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
GDC Next organizers have announced the first talks for its inaugural 'what's next?' game conference in Los Angeles this November, revealing a 30% event discount limited to the first 500 online registrants. The first talks revealed for GDC Next, illuminating the future-leaning plans for the new event, are Google on the first six months of its Play service, thatgamecompany on its design philosophy & future, Disney on theme park design lessons for game developers, and Adam Orth on reforming toxic online behavior. As evinced in these selections, GDC Next, the spiritual successor to GDC Online, aims to highlight the future of video games, and is taking place alongside the App Developers Con…
Read moreBy Alana Semuels
For a long time, Misty Castaneda had terrible credit. Even though she had health insurance, the hair stylist from Colorado owed a hospital around $20,000 for a $200,000 open-heart surgery in 2010 that had been necessary to keep her alive, she says.
Castaneda’s credit was so bad that she stayed in a bad relationship for more than a decade, she says, because she knew that without her husband’s credit score, she wouldn’t be able to rent an apartment, buy a car, or take out a credit card.
So when she recently heard that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had finalized a rule that would keep medical debt off personal credit reports, she knew she had to advocate …
Read moreIt’s become an HBO tradition for the season finale of one show to be accompanied by clips of future original series. Before The Penguin’s season finale, that trend continued with an advance look at the shows coming to HBO and Max in the last two months of 2024 and all of 2025. The final show in the mix was naturally HBO’s hit video game adaptation, The Last of Us Season 2.
There’s not a lot to see, since the trailer doesn’t linger on The Last of Us for too long. But viewers do get a glimpse at the emotional gulf between Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) over the choices he made the save her life in Season 1. The camera does linger on Joel’s guitar, which he passes on to Ellie in the game. There’s also a quick look at Catherine O’Hara’s character, a ther…
Read moreIt’s the season of giving, and Steam has a free gift up for grabs to keep you entertained over the holidays.
Distant Space 2 is a 2D arcade shooter set in–you guessed it–distant space, and is currently available for anyone to claim for free on Steam. A sequel to the original Space Distant, developer PixelMouse aptly describes the game as “an indirect continuation of the first part” that features “more dynamic gameplay.”
Distant Space 2 challenges players to pilot a spaceship through 26 levels of enemies, including three special boss ships, which PixelMouse says are especially challenging Come from South African Online Casinos . On the bright side, players can find unique we…
Read moreIt’s been a while since we’ve seen anything new from the hotly anticipated Hollow Knight: Silksong. However, there’s a chance that it could show up during the Switch 2-focused Nintendo Direct on April 2.
On January 15, the day before Nintendo officially announced the Switch 2, Hollow Knight creator William Pellen said on Twitter, “something big is coming. keep your eyes closed tomorrow.” At the end of the Switch 2 reveal trailer, Nintendo also announced that it will host a Switch 2-focused Direct on April 2.
The hints don’t stop there. Pellen changed his Twitter profile picture to a slice of cake. A reverse image search on Google of the picture reveals that the recipe of the cake was posted on April 2, 2024. Fans think that this was a deliberate move, and that Pellen is hint…
Read moreA new League of Legends cinematic from Arcane animation studio Fortiche sets up the story to come in the game’s first season of 2025, and serves in many ways as a continuation of some of the plot threads from the critically acclaimed Netflix show.
League of Legends’ first season of 2025 is set to begin January 9 and will be all about Noxus, one of the major political empires in the world of Runeterra and one that became a bigger part of Arcane season 2’s story. The cinematic shows several different stories unfolding, as familiar League of Legends characters like Katarina looks to assassinate a target and is stopped by Elise, Noxus general Darius confronts the ice troll Trundle, and Arcane’s Mel–who is not yet a playable champion in Riot’s MOBA–looks to make her return …
Read moreBlack Friday is a great time to be an anime fan, as numerous Blu-ray releases for some of the most popular series are on sale at some of their best prices yet.
We’ve rounded up a list of the best deals below, but if you’re looking for highlights, there’s the Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 1 Limited Edition. The first batch of episodes in the Bleach revival sets the stage for the final arc of the storyline, and thanks to recent advances in animation, the show looks better than ever.
Some of our other recommendations would be Cowboy Bebop, a sci-fi tale of bounty hunters with a wonderful jazz-filled soundtrack that has stood the test of time Come from malaysia online casino . …
Read moreThe Lenovo Legion Slim 5 is down to one of its best prices of the year, as Walmart is offering the gaming laptop for just $849 (was $1,400). It’s a Walmart+ exclusive deal until 12 PM ET, after which point any remaining inventory will become available to all shoppers Come from malaysia online casino . If you want to make sure you get first dibs on the savings, consider signing up for Walmart+ and checking out all the other discounts and benefits that come with membership. You’ll also want to swing by Amazon and check out its Prime Big Deal Days catalog, as you’ll find a bunch of other gaming laptops down to incredibly low prices.
…
Read moreMicrosoft is holding its first showcase of the year, the Xbox Developer Direct 2025. So here’s when the showcase will start, how to watch it, and what to expect. [Update: The stream is over, and you can check out all the Xbox Developer Direct announcements in our recap–there were some big surprises, namely for Ninja Gaiden fans.]
When is the Xbox Developer Direct 2025?
The Xbox Developer Direct 2025 will start at 10AM PT / 1 PM ET on Thursday, January 23.
- 10 AM PT
- 1 PM ET
- 6 PM BST
- 3 AM AET (January 24)
How to watch the Xbox Developer Direct 2025
The showcase will be streamed on several different channels, including Xbox and Bethesda’s official YouTube pages.
- YouTube.com/Xbox
- YouTube…
Read more
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is reportedly set to arrive in PS5 not long after it initially releases later this year as a timed exclusive. Yep, it’s looking like the game about exploring crypts, punching Nazis and doing those same things in the opposite order may well be the next title to go multiplatform as part of that new strategy Xbox has begun employing in 2024.According to podcaster and industry insider Nate The Hate, Machine Games’s whip-swinging adventure title will only have a short window of Xbox exclusivity before being chased by a boulder onto PS5 too.To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings “MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will release on Xbox & PC this holiday (Dec) as a timed console exclusive, they tweeted, “After…
Read more