A new Kickstarter is raising money for a documentary about the 1993 puzzle game Myst. Created by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, the quiet, solitary exploration game quickly grew a following that paved the way for a number of sequels, a tabletop roleplaying game and even a yearly fan convention. The Myst Documentary will tell the story of how the Miller brothers created Myst, the origin of the genre- and business-defining game. Though the documentary has been in-the-works for a while, 2020 feels like the perfect time for its debut as Myst prepares for something of a resurgence.

Myst invites the player to explore intricately detailed worlds through the interface of the point-and-click adventure game. After landing on an unpopulated, unfamiliar island that bears the vestiges of technological production — including a working planetarium and a grounded spaceship — the player is tasked with finding a series of pages to place inside damaged books. With each returned page, the player's immersion in the fictional universe grows, as they learn of new civilizations, new languages and new cultures all created to serve as a backdrop for this game.

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But it wasn't just the worlds of Myst, the ruins of a steampunk world, that won over the massive fan-base: it was the puzzles. Myst is famous for requiring players to solve a series of intricate puzzles in order to travel to different ages within the game, and another set to be able to return to the starting island. These puzzles were intricately woven into the game's environments and often relied on not just visual but aural input. And they could be punishingly difficult.

Myst bedroom with lamp

Documentary filmmaker Philip Shane is trying to tell the story of all of these aspects of Myst that made the game the resounding success that it was, from the puzzles to the ambiance. But Shane's focus will be on the Miller brothers themselves and the disparate talents in everything from scriptwriting to full-motion video capture they relied on to author their game. Myst, after all, is as much a story of solitary exploration as it is of collaborative creation.

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The Myst Documentary will rely on interviews with the Miller brothers and other "gaming and computing luminaries" to tell the story of the creation of Myst. By making use of computer history museums, it will try to capture the aesthetic of Myst as it was released, including the original, now-outdated hardware. Situating the documentary in the time period of its production gives the film a sense of nostalgia, a memory of a different time reminiscent of the atmosphere felt within the game itself.

Myst forest with tree elevator

But Shane is trying to capture more than just the facts surrounding the creation of Myst. Part of what drew fans to the Myst worlds was their aesthetic — the ambient feel of the world as the player wandered it in isolation, the lilting score, the promise of a depth of lore in the burned-out husks of the library. Shane wants to recreate the feeling of moving through the Myst worlds by developing a unique visual language that will shape his documentary into more than the traditional, informative video.

And 2020 is the perfect time for just such a documentary. Quarantine has led many to rely heavily on digital forms of entertainment, even more than they may be accustomed to. Coupled with recent re-releases of the games like RealMyst, redesigned to allow for more in-depth exploration and to render beautifully on more advanced hardware, there's been no better time to return to the island of Myst. An exploration of old classics, drawing on nostalgia for the '90s and the community that formed around the genre-breaking game, is the cure for the socially distant blues.

As of this writing, The Myst Documentary's Kickstarter is more than halfway funded, with over 1250 backers. Shane and his documentary will be a fixture at this year's Mysterium, the annual Myst fan convention, where he is hosting a fireside chat about his work but also sponsoring the keynote event, featuring the Miller brothers. Even though it's been more than a quarter of a century since the release of Myst, it's clear that the communities it built have not forgotten it.

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