Cyan Worlds via PolygonSusana Polo is a senior entertainment writer at Polygon, specializing in pop culture and genre fare, with a primary expertise in comic books. Previously, she founded The Mary Sue.In honor of the 31st anniversary of seminal puzzle adventure game Myst, Cyan Worlds has a new Humble Bundle sale, “Enter the Mysterium.” Through Oct. 2, players can pay $20 and pick up 13 games, which run the gamut from Myst’s earliest 1989 predecessor, to its modern progeny, and every mainline Myst game in the franchise, with part of the proceeds going to Active Minds, a nonprofit dedicated to equipping teens and young adults with the tools to advocate for mental health advocacy and suicide prevention.Enter the Mysterium$20$19290% off$20$20 at HumbleOr, you could pick up any of four smaller, cheaper bundles. But in the opinion of me, Polygon’s foremost Myst-pilled weirdo, here are the titles you should make certain to grab, in order of importance.Myst: Pick your poison! The bundle offers Myst: Masterpiece Edition, which attempts to replicate the experience of playing the original 1993 game; realMyst: Masterpiece Edition, the first attempt to render the game in 3D; and Myst (2021), which supports both 2D, 3D, and VR play.Riven: The Sequel to Myst: This is the intricately cut crown jewel of Cyan’s puzzle games, in its original form. If you get really fed up with it I would also recommend their recent 3D remaster, which improves on perfection (but was released way too recently to be included in a discount bundle just yet).Myst IV: Revelation: Pretty much a direct sequel to Myst. Unequivocally the hardest Myst game, but my personal favorite for its story. It’s got an unskippable Peter Gabriel cutscene. Please, please, please play this game.Myst III: Exile: By no means easy, but still the easiest Myst game. The villain is played by Brad Dourif (The Lord of the Rings) and in one of the “bad endings,” he clubs you to death in first person FMV. If that doesn’t entice you I don’t know what will.Obduction: Not in the Myst setting, but if you play the others first, you’ll be able to call all the plot beats of this one. That said, it’s got a frightfully interesting sphere-based puzzle dynamic, an interesting setup, and gorgeous vistas.Firmament: I haven’t played this one yet. “And you call yourself an expert!” I backed the Kickstarter, OK?! I just haven’t had time! I’ll get to it… sometime after Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes out. I hear it’s worth it, though! And if you’re already picking up the rest, well, why not?But what am I, the Myst-pilled weirdo, going to buy? Well, even though I already own the vast majority of the games in this bundle, there’s still something here for me: Spelunx, Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel, and The Manhole. Two American dollars will net me three of Cyan co-founders Robyn and Rand Miller’s pre-Myst works, dating back to the unfathomable desktop gaming year of 1988, when Cyan released The Manhole on floppy discs available by mail order (the one in this bundle is a 1995 CD-ROM rerelease).Calling these three games “puzzle games” might seem like a stretch compared to Myst and its successors — I’ve poked around the original Manhole on the Internet Archive, and it’s more like an interactive object. But there’s a sense of humor, silliness, and, above all, play in it. Even just after ten minutes in a browser emulation, it was clear to me that I was looking at a couple of game developers fascinated by the potential of the point-and-click mechanic, and playing in that space as expansively and freely as they could. I could already see the lines running from this strange, Alice In Wonderland-themed object, to a couple of adventure games that were going to bust the genre wide open.Head over to the Humble Bundle, and you can make those connections, too.
Related Posts
Cronos: The New Dawn – an interesting looking third-person survival horror game – was revealed at the latest Xbox Partner Preview, and, in a amongst lots of monster shooting, its trailer featured a chess match that’s earned big praise from chess nerds.Yep, fresh off of releasing the Silent Hill 2 remake that’s earned a lot of praise, Bloober Team showed off this thing ahead of a 2025 release, no doubt delighting folks who like the vibes of games like Dead Space. Given it also followed on in the showcase from that promised look at gameplay from Alan Wake 2’s Lake House DLC, it’s fair to say lovers of the spooks were eating good last night.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings As you can see in the trailer below, Cronos introduced us all to its “grim worl…
Read moreIt’s pretty easy to be excited about Diablo 4 right now. The game is currently in its best form ever, following the fundamental loot and itemisation overhaul from Season 4, and the new endgame activities and quality of life improvements that arrived with Season 5.Over the horizon, we’re anticipating yet another major shakeup in the form of Season 6, which kicks off alongside the release of the game’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. So it makes sense that Blizzard would want new players to jump into the game right now, and the developer timed this particular free weekend especially well.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Over on Steam, Diablo 4 is currently free to play from now until Tuesday, August 27. The free trial also coinci…
Read moreCD Projekt has revealed that the game codenamed project Polaris – that “first instalment in the new Witcher saga” that we’ve all been referring to as The Witcher 4 just to make thing a bit less confusing until a proper name is slapped on it – is just about ready to enter full production.According to joint CEO Michał Nowakowski in a press release detailing the studio’s latest earnings figures and progress on its current projects, preproduction on Polaris is on track to wrap up soon, with the developers “nearing a major milestone” that’ll mark this point. So, as of right now, CD Projekt is “gearing up” to launch into that next phase.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings In an earnings video that adds the this smorgasbord of witchery info, CD Pr…
Read moreThe first teaser trailer and details for Alien: Earth are here, though you shouldn’t expect too much from them.Ever since Alien: Covenant was released in 2017, things have been a bit quiet for fans of the series, but 2024 is clearly the year to change that. Alien: Romulus, the first film since Covenant, just came out in August, and yesterday the first teaser trailer for the first TV show based on the beloved sci-fi horror, Alien: Earth, was released. And uh, yeah, it’s certainly a teaser trailer! It’s a very simple one, starting off looking over planet Earth before being revealed to be a reflection off of a xenomorph’s smooth, shiny head, wrapping things up with some horrific scream. You know, classic xenomorph stuff. Luckily, an official logline has been released to share a few more detai…
Read moreDo you like boxes that can play the video games? Well, if so, you’ll probably want to tune into the PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation that’s set to air later today, September 10, and you can find all the details as to how to do so right here.Sony announced yesterday that this presentation would be taking place and be led by Mark Cerny, oft-referred to as the architect of both the PS5 and its predecessor, the PS4. It didn’t outright confirm then that this whole thing would be the proper reveal of the long-rumoured PS5 Pro, but that’s certainly what folks have concluded.PS5 Pro Technical Presentation hosted by Mark Cerny Watch on YouTubeYou can watch today’s PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation above when it airs at 4PM BST, which is 5PM CEST, 11AM ET and 8AM PT on September 10. Seriously…
Read moreSurprise, people who remember the late 1990s, or are somehow really passionate about a time during which they were just a glint in their father’s eye or an actual foetus. PlayStation’s revealed the PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection. This is your chance to try and own a retro-liveried version of either the base PS5 or PS5 Pro everyone thinks is a bit pricey, plus some cool accessories/bits for it.If you do buy it once it comes out on November 21 – with pre-orders starting on September 26 – though, you have to put PlayStation’s rather interesting 30th anniversary playlist on the entire time you’re using your new and also retro tech. Go on, Livin’ La Vida Loca’s waiting. I don’t make the rules.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “The new limited ed…
Read moreAnyone who’s been following Diablo 4 in recent weeks knows that Blizzard has been a little quiet about anything to do with Season 6, the game’s next season kicking off with the release of the Vessel of Hatred expansion.Considering this is Diablo 4’s first major content update since its release last year, the expansion understandably got a lot of airtime. This is going to change next week, however, when Blizzard will finally reveal the first details of Season 6.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Blizzard is calling this one the Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred pre-launch livestream, so we’re expecting it to be big. On Wednesday, October 2 at 11am PT, 2pm ET, 7pm UK, a group of developers will show off even more of the expansion, in ce…
Read moreThere are a lot of real people in EA Sports FC 25, with the vast majority being of the kicking a ball for a living, used to kick a ball for a living, or paid to tell other people who how to kick a ball variety. However, there’s a set of brothers in this year’s game who don’t both fit into one of those categories. To be clear one of them, QPR defender Morgan Fox, certainly does. He’s a 68 overall kicker of balls you can add to your lineup if you want someone with 60 pace and 69 defending (nice) to dish out challenges on opposing forwards. It’s just his sibling that you won’t find in any packs.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Speaking to the BBC about the group’s inclusion in this year’s game, Oli Fox – a member of UK indie band Good Neighbours – rev…
Read moreThree years on and a few bumps in the road later, Halo Infinite is looking to mix things up with… uh, a third person mode!Everyone has their preference over first and third-person shooters (when’s someone gonna make a second-person shooter?), but no one can deny that the defining way to experience Halo is in first-person. It’s never been possible to do so otherwise, sans mods anyway, but it just doesn’t look like Halo unless you’re staring down the barrel of its excellently designed sci-fi weapons. Anyway, 343 Industries has just announced this week that the game’s getting a third-person mode! Yes, really, I’m not pulling your leg here, look there’s even a short trailer you can watch below that proves it’s real from the official Halo Twitter account. Experience a new way to play! 3r…
Read moreDiscord is obviously the de facto service to use for gamers that want to talk with their friends, and as it turned out, its origin story is quite similar in nature.There are undoubtedly countless Final Fantasy 14 Discord servers out there for all manner of reasons, whether that be for specific game servers or more private reasons. And as it turns out, the co-founder of Discord Stanislav Vishnevskiy isn’t all that different from you Final Fantasy Discord users, as he pretty much created the app because he wanted somewhere to talk about Final Fantasy 11, Square Enix’s original MMO take on the series. Speaking to Famitsu (and roughly translated by Siliconera), Vishnevskiy was asked about how the chat service came to be.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings…
Read more