The MYST Interview: CD-ROM: Leaps of Logic

MYST Interview Header.

5. Leaps Of Logic

Kyle: Anyone who has solved Myst takes great pride in it because of these leaps of logic which you have to cross to get to the next level. Are there any leaps in the game you feel are too hard or is there a secret part of you that wants to build some part of the world that is nearly impossible? Do you have a sadistic side?

Rand: I would, you have to talk to Robyn. We get two comments when we talk to people: "it is too hard," or "it is too easy." So I feel we must have done something right. We are getting it from both ends.

Kyle: You have to have sort of a "programmer's mind-set" to play it well.

Rand: You do, there has to be some logic in there, although we get comments from people who are not gamers and are not programmers who like it. I think anybody is up for a challenge. It is the same feeling you get when you accomplish anything. If you play an instrument, you practice and you play your song right, it is sort of like...yeah. It's got to have a feeling similar to that. The programmer of the department loves the puzzles, wants to put this really cool stuff in. At the same time, in the sequel we are working really hard to get so there is less of a wall, so there is more exploration before you have to solve it.

Robyn: One of the things we really tried to do was make the puzzles a little less arbitrary, just plunked in the middle of nowhere for no good reason, but we still did not suceed absolutely.

Kyle: What is an example of that?

Rand: Why does a boat come up out of the water and have a room in the back with the book in it.

Robyn: We kind of created reasons for all that, you know...

Rand: But we pushed it a little bit, and because of that, I think those puzzles are not as easy to solve because they don't seem as real. They don't seem like you are really there in a real world and you have to just...

Robyn: People say they have to get inside our heads. Once they get inside our heads, "oh they get it," and that is not the best way. If the puzzles fit more into the story they don't seem like puzzles. They are just parts of the story you have to figure out.

Rand: But that is not always possible. If you are going to add challenge to it, you have to add reasons to have blocks and things and some of them do fall down more than others. We're hoping to do a better job though, Myst was our start. But there is a little devious side of us, when we are making these puzzles, we do laugh. We came up with the keyboard on one side of the ship and the slider on the other and we are going, "oh this is going to be great!"

Table of Contents