Ages beyond Myst

[belford]

It's easy to think of Uru Ages as "more Myst", but the adventure game has become a much broader idea. Also, many (most) kinds of games these days include adventure *elements*. All of these disparate directions can serve as inspiration for Uru Ages.

So what kinds of Ages has Cyan never given us?

(If that sounds arrogant, remember that in the past eight months Cyan has given us several kinds of Ages that are new to the Myst universe. Cooperation in small groups, cooperation in large groups, the toybox... And the older Uru Ages were equally experimental. The GZ marker hunts, the timed puzzles in POTS, etc.)

My random thoughts:

- Nightmares. (There are several good independent horror adventure games out there.) The Age conveys looming dread to the player. Claustrophobia, disorientation.

- Reactive environment. Every step causes a chain reaction of light, or sound, or motion.

- Portrait. An Age which reveals a history, or story, unrelated to the D'ni. (Remember that a newly-written Age can have a population and a history.) The player discovers the story as he explores.

(footnote: Tragedies? Triumphs? A wasteland, in which you discover how it spiralled into ruin?)

- Customizable playground. The player can adjust the Age, with in-game controls, to suit his desires. (Okay, Jalak already does this, in a small way. As does Relto. But there's a lot of room for expansion.)

- Workshop. A set of tools, which can be cranked over time to produce some kind of product. (Like the Ercana ovens, but with a direct -- if slow -- effect in the Age itself.) For added fun, have several machines which must be cranked simultaneously for efficient production.

(footnote: "workshop" is too narrow an image. "Cranking the machine" could just as well be gathering herbs.)

- Abstract visual world. The Age conveys a purely artistic effect, rather than a (para-)realistic one.

- Governance. You survey a tiny garden, or process, or civilization, and influence its growth with various tools.

- Combinatoric garden: Many different elements, in constant change. Some slow, some fast. The elements interact in interesting ways. You can sit and watch, and no combination will repeat -- not for weeks, anyway.

(footnote: Could do this with sound as well as with visuals.)

- Dream world. The Age conveys something in metaphor, subconscious imagery, and dream-logic. (Again, not a realistic environment.)

- Tight visual focus. What if you could only see a few feet? How do you absorb that environment? (Tetsonot does this, but it has no surprises in its layout.) Fog, darkness, even blinding light.

- Collapsing environment. You knock down walls, topple constructions, break ropes in order to proceed through the Age. When you reach the end, it's a ruin. (Deliberately no replay value -- if you want to see it again, reset the book.)

-----------

Feel free to add to the list. Warning: also feel free to say "But that sort of Age shouldn't be in Myst!". But I'll just smile and nod and then maybe go do it anyway.

[belford]

- Active danger. (Not just falling into lava!) You arrive on a battlefield, explosions going off everywhere, shouts in the distance, screams, gunfire... Make it to the other side. I'm sure system can be coaxed into panic-linking you if you stand in the wrong place at the wrong time.

- The musical instrument. One control panel; ten thousand organ pipes ranged across the plains! Or something.

[Gorobay]

- Giant age. Everything is huge. There are giant plants (animals would be cool but hard) that you can climb. Or it is indoors and you can look at all the stuff on a giant's desk and see everything magnified.
- Tiny age. Everything is small. You can see an entire place as diverse as the pod age, except instead of many large islands it is small enough to walk across in a minute. You can jump onto mountains and wade through oceans.
- Sound age. There is nothing to see, no light at all. There are only noises which come from everything, and everything has its distinct noise. You can navigate the place by hearing from which side a particular noise comes. This would be easy to render, because there would be no texturing.
- Zoo age: Like the pods but more so. Not necessarily a zoo but a place with lots of interesting animals to observe which come regularly enough to be worth it.
- Astronomy age. There is a perpetual night sky and lots of planets and things to observe.
- Floating age. You are in a watery substance except you can breathe. You swim around in it and there is no surface to the "water"; it goes on forever.
- Escher [sic] age: Random staircases and doors and walls/floors. I've always wanted to walk around inside a room like that.