myst again.

Not to prove myself a total dork or anything, because I think that it goes without saying, but I am about to write an entire entry about a computer game. Even dorkier, a whole series of computer games.

I am limited in my role-playing game enjoyment by the fact that I'm a bit of a wuss. So the games where you stalk the halls with a big gun, shooting people and taking bigger guns from their still warm, yet lifeless hands would appeal to me if not for the fact that these people occasionally try to defend themselves. The shooting back is where I have trouble. It makes me nervous, and it seems like I'm always getting shot at from behind and can never turn around properly before I am dead and someone is taking my gun from my still warm, yet lifeless hand. Playing these sorts of games only makes me tense. Basically, I like games where I can't die.

Enter Myst.

Most people have probably heard of this game series, if not played it. Seems like a copy of the original used to come with new computers. If not, the basic idea is this. You are put on a world, a limited yet pretty sizable world. Your goal is to get off the world or to solve some sort of mystery using clues that get left around. It's just you. In the later games, there are other people, but the interaction is limited. They give you information and then they go away. They do not shoot at you.

In these games, there is no little health meter at the top of the screen telling you how close you are to dying. There is no dying in this world. You cannot fall off a cliff unless it would be okay to do so. If it would not be okay, then the game doesn't let you fall.

It's intellectually stimulating, because the puzzles you have to solve are frequently difficult. You have to look in every nook and cranny because there are clues hidden all over the place. There are puzzles with sounds, pictures, mechanical devices, and little cute bunnies, but none that are timed in any way. And if you get stumped, there are forums online that will guide you through the puzzles. Cheating? Probably, but I never would have gotten through the first three games without some assistance. I try not to look at the cheats until I want to poke my eyes out over a puzzle.

The game itself is beautiful. There are really some amazing worlds on the games. Every single world, and there are many, is different. The people who made them had to be pretty creative to keep coming up with new ideas. It's like imagining life on another planet where some previous civilization already got things started and then left.

Why am I suddenly writing about this game series? Because a new one just came out a couple of months ago, and I finally have a copy. Tomorrow is the first day of classes, and I am going to have to not let myself play the game until 4 am or worse, as I have been known to do so on previous games. But I've played a little, and I'm typing as fast as I possibly can so I can go back to playing soon. I have vast new worlds to explore and puzzles to solve.