options random home screenshot http://www.astro.washington.edu/ingram/myst/index.html (World Wide Web Directory, ~04/1995)

Doug's Myst Page Welcome to my Myst page.

Last update: 3/19/95

For the convenience of those having to revisit this page several times in working through the hierarchy, more details and background on the development of this set of links is included at the end of this page.

I need help with (link to the appropriate world):

Myst Island
This link provides clues for the part of the game that takes place on the main island of Myst and all the structures on that island. This includes some of the things you need to know at the very beginning and at the very end of the game.

The Channelwood Age
Channelwood is the age where everything is on walkways or trees that are hanging over water in a swampy setting. When you enter this age, there is a beautiful movie in which you fly past an old windmill.

The Stoneship Age
The Stoneship age has the remnants of a ship that has somehow fused with a huge rocky outcropping in the middle of a seemingly endless body of water.

The Selenitic Age
This age looks like the equivalent of a nuclear wasteland (the library books imply that it suffered a large meteor storm). This is the age that has all the interesting sounds and the large door with the sound-based lock.

The Mechanical Age
This age has a strange looking fortress sitting on some sort of circular platform out in the middle of the water.

The Dunny Age
Telling you exactly what this age is could be construed as a spoiler for the game itself, so let me just say you'll know it when you see it. Do NOT link here unless you want major spoilers about the endgame!!

It might occur to you to ask "Why am I bothering to write this?" As you may know, there is another Myst page out there, put together by Roger Carasso, and it is a little more elaborate than a simple walkthrough. Also, there is a bare bones walkthrough available at another site. I guess I have two reasons...first, access to the Carasso Myst site was very patchy (read: non-existant) when I first put all this together (this has since changed, but oh well...) It must be frustrating to have a big question in Myst, knowing help is out there, but then the network is messed up or something. Since this is a reliable site, I thought another Myst help page would be welcome. Secondly, the other sites really are just walkthroughs rather than hint guides. I really hate walkthroughs, and I really like hint guides (so much so that I wrote one myself for Myst)! This set of pages is the kind of resource I wish I had had when I was solving the game.

If you're not looking for spoilers but would rather have some general advice on getting through the game, I suggest you read the linked document written by Marcella Zaragoza. On the other hand, if you're at wits' end and you need spoilers, read on...

The format of this hierarchy of help files works like this: I'll separate the help files into pages for each of the separate worlds in the game. Within each world, then, I will try to pose all of the potential questions anyone might have in a way that doesn't "spoil" the game or give away any other clues.

In order to find an answer to a question, simply click on the question (or, in lynx, follow the link to which the question is a label). This will take you to a page that contains a vague hint as to what you need to do. If that doesn't prove to be enough or if you just don't want to try to figure it out, successive links to other pages will offer more and more obvious answers. I STRONGLY encourage you to rely on this as little as possible. Don't be tempted to spoil the experience for yourself by revealing answers to questions you haven't really encountered or thought about yet!

This set of pages is currently text-only. I could, of course, easily include sounds and images from the game itself, but I won't do this without first getting the go-ahead from Cyan. I certainly don't want to step on any copyrighted toes if I can help it.

Some frequently asked questions about this page:

- Can you email this information to me?
No, I can't. This set of pages is a hierarchical set of links with non-user-friendly file titles (aa1, bg4, etc). I could tar the whole thing together and mail it, but there's really no point since it would be too hard to sort through all the cross-references.

- I just bought Myst and can't get it to work, etc.
I'm sorry, but I just don't have the technical expertise to answer hardware-related problems. My advice is to talk to a local computer store (or call the place you bought the software from, or Cyan). Once you have Myst running, THEN I can help you with clues.

- When is Myst II coming out?
I read an article on the Miller brothers in People magazine in January. The article implied that Myst II would be out sometime around Xmas 1996, but the Miller brothers were a little more pessimistic if anything, saying, "It will be ready when it's ready." Since that time, I have heard that one of the news magazine shows (Dateline on NBC?) did a story on Myst in March in which they declared an early 1997 release date at best for Myst II.

Please send me a message if you have a comment or if there is some piece of information you are looking for in this page that you cannot easily find. If your client doesn't support mailto, my email address is at the bottom of this page.
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Doug Ingram -- ingram@u.washington.edu -- "Carpe Datum."