Myst fireplace puzzle
There’s another dangling puzzle thread to keep track of. Even with the lights off, the star charts and date inputs seemed to be of no use to me at the moment. The star chart on the ceiling was completely illegible, but on my way to the exit I found a light switch. I made my way into some sort of observatory next and had a seat in the barber’s chair that lay at its center. At least those switches seemed to have a potential, if cryptic, purpose. I took note of this hint in my notebook and started a tally of every seemingly useless switchbox I encountered. On my way towards what seemed to be some buildings, I found a note on the ground that mentioned that I should input the number of marker switches on the island into something called “the imager” in order to receive a secret message (perhaps the imager is that secret light array I found underground?). With that potential puzzle solving thread left dangling, I made my way towards the main part of the island. I tried putting in each of the listed settings, (40 for the topographical extrusion test, 67 for the water turbulent pool, and 47 for the marker switch diagram) but nothing happened. In the room I found a panel with some settings listed and number panel underneath. I explored a bit and found a hidden door that lead into an underground light array of some kind. I first tried to flip one of the switches that I came across, but the switch didn’t seem to do anything yet. The cold open wasn’t a problem, but it was a bit jarring. The game just dumps you onto a dock next to some sunken ship with no indication of the controls, goals, or even the setting. My first step on Myst Island was remarkably short of fanfare when compared to modern games. It wasn’t a huge deal breaker, but it was a bit of ominous foreshadowing for the technical problems that were to come. The game only displays in 640x480 and it looked like a pixely mess when stretched to fit my monitor. When I first booted Myst: Masterpiece Edition the first thing that jumped out to me was that the game didn’t have any kind of resolution selection and it really didn’t play nice with OBS. However, for this playthrough I’m not allowed to use any guides so I’m sure this will go swimmingly! Luckily from my first exposure to Myst it seems like I’m not gonna give a single fuck about the game’s story so this island is going to effectively be one big puzzle box and I like puzzle boxes. I’m there for the story, not figuring out how a balloon animal can scare away pigeons. I tend to get frustrated with adventure game logic pretty quickly when I play adventure games that have strong narratives. Just so you know, I’ve never played Myst before and I’ve never finished any adventure game (other than Pajama Sam and Putt-Putt) without a guide. This week I started playing Myst to uphold my end of the FFVIII vs Myst bargain I struck with (I regret nothing).