Myst – Won!

Written by Vetinari

We still have a final age to go, but will there be any other surprises or will this truly be the end of the game?

Yes, it will, you can see it right there in the title of the post.

Channelwood is an interesting locale, different from the other ages in that it is not an island, but instead something more akin to a swamp, or a mangrove forest, or something like that.

Or maybe they are swamp cypresses.

In this age you have to travel along the walkways built upon the swamp, and you can see that on top of the trees there are some treehouses linked by wooden bridges, so it is pretty clear that you have to get up there somehow.

Climbing is apparently out.

The problem in all of this is that navigating through this part of the game is a real chore.

The issue is twofold: the cursor does not clearly change when you are able to move forwards on the gangways, and also when you turn right, or left, or even when you go forward, you are not turned in the same specific direction, but it all depends on where you are.

In some screens if you click to turn right it turns 90° to the right, but in some other cases it completely turns you back 180°. Or maybe you go forward, but are also turned 45° in one direction. In other ages this would not be very impacting, but here it is a problem because most of the Channelwood screens are very similar to one another, so you are not really sure where you are going.

Where the f**k am I?

In any case, after getting to grips with the navigation, I can see that the walkways all have some pipes running through them, and that they all start from a rocky islet just outside of this marsh, while ending at various points along the swamp edge.

I also see that there are some other walkways which are not connected to the main passageways where I am currently located. One of the ending gangways has a lever, which however does nothing when pulled.

It would have been too easy.

Another end has a pipe which is broken, and which continues after a gap.

In a classic adventure I would have to find a length of pipe to connect these two parts.

Another walkway finishes with what looks like a non-functional elevator.

Even if it seems more like an outhouse.

The last interesting end (and also the one nearest to the rocky islet) has some stairs with a door which is however unopenable and impassable.

That's the one on the right path.

Examining the junctions in the walkways, I notice that there are some switches which I surmise can be used to give a certain direction to the flow of the water or whatever it is inside these pipes.

Maybe spice?

I proceed to explore the islet from which the pipes come, and find something interesting on its top: a wooden hut with a generator and some pumps.

The pumps are actually powered by windmill blades on top of the hut.

Apparently the purpose of this contraption is to pump seawater inside the pipes, which will be then probably used to activate the mechanisms inside the swamp.

It is quite a long way down.

Since there is a valve on the near side of the reservoir which feeds into the conduit, I turn it in order to allow water to flow into the pipes.

The problem is that it is not clear when this thing is open or closed.

It is now obvious that I need to divert the water using the switches to lead it to whatever contraption I want to be powered up. The first one that I operate is the lever, which when pulled extends a bridge to the far part of the swamp, whose walkways were unreachable up to now.

And with this a new area to explore is opened.

On the other side of the bridge I find a crank, which extends the pipe to span the gap I found before.

No lengths of pipe for us to carry around, no sirree!

I then divert the water to the elevator which was previously not functional, and this time it leads me up to the treehouses level.

I think this screenshot is one of the most used from Myst.

There is nothing much of interest here, apart from the staircase which leads me down to the swamp level (from this side the door can be opened with a switch and it stays open, to allow unlimited access to both the lower and upper levels).

For once you can see the door opening when activating the lever.

I am now at a loss of what to do, when I notice something.

Spot the difference.

What I thought was an elevator going to the ground floor besides the staircase, has instead no correspondence beside the staircase on the ground floor. So this means that this elevator goes up!

I divert again the water to come to the staircase end, and indeed the new elevator allows me to ascend to a second level of treehouses.

This locale is not suggested for an acrophobic.

This is apparently the level where Sirrus and Achenar dwelled. As usual, Achenar's quarters are spartan and full of murderous implements.

There is also a holographic Achenar saying uncomprehensible things in a guttural language.

The table is not a table at all, since it conceals a snare trap which snaps closed to presumably dismember the fool who tried to touch whatever was on it.

What could be the utility of this?!?

There is also an imager (with a blue page beside it) containing a message left by Sirrus to his "dear brother". Apparently they are in cahoots with each other against Atrus, and in order to proceed with the final part of their plot he says that Achenar has to "take only one page".

This shoots down their claim that they were not working together.

Sirrus' room as usual is full of luxury and riches.

This is even more jarring considering it is a f***ing treehouse.

There is a red page in one of the drawers, and in another one there is the second part of the letter which I found in the Stoneship age.

"Vault" is still the most interesting word.

Having explored everything on both treehouses level, the only thing that's left is to lead the water inside the tubes through the newly extended pipe right to the end of the swamp, where another elevator lies in wait. This one leads to a small enclosed space with the Myst linking book in it.

They built all of this contraption but they did not have a table to put the book on?

Bringing the final red and blue pages to the two brothers, albeit it would seem a terrible idea, does not actually free them.

Instead, both of them tell a sob story about how they were injustly framed and the other brother is the real culprit. Each one of them asks me to retrieve the final page that will free them, and they say that a secret compartment can be accessed through the fireplace. In order to find out what pattern is to be inserted in the fireplace door, I have to check the last book in the middle shelf of the bookcase (one of those that were burned, but apparently not burned completely) and see the image numbered 158.

They also adamantly ask me not to touch the green book that is in the secret compartment together with the red and blue pages, since that will apparently imprison me forever.

There are some two hundreds of patterns in this book (probably to avoid short-circuiting the endgame if someone finds it before tackling all the four ages).

After inserting the correct pattern in the fireplace door, the fireplace rotates and I am presented with some bookshelves with the final red and blue pages, but also the dangerously mysterious green book.

It all comes down to this.

Since I trust those two guys as far as I could throw them (which all things considered is pretty far, since they are both imprisoned inside a book), I decide to ignore their warnings and open the green book. And who should I find inside it if not our old friend Atrus?

Not at all old friend, since the first thing that he says to me is "Who the devil are you?"

Atrus says that his two sons have imprisoned him inside this book, which links to the age of D'ni. He managed to set a trap to detain them inside the red and blue books, but before he could do that, in their greed they burned all of the books in the library, and he managed to salvage only four of them. The only way to free him is to find the missing page of the book who links back to Myst, and which the two brothers have hidden somewhere.

So, now I am left with the final choice to be made in this game.

Before proceeding to the real ending, let's explore some "what if scenarios", where the what if is "what if I was a complete idiot and didn't understand that these two guys are completely evil and untrustworthy".

As expected, if you free Sirrus or Achenar, they betray you and exchange places with you inside their prison book.

Nice.

Then they proceed to tear up pages from the book, until all is left for you is a black screen. So, bad ending I guess.

There is another possible ending, which is entering the D'ni book without the page that Atrus asked you to retrieve, but this just results in Atrus calling you an idiot (rightly so) and saying that you are trapped there forever, so nothing particularly interesting.

The true ending instead entails making sense of the two parts of the letter which we retrieved in Channelwood and Stoneship.

When you put together those two parts, the resulting message declares that to access the vault on Myst island, you have to activate all of the marker switches (which we already did) and then deactivate only the one at the docks. I proceed to do so, expecting to find the entrance to another room full of wondrous items, and then...

Is this supposed to be the vault? This is at most a receptacle.

Anyway, after getting over the delusion for this so-called vault, I proceed to take the page and enter the green book to D'ni, which brings me to a circular chamber surrounded by columns.

Is that Bud Spencer on the mosaic on the floor?

There I find Atrus at his writing desk, and I give to him the last page, with which he completes the Myst linking book.

The juxtaposition of video and background is well implemented.

Atrus says that he is finally free, and now he must bring justice to his sons. He leaves to Myst for a little while, then when he comes back he says that his long delay may have already had a catastrophic impact, since his wife, Catherine, is now being held hostage. Also, he is fighting a foe much greater than his sons could even imagine. (Sequel hook, anyone?)

He says that I can now use the Myst Linking Book to return to Myst and explore it at my leisure. No sooner said than done, I get back to Myst and check what happened to Sirrus and Achenar.

Atrus is totally metal.

It is very interesting that in none of these endings (including the successful one) there is a real definite end. When you release Sirrus or Achenar the screen just fades to black and that's it. When you get to D'ni, you can still move about (and return to Myst in case of the good ending), but you just go on exploring without any further additional development.

In this case, as was also the case in many of Italo Calvino's works, is there really an end or are you just trapped inside the narrative without the means to exit it, and the only way to do it is close the book (or quit the game, as it were)?

With this, I leave you to think about what the Final Rating for this game will be.

Session Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time: 10 hours 10 minutes