by playing the games with ScummVM, then you might notice something is off. When you play the game on original hardware, then the loading times seem perfectly fine since you expect them.Īs soon as you eliminate the loading times at all, e.g. due to character movement), this does not apply to Myst. While many adventure games are limiting playback speed on their own (e.g. Everything tells you to slowly explore while making sure not to miss any hints you need to solve the puzzles. However, it really feels that your are not supposed to rush through the game. I’m not sure if this was even part of the original design concept.
The game basically forces you to slowly walk through the worlds of Myst. On the next move, it needs to load yet another image. Since each time you move through the game, your computer needs to load the next image. Myst uses some pretty clever compression techniques and an optimized file layout on the disc. Furthermore, RAM constraints made any caching of the datafiles impossible. Since even the largest hard drives had a capacity of around 1000 Megabytes, installing the game wasn’t an option.
This means access times of 80 to 200ms as well as a blazing transfer speed of 300KB/s under ideal conditions. The original Myst was released in 1993 on this incredible new format called ‘CD-ROM’, allowing for a whopping 650 Megabytes of storage.Īt that time, CD-ROM drives were slow – like double-speed slow. In my opinion, the immersion these games provide is partially created due to technical limitations.
PAJAMA SAM 1 FOR SCUMMVM SERIES
Needless to say that especially the first entries in the series – the original Myst and its successor Riven – are truly remarkable games. To me, the Myst series feels like an immersive trip to another world – it is truly something different compared to your average point-and-click adventure game. Ever since I discovered the Myst series back in 2005, I’m in love with it.