Adam Conover interviews Rand Miller

Guys I’m so embarrassed. For the last few weeks I’ve been doing a pure run of OG Riven (first time playing), without hints and made progress until……Gehn’s CAGE. I made it successfully through the animal stones! The fire marbles! Made it to his office! Then….stumped. I spent three days clicking on every square centimeter of the available screens, hyper-fixated on the lone screw on one of the cage bars, traveled all the islands again just to see if I missed anything. Nothing. Demoralized and defeated, I caved and looked up how to get out. I couldn’t believe it —it was just so contrary to my logic it never even crossed my mind to get out that way. While I’m existentially TICKED I spent my hint on a puzzle with the most limited set of screens to figure out, it doesn’t diminish my absolute adoration of this game! Unparalleled! The puzzles were perfect, the art was beautiful, and the story fantastic. I was on such a high when I finished Myst but y’all were right, Riven doubled that high. I’m sad to finish and leave this world! Thanks for the rec, everyone! I want to find the books and read them. This lore is just too good.

I painted these a long time ago. I'll never stop thinking about this game. I played through Riven again last year and loved it. I think I'll play Myst in VR next!

He's just grilling his lunch??? I guess it makes sense why he gets cranky if you bug him too much, you have to keep tending the meat to get that perfect medium rare.

Pretty torn about getting to explore a tiny bit more of Age 233 and Tay. It's something I desperately wanted to see in 1997, but the net effect somehow makes both ages feel...smaller? I appreciate the effort, I suppose. Age 233 feels more natural since it's entirely optional. I didn't like dwelling in the uncanny valley of the character art and the video-gamey on-the-rails feeling in Tay as much.

Hey folks,

I just beat the game for the first time, but had to cheat. I solved pretty much everything, but had to throw in the towel on placing the marbles on the correct spot on the grid. I got everything else, the number systems, animals, colors and symbols for each island but just couldn't crack this one. Oh well

I've been googling for a while, and I still don't really get how you're supposed to get to the right answer. I guess it's the relative positions of the islands, but you can never really orient yourself just hopping from island to island. Just curious what I was missing / what is the intended way to solve it.

Still such a fun game, and would love to hear any other recommendations!

Was inspired to post this due to some of the comments on my last post, so here we go!

Here you'll see first-edition hardcovers of The Books of Atrus, Ti'Ana, and D'Ni, the paperback BoA, the Omnibus, and a nice little bonus (third pic). I have not been able to secure copies of the other two "boni," as they are extremely rare from what I hear.

I did not realize until other people pointed it out, but it appears The Book of Atrus has more ornamentation on the cover (it wraps to the side and around to the back, resembling brass hinges), in addition to the red page numbers, headers, and chapter numbers. I should have known not to have kept my books unchecked for so long!

However, Ti'Ana and D'Ni have fancier, almost "marble-like" pages. The FE mass-market paperback book is my original copy of Book of Atrus, and it and the Omnibus edition have normal-looking text with no real ornamentation, but the paperback BoA has a cut-out where you see the crest, so you're actually viewing the full-color page behind it.

So, my friends, "What do you see, Reddit?" Also, what WILL we see in the upcoming editions? I really like this original Book of Atrus styling... :)

... only one I didn't originally buy in hardcover myself. Love 90s marketing 😀 Also, I love the red headers, numbers, and "page wear" of this edition; that didn't make it into the later Omnibus...

I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to be doing on the game, I can't tell if I've started a new game, I don't know the controls, this game is giving me no information whatsoever. Can anyone help me start the game? (Or help me do pretty much anything at this point before I give up)

Such a fascinating piece of history, and a shame the publication got so botched due to Dark Horse mixing up the names of Archenar and Sirrus, it would have been cool to have a more detailed story about the brothers and I'm pretty sure it was too involved Gehn (I haven't read yet!). Would have been cool to see how they crossed paths potentially. I do like scenes from the "Book of Atrus" being drawn out in these though!

Rank the Myst games by how high the stakes were

I have a memory of a logo or word break up slowly into small pieces and fall down. Could it be a myst thing? Driving me crasy not to find it.

You might have seen my posts over the last couple of days. Age Writer is now out.

It's a free, open-source plugin for Obsidian (the note-taking app) that lets you write Ages the way a Writer would.

EDIT: some context, since this got a lot of reactions

Thanks for the feedback, including the critical ones. I should have explained the intent better.

Age Writer started as a "what if": what could a descriptive language for worlds look like, one you write to create a world and then link to? That's the part of the Myst-like lore I always loved. Mystcraft isn't active anymore and modded Minecraft is too heavy for my PC, so I brought what I loved into the note-taking app I already use for stories and poetry.

• The descriptive text is only a short introduction. Its grammar is hard-coded, so it's limited, and I may improve it later. Your library can declare anything (jumping spiders, ants, neutron stars, flying cats) and it will show up in the descriptive book anyway.
• What matters most to me is making the linking panel as unique as possible, and seeing how far I can push physics rules to judge a world's stability. I'm far less competent in astrophysics than in writing. Yesterday I wanted a red sun and had to ask myself which physical parameters would match it. I'm learning physics and an art of writing at the same time.
• Stability: I had a stable world I loved, tried to correct it to match what I'd imagined, and it became unstable. Now i am worried i could lose my first world. That's exactly what happens to Atrus in Myst when he first learns to write, so I think I'm going in the right direction.
• AI: I know many people dislike it. I used it to help build the plugin. The idea and the direction are mine, and I'm happy to answer questions. Inside the plugin, no Ai is used. The descriptive texts are genereted procedurally using grammar rules that hard-coded and deterministic. While some of the grammar are from llms, you can always rewrite an existing grammar rule using a Library code block where you may redefine the words associated with a building block element

You describe a world in a few lines of a code block: a sun, water, sand, a fern, two moons. The plugin reads it back like a Descriptive Book: a description, a stability (stable, unstable, dying), and a living linking window onto the world with its own sky, shore, night and moons. What you leave unwritten is drawn from the dark, always the same way for the same book. Rewrite a world you've already explored and you damage it.

Worlds follow a simplified physics (star, orbit, core, air, water, light). Easy mode explains what doesn't hold; strict mode makes it cost stability and suggests the line you could write to fix it.

Your Ages stand on a shelf in your Relto: a floating island with a cabin, linking pillars, a pond, and a cat that sleeps by the fire in the evening. There's an Imager you can tune to an Age (crystals, lens, atmosphere, then lock), and a surveyor's notebook on the cabin table to check your work.

Run Generate a random Age for an instant world, or follow the welcome note, which is itself an Age.

This is sandbox mode: you write, explore and furnish at your own pace. A game mode is planned, and more to come.

Everything is local: no network, no AI at runtime. Every picture is drawn by code and every sound is synthesized.

Thanks for all the comments so far, and tell me what you'd want in the game mode.

Install

• In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Browse → "Age Writer"

Links

• Plugin page: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/age-writer

Fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Cyan Worlds. No Myst asset (font, image, sound) is included. MIT licence.

This product contains trademarks and/or copyrighted works of Cyan. All rights reserved by Cyan. This product is not official and is not endorsed by Cyan. No game assets or text are included. The plugin draws its own glyphs annumerals; if you already have a D’ni font installed, it can use it, but none is provided.

Hi r/myst,

This product contains trademarks and/or copyrighted works of Cyan. All rights reserved by Cyan. This product is not official and is not endorsed by Cyan. No game assets or text are included. The plugin draws its own glyphs and numerals; if you already have a D’ni font installed, it can use it, but none is provided.

Some of you were kind enough to respond to my earlier posts about this, so here is a proper write-up of where the project is now.

Age Writer is an Obsidian plugin that turns what you write into Ages. You describe a world in a short block of text, and the plugin reads it, paints it, and tells you whether it would hold together. It's a fan tribute to the idea behind the Descriptive Art: a world is only as good as the words you chose.

✍️ How it works

In a note, you write a code block tagged age, with one line per element:

Frozen world. A white sun. Fog and ice.

The plugin turns it into an Age panel with:

• Glyphs for everything you wrote, one per line, like the page of a book
• A short description of the place, generated from your words
• A linking window onto the Age: sky, weather, terrain, light, painted and animated
• A stability readout, with the numbers behind it for each axis: cosmological, geological, metaphysical, weather, ecological
• D'ni coordinates for the Age, shown in numerals

The same note and the same seed always give the same world. The seed comes from the note's name, so renaming a note changes its world.

⚖️ Stability is the game

Every element has a weight. Write something contradictory (an ice world under a lava sky) and the Age becomes unstable. Write something coherent and it holds. An Age is only as stable as its weakest axis, and the panel shows you which one.

• World types: frozen, lava, desert, ocean and jungle worlds, each with its own look and its own rules
• Riches and scars: you can ask for gold, silver, gems, pearls... but riches destabilize the Age. You can offset that by deliberately adding scars (scorched ground, poisoned air, barren soil...). Several scars are needed to balance one rich vein, so it's a real trade-off
• Quantities: few / normal / many for trees, ruins, water, rain and so on, both in the picture and in the stability math
• Sun colors, day and year length, window size, and more

🖋️ The Law of Change

If you rewrite an Age you've already explored, you don't edit it, you distort it. Touching the description of an explored Age raises its instability, and if you leave it alone it slowly heals, a bit more each day. Unstable linking books get damaged pages, and a very unstable Age can make the link flicker, drop you somewhere else, or fail.

🌍 A Relto-like hub

A hub note is your refuge: a painted floating island with a cabin and a shelf of books (your Ages, colored by stability), linking pillars, and pages that add elements and sounds.

• D'ni time, computed live, in D'ni numerals (toggle in settings)
• Your pages and linking books, with damaged books shown when an Age is unstable

🔊 Sounds

Everything is synthesized in real time with Web Audio. Nothing is sampled from the games, and the plugin ships no audio files.

• Linking sounds: every time you link to another Age you hear a short linking sound. There are five variants, picked at random (never the same one twice in a row), each one slightly varied
• Ambient soundscapes for each Age and for the hub: wind, water, rain, fire, crickets, thunder, chimes...
• Book-opening sounds, and static when a link is unstable
• Listen to the Age with one click. Sound only starts when you press play, and stops by itself if you leave the note

📓 Journal, puzzles, and your own blocks

• Exploration journal: a journal for an Age that writes itself from the notes that link to it, with a glyph sketch in the margin, alterations and mechanisms. Choose the voice (Atrus, Gehn or Miller), in English or French
• Puzzles attached to Ages (sound locks, crystal imagery, frequency networks)
• Cover page for each Age, exportable as SVG
• A library format to define your own blocks with your own weights and reactions, no recompiling
• French and English interface

🔤 About fonts

The D'ni script is displayed only if a D'ni font is installed on your computer. The plugin doesn't ship any font. I've tested it with a D'ni font installed on my own machine, and it works. Without a font you simply get plain text.

⚠️ Unofficial fan project

Age Writer is an independent, non-commercial fan tribute to the Myst series. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Cyan Worlds. Myst, Riven, Uru, D'ni and related names belong to their respective owners. I use them only to say what inspired the project.

• No assets from the games: no artwork, music, sounds, text or fonts
• The Ages are generated from what you write
• Free, open source, no ads, no donations

🧪 Status

It's a beta. I've tested it on desktop Obsidian with a light theme Not published yet

Thanks for reading, and happy writing. I'd love to see the Ages you make.

Hola. Llevo mucho tiempo esperando una actualización que anunciasteis para la versión standalone metaquest 3 de myst. Al final se descarto o llegara? Estoy deseando mejoras. Gracias.

After playing this game for the hundredth time, I’m still discovering new things.

Absolutely obsessed with these new shirts!

• Myst: https://store.cyan.com/products/myst-ages-longsleeve
• Riven: https://store.cyan.com/products/riven-entropy-sweatshirt

Designer is Amanda Killian of Night Gallery

These Myst and Riven blankets look awesome, but I can be kind of picky when it comes to the feel of some fabrics. Does anyone have these? Are they nice? Do they feel super smooth and silky? Or more of a rougher texture?

https://store.cyan.com/products/blanket-myst-memories

https://store.cyan.com/products/blanket-riven-memories

Yes I realize this is silly question, but I figured I would ask.

I want to share Book of Atrus and Riven, in particular, with my partner.

He’s a modern gamer who I worry will fatigue quickly with the slideshow format—though perhaps I could pitch him on it as a fascinating historical artifact. He’s also not a puzzle hound so perhaps the streamlining of the new Riven will help.

On the other hand, it hurts my heart to think of experiencing Riven with the incredible drama of the stylish beginning, ending, and key plot moments gutted and replaced with rough character models, floaty mocap, and no-drama staging.

What do we all think is the most persuasive way? I suppose I’m leaning remakes despite these glaring deficiencies. Shame they couldn’t nail the storytelling more.

I have limited space, but I am keen to build a really small arcade setup in my bedroom. I have found versions of the original Myst games (big box, new/ sealed, quite cheap! :D )
I want to get a CRT display and a retro PC. One avenue is to go for a iMac g3. I've found one of the later models, with 500Mhz CPU. It's a bit pricey, but I think I can negotiate a little This would actually be awesome for Myst, Riven and Exile. But then for Revelation and EoA, I'll probably want to look for a g5 imac. I think the g3 has a bit of appeal to it, it's an indigo version. Though I don't think I have room to have them both on display at once (at least in a "playable" configuration)

Or I could go for an eMac, single PC, (1.25 GHz model) at a very reasonable price. Though I'm wondering how Myst and Riven would look on a 17" display (even at 640x480). Though I'm wondering how EoA would play on this, so it may be that I end up having to "upgrade" anyway.

What would you guys suggest? My aim is authenticity, but "semi-accurate" period correct harware. I think having a CRT would do most of the heavy lifting anyway. And I'm wondering if the 17" of the eMac would be a problem for the earlier games (I'm also worried the weight of it would break my table :D) Though I'm also planning on doing some other funky stuff, like a bit of old 3D art, maybe some very primitive graphics programming. But then could just jump across to PC, but the nice thing about the games are, they're not specifically PC/ Mac locked, they seem to be both.

Just curious if they changed that aspect of the game, along with so much else.

Hi All, how are people playing Myst IV in 2026? I bought it on Steam but it won't start, I downloaded the patch for windows 10 but I'm running windows 11, I've tried a few things but nothing works. So my question is, what are my options? Obviously people are able to play it or else it wouldn't be available to purchase so any advice would be welcome:)

Edit Thank you everyone for your advice. I tried basically everything that you threw at me and more.

-dinput.dll -directx9 rdist -compatibility mode for older OS' -bypassing steam -removing USB in puts and disabling the drives completely

None of the above worked on my windows 11 pc.

The next option was to download a virtualbox os or the the like. Instead I fixed up a clapped out old Acer from 2013 which is still running windows 10 and after a day of tinkering I got it up and running without any fuss!

If I come upon a fix for Windows 11 i'll update you all.

Thanks again.