Remastered 'Myst Mobile' Game Now Available on iPhone and iPad | Hacker News Reader

Remastered 'Myst Mobile' Game Now Available on iPhone and iPad

macrumors.com

75 pointstosh59 comments

Is this better than the Real Myst version in the store?

New https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/myst-mobile/id6444813759

Real Myst https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/realmyst/id524988885

Real is $10 (CAD, probably $7.99 usd) and the new one is "free" with in app purchases. Not sure what that means in practice.

Edit: unlocking new is $13.99 CAD which is probably $10 USD

Real Myst was the first fully 3D remake of Myst, it came out for PC in the mid 2000s so the graphics are good but still a bit dated (it looks kinda like Half Life 2). This newest Myst remake is a big leap in quality beyond Real Myst--you can see some trailers and such on YouTube to get an idea.

I thought you had to be wrong, but you’re right. Real Myst was around 2000. I would have placed it far later (the updated version was 2014).

I remember when it (or a demo) was first released.

Wow.

Yeah it was one of the first games that didn't run great on my Nvidia GeForce 256 (the very first GeForce card they made). The game had pretty amazing graphics for the time.

I had that same card. I think that was the last desktop I used for gaming. I must have done the same thing.

I became a mostly laptop person shortly after with most of my gaming going to consoles.

This is a nice visual comparison of the five major releases over the past 30 years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdZGXTTB65k

Maybe it’s just because I’m old and Myst was such a big deal at the time, but though the quality of the graphics is way better I find myself disappointed that the modern versions look so different from an artistic point of view.

Yes it’s recognizably the same game, but the color pallet is so different. I can see changing some objects because the original modeling was so constrained it seems like they went further than necessary.

It’s sort of too different to be a remaster but not different enough to be a remake. So it feels oddly like messing with history a bit to me.

I’m kind of amazed the game is still popular enough to justify something like this commercially. I’m glad to see that.

>Yes it’s recognizably the same game, but the color pallet is so different

What was the color depth of the original? Was it limited to 8bit or was it 16bit? I'd imagine 24bit can have quite the affect on color palettes when compared to lesser bit depths

Edit: just watched the linked video. it's like they decided on the cinematic trend of washing everything in a color tone, and they chose the orange/gold pallet like it's perpetually golden hour

The rock on the island seems to have gone from a granite like grey to something kind of reddish. The trees looked like redwoods over dark green grass, but both are very different. The spaceship is now more copper than light brass. There are very dark shadows on a path with no shadows before.

It’s not minor changes like going from a very red red to something with more orange in it. It’s just flat out different colors.

They’re art direction changes.

The original game used 8 bit colour.

Agree completely. This would have been interesting if they had tried to capture the look and feel of the original but still made it look contemporary. That could have worked perfectly with nostalgia and the recent popularity of vaporwave. Instead they made it look like every other modern game but kept the poorly aged 30 year old puzzles.

Yeah the latest remaster is a genuinely modern experience. Must nicer than RealMyst by a decent margin. If you are used to playing modern games, RealMyst would be a worse experience than just playing the OG FMV Myst.

Myst Island is free on the new one but the ages are a one time IAP. Kind of a neat way to let folks try the game out IMO.

Incidentally, I think that was Apple's original intent for the IAP... until it got "creatively" repurposed to sell spendable resources.

Is it though? Games used to be a one time purchase. Now, it's multiple purchases just to play the one game

I don't think it's multiple purchases to play the game. The beginning of the game is free, then there's a single purchase to unlock the rest. It's the same as the old "free demo" model.

Another recent example of this working pretty well is Dragon Quest XI. The demo allows you to essentially play the full game, with no restrictions, for the first 5-8 hours of the storyline before you purchase to progress further.

Of course, the risk in this model is as follows: Someone hears that DQXI is supposed to be good, so they go to try it. There's a demo, so they download that. They play for ~5 hours and realize they're not having much fun, so they stop playing before even being prompted to pay.

Which is what happened when I tried playing DQ.

If I was a developer of the game I would say “well, that was working as intended, this clearly wasn’t the game for you”.

If I was a bean counter, however, I would say to axe the demo and add some micro transactions to the game. It’s a bad idea to let people try it beforehand and make their own decision on whether the game is good or not. Clearly we haven’t traded enough goodwill of our players, excuse me, customers, in exchange for some short term profits.

Ah, I misread "ages are a one time purchase" as each age is purchased separately. read it too quick i guess

For anyone who loved Myst, give Quern a go. A real gem and very myst-like. I also really loved Cyan Worlds more recent original game Obduction.

Great recommendations. My wife and I played and solved Obduction together too, it was a ton of fun!

I found Obduction to be impossible to figure out in some places without hints.

It’s such a great game and huge source of nostalgia. I’m now hearing that synth music when in the planetarium.

Reminds me of Lemmings: one of those games that just shows up on every platform ever (though I think Lemmings stopped doing this years back, and I’m not sure why…)

The novels based on the game by Rand Miller were really good. Shame they seem to be out of print.

Alas, it still deliberately tosses the colors of the original graphics. I've yet to see a remaster that doesn't lose the feel and ambiance of the original.

I remind you the old Myst run's great on any platform Scummvm supports.

Neat, but another entry in the trend of "years-old title gets ported to Metal later". Adding insult to injury, this would have been presumably playable on release[0] if Apple hadn't dropped Proton compatibility. I'll applaud the developers for a labor of love, but I'm going to shun Apple for mucking up their relationship with Valve and the Proton community.

[0] https://www.protondb.com/app/1255560

This is a mobile release. Proton runs on desktop machines, and the "new" Myst on steam works just fine on macOS and apple silicon devices.

You're right, I'm surprised to see native Mac support (even Intel) listed on Steam.

I'm still mad about Proton but this might be the first AAA-ish release I've seen release day-and-date on Mac with Windows/console.

recently cyan announced a full re-make of riven. im excited. they said it will be free-roam and presumably will have an on-rails option as well. i would have preferred on-rails only really -- the world is more romantic when your view of it is limited.

im disappointed in cyan. for decades (?) after riven they just made weird mobile games and remasters of their old games that werent any good, broken even. then they made obduction and got back to business and they are currently working on another new game called firmament (?). i wish they had just kept making original titles for all those years and maybe released a string of really good, well-thought out remasters to keep the coffers full. ive seen obduction playthroughs and i didnt really like it. the world isnt as good. and it has a sappy environmental message as its central moral and theme. also, its not pre-rendered. it should be pre-rendered because thats whats best for a world-based, environmental story-telling based game like this. the idea is that you are unwrapping a little gemstone inside your computer. youre peering into another world. you dont get that effect at all in fucking unreal engine.

i was passing through the area so i thought i would visit cyan worlds headquarters or at least just pass by and see their famous inside-out door that serves as the main entrance. it was winter so things were rather bleak. i thought my maps app had made a mistake but there it was, telling me to turn off of a very busy and ugly "stroad" to arrive immediately at cyan. i had always imagined cyan being tucked away somewhere in the rugged tree-filled vista of beautiful washington. but its right off a super busy highway essentially, not tucked away in anything in any sense. so i turn off and drive up and there is a very substantial gate, the kind that slides back and forth, made of thick galvanized steel. it was clearly intended to keep people the fuck out and it was covered in signs that i only caught a glimpse of but none of them were inviting people in. and the funny thing is that the gate was fully retracted leaving wide open the way to the parking lot. naturally i drove in. the parking lot was very small. i parked near the back and approached the famous door but kept my distance. on my way there several of the parked cars that i passed beeped and clicked as people inside locked them with their keyfobs. that made it very clear that i was not welcome. as i walked on i could see that offices were right up on the front of the building and their windows overlooked the parking lot and the entire building is probably looking at me with concern. it was completely claustrophobic, totally unlike how i had imagined. so i stood there like an idiot and took a selfie with the door, at a great distance, and left.

I miss the pre-rendered games too. I’ve been eagerly awaiting Neyyah- it’s indie and made by one guy but it looks so good.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1289720/Neyyah/

wow, this blows me away completely. ive never seen a game that seemed like the intention behind it was to be the spiritual successor to riven. and looking around the web there seems to be a healthy base of people who are excited about this game. i just watched an interview with this guy and he is saying a lot of stuff that i have been thinking in the past 5 years myself -- ive been wanting to make a riven-like game. the trailer thats floating around gives me the sense that the game is lacking polish. the designs and renders lack polish and sharpness. when you look at the images that make up riven, it has heavy duty design sense. i guess it makes sense since its just one guy making this in blender. im excited and supportive but the missing 1% is going to hurt this game. just the way it strikes my eye, its slightly off.

i think when dalle-2 came out, i just gave up on the idea of making this game. i just feel like pretty soon the ai will be able to generate images, animations, puzzles and story. its already super close. i feel such regret and bitterness that humans apparently will no longer be able to employ themselves doing this. you know, people who wrote poems, stories and other things thousands of years ago are still being read today and people today continue on writing things in the same way and its a heritage and a common thread that goes all the way back and continues into the very far future. but now it feels like that ephemeral thread has been cut and the things we do now will be lost and dead in the totally new universe of ai.

i dont know, thats just what comes to mind when i see his interviews, talking about his process and his ideas. i wish they could be completely timeless. and i also gave up on making a game like this because i thought there simply was no market for it anymore but i guess i was wrong.

Obduction is an infuriating game to play. The concept is so good but the game play quickly becomes a mix of "spend twenty minutes slowly walking across the map only to find out you're wrong about the solution of the puzzle" and "hope you've got pen and paper handy because you're sure as shit not solving this in your head".

I think you're right about the on-rails bit too. Not being able to hop down from a six inch high ledge is all the more infuriating when your character can rub your face across the invisible wall.

Riven would be great.

I know that The Starry Expanse Project[0] has been working on a full 3D version for many years. I think they have stopped, because of the Cyan project, but it looked like they did some great work. Maybe some of it got wrapped into the official port.

Sounds like a weird experience. Sorry for that. I suspect there may be a bit of a weird fanbase with Myst, though. I think some folks took it pretty far.

[0] http://www.starryexpanse.com

The need to swap out CDs so frequently (every time you changed worlds) was a bit of a let-down with Riven. It got many things right, but that was a bit of a speedbump.

I kinda liked Myst IV too, but besides the original, it never seemed like another of Cyan's games really hit the same mark.

The DVD version was the one to have.

dude ive been looking at your youtube channel and i am blown away. you do such a fantastic job dude. and you are representing the midwest very well indeed. i was fascinated by your video about earthquakes. well done dude.

A game series with an imagination, scenery and music unlike anything else. I had great time playing Myst and Riven.

Has anyone been able to get this to work? I downloaded the full app on my iPad Air (4th gen) and it just crashes the instant I open it.

Runs fine on my iPad Air 4th gen, FWIW.

The article says it needs M1 or M2 chip.

Article said it needs A12 or M1 or higher.

That said, works after updating the OS.

Is this the same as "Myst" thats available on the App Store? Theres way too many versions now.

Agreed, I went to download it on my iPad and searched "myst" and couldn't tell which one was the "real" one (or at least the one referenced in the article.) I finally went back to the article and clicked on the direct link to get it.

YouTube says the trailer was uploaded in September 2021. What’s the deal there?

It came out on PC and VR a few years ago. This is coming out now explicitly on iOS.

Seems it was first released on the Quest on Dec 2020.

Too bad I had sold mine at that point. I would have liked to have tried it in VR.

Can confirm, US Apple App Store has it for $9.99

> Myst can be played on devices that have an A12 chip or later, or an M1 or M2 chip.

uhh Myst can be played on a 486

It says “Remastered” but this looks like a full remake with truly explorable 3D environments, not pre-rendered images.

And a gorgeous one at that. It was a lot of fun to revisit in VR and see the game how I “remembered” it

I mean, I quoted the site’s copy at the time which just said Myst

This is a fully immersive 3D rendered world. It's not the glorified hypercard slideshow of the original (as much as that version was amazing for the time).

Does it need the math co-processor or a turbo button?

Someone should do the equivalent calculation, how many turbo buttons is the m1?

No but you do need a CD-ROM drive and 256 color capable video card.

quicktime

there’s a legacy version available as well

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