you remain one of my positively favorite youtube channels, no matter how underrated your subscriber count is. i always look forward to periodically checking your channel for new uploads. hope you never stop making videos!
It's been a full-on honour! Thank you for giving me these places to explore. This channel has become a document of how much these kinds of games have affected me over the years and for good reason. Not a stretch for me to call them life changing experiences.
This was a great video and I’m glad to see someone sharing their joy about Myst. It’s far more thorough than a regular review because you speak with the experience of precisely some of my favorite games. These are odd games to review. They instill in the player a desire to explore, a need to unravel history that very few projects have, a notable exception being Outer Wilds. I played all the Myst games about 8 years ago, and by the time I did, the entire series had long been stagnant, in regards to development and fandom. It is a lonely sub-culture, I think. Perhaps this is why there aren’t that many games following this genre anymore. They’re not thrilling nor incredible technological marvels, yet they satisfy in such an intimate way. But this is exactly the type of video I wanted to find now that the Riven remake has been released. It seems that there’s barely any interest in Cyan’s past (and future) projects anymore. I will definitely be watching your other videos on Myst and the like!
When I started working on my first Myst video back in 2020 it was largely because so many of my game playing friends hadn't experienced it ever, and some had never even heard of it. I didn't look too far, but it kind of hit me that there wasn't a lot of people talking about Myst at all and that made me kind of sad. It's taken some time, but seeing how my videos on Myst and Riven etc have taken off and shown me how many people out there feel the same way I do about this series is very comforting to me. I love this series and I'm glad to know I'm not the only one!
Hey buddy, love your videos. Did you ever play The Journeyman Project games? I can’t find any good retrospectives on that series. Would love to see you do a series on all three.
Thanks so much! I have not played The Journeyman Project, and hadn't heard of them until now. They seem interesting though. I may have to drift into that series and see what I think. It'll be a while before I'm ready for a retrospective though, haha.
@@VZed They are great! Have all the hallmarks of a classic 90s point and click adventure. Beautiful pre-rendered graphics, fun puzzles, and fantastically bad fmv. They are a little easier than MYST and RIVEN and not quite as clever but if classic pc first person adventure games are your favorite genre, you won’t be disappointed. You have lots of fun new/old adventures ahead of you.
So nice to have a lil collab in here with another youtuber i enjoy. I heard Cullen's voice and was immediately like "hey wait i know that guy lol". i haven't played Firmament yet but your take on it has definitely been more generous than some and it really makes me want to give it a chance so thanks for that. It must really suck to spend decades creating and have your whole audience fixate on exactly one thing you made and very early in your career as well, then have all your future work compared to it.
I'm curious what you'd think of Cosmo D's games... they're more narrative and less puzzly but theyre still games about inhabiting and making sense of the world. And jazz its also about jazz
I played the original Off-Peak, and LOVED it. I have the rest of the Cosmo D catalogue in my Steam library and so far am only missing enough time to play everything I want to. They are very exciting prospects on the horizon for me. Maybe I'll have to bump them up the list with your suggesiton.
That's such a perfect way to describe it!!! Picking at the loose corners of unknowing until you are able to peel it back and reveal understanding hiding beneath. This video gets a thumbs up, but if it didn't then this sentence would win me over!
Myst is great, Riven is perfect, Obduction is near-perfect, and Firmament is highly underrated. I thought the gameplay and puzzle design was very good in the ways you described, the environments were fantastic, and I could not stop thinking about the story afterward. Riven and Myst have deep and interesting lore and larger than life characters, Obduction's premise/lore was fascinating and beautifully cosmic and spiritual, but Firmament's story felt much more... i dunno.. darkly human and emotional to me. I think they knocked it out of the park. Suffice it to say, Cyan has an incredible catalogue, they are geniuses. I'm sort of feeling like the riven remake will be beyond perfect.
I’m about a third of the way through and you said there’s an element of discovery missing. That’s why Firmament has sat in my collection having played only about 1h. I Will try and get back to it but it’s really not what I hoped for. P.s. have you played Quern?
I have played Quern, though I didn't finish it. I really liked what I played and I feel like I left it largely because of distraction and not because it lost me. I should probably give it another go soon.
@@VZedman I really recommend it, it's kind of the only proper Myst-alike that's had the depth of puzzling that Riven had. That and Xing. If you fancy something similar, which I really enjoyed but it wasn't quite the same was Ether One, it's more obtuse with its puzzle solving, not quite as latch-key satisfying, but I do like the world building.
Are you quoting my brain back when it was saying exactly that the whole time I was working on this? lol But seriously, the next one's gonna be a bit more accessible :)
I got into your channel through Donkey Kong, so every time I see a game like this or Dredge I'm just like 😵@@VZed. Great video as always, but I have zero idea what these games are all about. ;____; I'd love to see some videos that branch the esotaric to more accessible stuf, kind of like Jacob Geller. Feels like your videos really tap into that style of video making. Just can be a bit alienating to dinguses like me lmao
Not esoteric to people alive in the 90s! I still live for these games, or for the bits in other games that resemble these (the best bits in assassin's creed!). Even if proper good myst-likes seem to come out only twice a decade now, released close together. That's enough, for a game form so purely and influentially its own (can't explain it but these games feel foundational to me, with no filler).
I haven't ruled it out, but I never felt like I stumbled on my "in" for that game. It's great, and I've really enjoyed playing it but I'm not sure what I'd say about it is all.
Great video, but Firmament was a huge disappointment. It felt like I was at work doing a job. I already have a job. Myst and Riven felt like discovery. Give me discovery, not work.
I think that was kind of what they were going for; you are a keeper, and keepers have a lot of work to do when there’s only one of them. Personally, I saw it less as a world to be lived in (that’s exclusive to the swan section), but as portal with humor replaced with atmosphere. Boy howdy, does it have good atmosphere, except for Juleston. The air quality is mediocre at best in that age 🙃
