This My Machine Life blog arc explores how computer games and gaming has shaped my creative vision and perception of the world in general, from an early time in my life until now.
Myst (1993)
Myst is one of the most famous computer games of the 1990s, and of all time. It was the best-selling computer game ever until The Sims took that title away in 2003. Through the powers of a magical book, the player is transported to an island with a lot of interesting architecture and other contraptions but no people, and has to solve puzzles to find out more about the world and find a way out. The puzzles are involved and require a lot of experimentation and poking around to solve, such as raising a sunken ship or mapping certain patterns of constellations in a planetarium/observatory. Upon completion of the puzzles on the island, the player is transported to subsequent worlds (with more puzzles) and uncovers the story of a rivalry between siblings that takes place via magical book writing.
The game is very immersive with its imagery and sound effects, and definitely pushed the boundaries of what a puzzle game could be at the time. When you immerse yourself in these virtual worlds, you/your brain can truly believe that you are in a different dimension. Your perception of time is altered as your brain creates a representation of a virtual world within your own mind. It’s also a testament to the idea that a book can truly transport you to another world.
Years later and without warning I had a vision of the Myst island as a microcosm for human civilization: The observatory represented the scientific endeavor, the library represented all accumulated human knowledge, the clocktower simply the passage of time for civilization, the gears industry and the redwood forest/furnace represented natural resources, and so on. Of note was the ship that allowed for exploration of the “sea,” or the boundaries of existence as known to humanity.
But most importantly to me at the time was the rocket/spaceship at the edge of the island that eventually transported players/travelers to other worlds, not by flying, but by some of futuristic transportation. Teleportation, transmutation, whatever it was called, either the player’s atoms are rearranged and transported to another world, or they are simply injected into another virtual world-within-a-world, which is exactly what Myst is all about in the first place.
To me, the spaceship represents what the human mind can imagine about other worlds, both external and internal, that have yet to become reality.
Out of this World/Another World (1991)
Speaking of other worlds, I remember watching the intro of this game and playing the first few minutes with my father multiple times, since we couldn’t get past the early part of the game where the player is eaten by an alien lion after escaping some alien snakes. This lion bit is actually considered one of the most frustrating sequences in computer game history, so it’s not that embarrassing, but the intro was truly something special.
A sports car-driving scientist (?) goes into a secure facility to run some tests on what appears to be a particle accelerator. A storm starts to form and lightning hits the machine just at the right time to transport the scientist into another dimension and/or another planet. Eventually the scientist survives to find an entire alien civilization and escapes home, but I never got that far.
Again, these games were made using pretty primitive graphics, but were designed in a way that immersed the player in a new world. Just the opening sequence itself is worthy of a science-fiction film of its own, let alone the entire story and game.
Darkseed (1992)
Ah, this is where my dad may have not demonstrated the best judgment in playing this game with me.
The player is a successful ad exec and writer who recently purchased an old mansion. The first night he sleeps there, he has a dream that aliens have injected something into his brain and wakes up with a massive headache. He later explores the mansion to find that A) there is a parallel “Dark World” that can enter the human world through the mansion, B) it’s populated by malicious aliens, and C) if he doesn’t destroy the “Darkseed” in his brain (which is real), it will hatch and destroy all humanity – and kill him, obviously.
Ok, we never played that much of this game, either, since it’s also considered one of the most difficult and frightening ones of its era. And, after seeing a baby delivered by the mailman turn into a grotesque alien, I think I had enough of it too. But the cool part about this game is that it was designed by H. R. Giger, who is the same Swiss painter who designed the aliens and sets in the movie Alien. Can you see the resemblance of the artwork? So, I was exposed to some pretty high-level sci-fi stuff even back then.
So there you have it, the games I played when I was in preschool and kindergarten have left a lasting impression on me and made me believe in the power of entering deeper (virtual) worlds. Next time on My Machine Life: Into the Myst, it’s going to be all about combat flight and war simulators from the 1990’s, as the Early Period continues!