I find myself playing a lot of ‘old-school’ adventure games recently mostly because working on the Double Fine Adventure project has re-sparked my interest in the genre.

Recently I got realMyst for my iPad which is the real-time rendered version of the classic adventure game Myst. I contrast to the LucasArts adventures the game emphasis is on logical puzzles. Back in the day I didn’t like Myst at all. The puzzles all seemed artificial to me and I could never figure out what I am actually supposed to do.

The latter problem is still an issue, because you find yourself on the island without any clear goals. It’s up to the player to find out what to do. I generally like exploration as a game mechanic, but Myst is going a bit too far in my opinion.

Apart from that I really enjoyed playing the game though. Most of the puzzles are solvable with a bit of thinking and the progress is timed quite well. Whenever I felt like giving up a realization somehow appeared and I could progress.

My only complaint is the forced repetition in order to get both the blue and the red page from each ‘age’. I mean I can understand that I wouldn’t be able to carry a unrealistic amount of items, but why would I not be able to carry to book pages at the same time?

The iPad controls could use a bit tuning too, but apart from that a solid (logic) adventure game. I guess there is a reason why the Myst series is so successful… 🙂