Weblog #12: April 26, 2005

  I bought Myst IV for $30 and, with some difficulty, managed to successfully load it into my laptop. After some trial and error I discovered that, in order to play the game, you have to have Disc 2 in the computer. After that I was under way and was transported along with my guide, a little girl named Yeesha, to a mountain hideaway called Tomahna. When we arrived, Yeesha showed me how to enter the heavily armoured entrance by pulling on a lever. Once inside, I didn't see Yeesha again but did encounter her father, Atrus, who referred to me as "my friend" and gave me a task involving the matching of sound waves which I managed to accomplish.
  After that, one of Atrus's impressive looking devices exploded. He then gave me some instructions as to how to deal with this crisis and wandered off. Even after re-visiting the game several times and roaming around the inside of the fortress I was unable to determine what to do next. When the cursor-finger would point in a direction I would follow and then end up in a location that seemed to be a dead-end; I would then have to start over outside the door.
  In one of the articles assigned for this week James Paul Gee talked about the dilemma faced by game-designers who want to attract new gamers as well as seasoned veterans. Games should not be so complex as to frustrate the novices but also should not be "dumbed down" so as to lose the interest of the veterans. My experiences with Myst IV so far indicate that the veterans should be happy with the game experience but first-timers like myself are fairly clueless as to how to proceed. There is a feature in Myst IV called a "Help Map" intended for beginners who are not concerned with the fact that using the map "can alter your gaming experience." Right now I'll take any help I can get.

Comments

[James Halabuk]

I have to confess feeling rather stupid playing Myst as well. I am not especially good at playing computer games: my reflexes are not good enough for action games, and my patience is not good enough for strategy games. Manuels and hint books were invented for people like me.