FRIEND.
I think the only really unintuitive Myst puzzle is the tram system, because there’s no context for what the sounds might mean - how’d y’all handle that?
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that’s another puzzle that’s full intimidation but gives you bits to peel at
it’s clear that the sound effects mean something as there is a button explicitly for hearing them, the only pertinent info you’re looking for is one of 7 directions (excluding the one you came from), you get feedback because if you take a dead end (they wait a bit to introduce these - red lights indicate ways you can’t take) you don’t hear any sound effect and the only way you can go is back toward a platform that contains one, you are in an Age that is explicitly themed around sound effects… it wasn’t too bad imo. within the first few hops you’ve established that a sound means a direction cause they loop back to confirm. if you’re taking notes there it makes sense quickly - the hardest part is representing the sound effect in your notes in the first place… noticing and caring about them… resisting the urge to make a map - this doesn’t work at all! the best part is later when a sound + sound equals ordinal direction, that was galaxy brain shit right there
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there is one that’s maybe more devious than in unintuitiveness:
the fucking pulley combination lock in the clocktower on Myst - this is easy to not understand what to do, in the original version especially. in the realMyst version they made the solution a bit more obvious
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You should go on a Myst odyssey and play them all in a row. One of the best times I ever had with videogames. And cap it off with Obduction.
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i want to write about all the little touches in Myst
how the fireplace puzzle is extra hard to brute force and the eventual solution is near the middle of the range for the same reason lmao
which they themselves put in your head by making the marker switch count puzzle eminently brute forceable right at the start
then they also make it so everything you need to finish is right there, and under a variety of circumstances the “anti-climactic” ending is actually fitting and thematic and fuck this game makes me want to write about games and i have bad arms lmao
also the OG game plays credits with music every time you quit so that’s part of it too
EDIT also is literally everything in the Witness just riffing on Myst lol
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having played the first hours of both, i can say easily that The Witness is Blow leaning over your shoulder and saying “Aren’t I a smart boy? I can make a Myst too. Tell me how smart I am. Here’s a youtube playlist of videos I like”
(I have not finished either game)
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i also realized that sm64 is fucking myst too, gosh darn it why is everything just myst
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I think it’s entirely possible to ignore Jonathan Blow’s objectively horrible personality and appreciate the cleverness of the witness for what it is BUT it is much more formalist than myst, outer wilds is really a far more deserving successor despite the aesthetic overtures
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Sure, it’d be easy if Blow wasn’t whispering “Get it? no, but do you get it?” into my ear the entire time
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When I gave up on The Witness, I thought the problem was me, but then I played Baba is You and it reminded me that I am actually not an idiot and now I get irrationally angry at The Witness. Give me 6 more years and I’m sure I’ll have a more positive/neutral reevaluation similar to what I’ve ended up doing with Hotline Miami, but right now…dang that game makes me angry
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the trick is being so full of yourself that the problem can never, ever be you
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i don’t. the witness stinks BECAUSE of his horrible personality making all cleverness preening and egomaniacal. the first time the environment told me the solution to one of his dumb little line puzzles i just about turned the game off. the second time i absolutely did.
myst is about the joy of discovery, of curiosity in an unknown world, of shifting form and expectation. the witness is about a guy making a bunch of similar puzzles and hiding the solutions in the environment nearby. it is clever in the way that somebody making a Marvel reference is clever.
truly infuriating game. i got halfway through before i couldn’t take it anymore.
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do you go to the toy store and yell at the brain teasers
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Reposting this from 28 months ago:
The Witness is more than JBlow pantomime-masturbating. It’s an attempt to convey something without metaphor or symbolism or shorthand etc. It is exactly what it appears to be. Braid was a frustrating creative writing exercise in wrapping meaning around a mechanic. The Witness is a reaction - there’s no “there” there and interpreting it is a waste of time.
The value of The Witness is playing with different parts of your… (ugh) perceptive apparatus and reflecting on how your brain is configured. For bonus points play it with someone else and learn about their brain.
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The Witness might be the most expensive puzzle game that is the closest to a dollar store book. It’s kind of perverse how little the gorgeous world matters for the game, but it heightens the contradiction of the player looking for story and meaning and the game, wearing a mirror mask, reflecting only puzzles back.
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no, i come here and yell at you for making stupid analogies instead
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