Full Myst Playthrough (2 parts)

Watch on YouTube: Part 1 Part 2 When I was a kid, I played Myst for hours, but never made progress. It's amazing what a difference a couple decades of maturity will make.

Although I didn't quite make it through the entire game in this 4.5 hour playthrough, it was still a terrific feeling to solve the puzzles. Whether it's making my way through an age where I find the meaning of the mystical mechanical signals; or just connecting the right amount of power in order to open the rocketship.

Of course, getting Myst running on a modern machine is no trivial feat. I ended up installing DOSbox... then installing Windows 3.1 inside of it... then realizing that QuickTime was a crucial part of the experience. Getting the right version of Quicktime installed for Windows 3.1 can be a bit of a challenge, I'll have you know.

I did end up using a guide directly to solve one of the puzzles: the maze inside the Selenic age is a nightmare of epic proportions. While I realize there are solutions -- specifically, the sounds that the ship makes are the helpful clue, and there's also a key to the sounds in the Mechanical age -- I felt that this puzzle was significantly more difficult than was deserved given the rest of the game. It's possible that if there was a "start over" button, this would have been fine -- the initial steps in the maze help give a clue to the sounds -- but since I didn't even notice them at the start, the whole thing ended up feeling impossible.

In total, I completed Myst in 5.5 hours of streaming, with a couple of clues from viewers, using a brief walkthrough for the maze, and mostly just solved puzzles by puzzling them out.

Myst is a graphic adventure game - a first person journey through an interactive world. First released in 1993, this game was well known for its highly detailed graphics, interesting puzzles, and unique story. It was so successful it drove the adoption of the CD-ROM in the mid-90s.