Interview with Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst series

I interviewed Rand Miller of Myst fame last week. No hints on what it’s about as the interview is below. Read it!

I tell you, it’s certainly myst-erious, isn’t it? Uh.

Alex: It’s weird - I recognise your voice from Myst. Often when I contact developers in email about interviews I wonder what they’ll sound like, but I know what you sound like as you were an actor in Myst! 

Rand: [laughs]

Alex: Anyway, what’s happening with Cyan Worlds these days? Are you still in that rather cool looking office?

Rand: We are still in the rather cool looking office, although there are a lot less people in the office these days. Being an independent developer is a bit of an anomaly these days. A lot of developers are being snatched up or going out of business. We’ve held on for a long time, but we have definitely whittled down to a few people. We presented some projects to companies that were turned down and unfortunately had to let people dribble off our employment list. We’ve still got a core team and we stay in touch with our ex-employees and sometimes do contract work with them. I think they’re hoping we pick something up and we jump back in. We have a few little projects going in the meantime, I think probably the largest is Myst for iPhone.

Alex: I remember playing when I was younger with a mouse; exploring, turning levers, pressing buttons. Myst for iPhone seems perfect. Actions instead of mousing. Is it a good device to work with?

Rand: As soon as I heard about the iPhone I wanted Myst on it. There have been a lot of devices that people have wanted to put Myst on. Not all of them have been exciting for me and not everyone has done a good job. A lot of the devices were compromises with what they could display or quality of sound or ease of user interface. With the screen on the iPhone being what it is, the touch interface, the quality of sound with headphones and the amount of storage, we realised we wouldn’t have to compromise. 

Our Chief Technology Officer Mark DeForest was in charge of development and he was a bit sceptical at first. He was working on the simulator for the iPhone and Myst just wasn’t that interesting. As you can imagine it’s like Myst but on an iPhone on your screen! He produced his first build and it was like this really interesting hypnotic effect where similar to the first Myst, you didn’t want to stop. After that he was convinced and conceded that it was cool! That was a great moment. I felt the same way. I love the fact that the device lends itself to the mechanics within Myst. We’ve built in auto-save so you can stop at anytime in case you get a call. You can wander around as much as like and then get on with your life. It’s a really good fit.

Alex: Are you expecting this to be a big hit, similar to Brian Gr$$nstone’s Engimo?

Rand: I don’t know what to expect. I’ve been wrong in my expectations since Myst [laughs].  I’m not real good at anticipating how many people are going to buy something. A lot of the time it’s more of a gut feeling. Myst felt good and we expected to sell 100,000 copies. Of all the platforms we’ve done, and in some cases probably milked the Myst series on, this feels like it belongs. I really like that.

Alex: Is Myst for iPhone original Myst or realMyst? Have you added anything; any new environments?

Rand: We went into this with the idea that we were going to do the original Myst. Take the best assets we have, like the higher quality images and sounds. Most of the content we’ve been able to find. We’ve re done some things here and there, but we’ve tried to keep it true to the original Myst experience. We’ve touched up some of the interface elements, but we haven’t done realtime 3D. That might be fun at some point, but the iPhone is a bit slow for handling that. We haven’t really added any additional things at this point, but who knows in the future? We’ve still got Riven on the horizon if Myst works on the iPhone.

Alex: Out of all the Myst games Riven was my favourite. If I had to choose a game environment to live in, it’d be Riven. A beautiful, beautiful world. It’s a shame as you can’t get universal binaries for these games.

Rand: Riven just seems natural only because if Myst works - and the feeling is that it will - it’s bigger and in some ways more immersive. The images are so amazing. Riven was so detailed we’d  ask artists to go over their art when we could see a repeating pattern or a seam. We had the ability to fine tune everything. It feels like a real place. You can’t tell if some of the images are real or not. 

I’m not sure how Apple or the App Store will respond to the size of these Apps. From an application point of view they’re huge, but from a movie and music point of view they’re not that gigantic. I think Myst at this point is around 500MB.

Alex: Large, but worthy! The real question: why was Riven so hard?

Rand: [laughs] 

Alex: It was too difficult! I remember I had to read a walkthrough to solve this one part; you were supposed to walk out a cave, turn around and the outline of the cave  was a frog, which linked to some puzzle. I remember reading this walkthrough and realising I’d never get it in a million years! Why was it so hard?

Rand: We had two responses to Myst: too hard or too easy.

Alex: [laughs]

Rand: Remember that’s it’s all an experiment! When we did Myst we thought we made the puzzles easy and as you progressed they became harder, but by that point you were so engrossed you couldn’t stop playing. I think in Riven we erred on the difficult side. If you think that puzzle was tough you should see as you get further along, some of the puzzles are almost impossible! It was very challenging and satisfying if you could pull it off.

Alex: What’s happening with Myst Online these days?

Rand: It’s been a roller coaster. Up and down. And a bit frustrating. We were so vested in that product and it was very close to my heart. I felt like we were onto certain elements of online games that I still think are imperative or a part of the future of online gaming. Having a never ending online experience that’s not necessarily wrapped into a treadmill/levelling experience. Through whatever twist of fate, the combinations we got were not the best. We did hookup with Transgaming and that seemed to work fine. The original publisher and their lack of commitment, using up what content we had for expansion packs and then moving to GameTap - which was a great idea but there were some issues with how things were managed there - anyway, it’s easy to blame things, we had problems as well. All these things together led to a lot of ups and downs. At this point we’re still figuring out exactly what to do. We’ve invested so much time and money into Myst Online, trying to make what we thought online entertainment should be. A lot of those features, especially the social aspects, are what you’re seeing more and more as other MMO’s or social 3D environments are being released. I’m not sure how we’ll be able to bring it back up or if we will or what it will mean. To be honest with you I don’t think we’re great business people - 

Alex: [laughs]

Rand: - we’re just passionate about what we do. At some point if it means doing the open source thing - and that’s one of the paths we’re going down at this point -  that’s fine. The money has been spent and lost, if we can make use of that stuff in someway and keep the community alive, well, let’s give it a shot.

Alex: It’s interesting you talk about the treadmill experience. I call it the grind. I played World of Warcraft for a year and got so worn down by the experience of seeking numbers. Initially when I played it felt like there was exploration and mystery and stuff like that, but the more you play the more you realise the limitations. And the grind for a certain number of players, that’s all they see. Grinding to get higher levels, equipment, loot and then a new patch comes out you have to do it over! No real reward. Is that frustrating when you see that World of Warcraft has 12 million subscribers, they make $1 billion a year, and something as boundary pushing as Myst Online couldn’t make it?

Rand: I’ve played Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft and that grind you talk about, there’s something in human nature that the achievement (the levelling) kind of tweaks a bit there. You want your number to go up. Oh, I’m Level 3; I want to be Level 4! Just having that number go up does something at some core level that tweaks some addiction in the human brain. There is some satisfaction, but it’s almost like a dangerous satisfaction, like an addictive satisfaction. Like, I’m not really doing anything, I’m just upping my number.

I totally agree with you on it feeling like exploration at the beginning, where it felt like I was exploring a new place and I could wander around and find the lay of the land. But then very quickly it turns into the level thing because that’s what you’re supposed to be taking part in. It’s very frustrating for me to have all this invested in what I think is a very alternative method of entertainment for online games and not have had a real shot. I hope that people don’t look at Myst Online and think that’s not how people want to be entertained online. Myst Online proved that. It was a tragedy of errors that combined to bring it down at various times, but I still think the numbers prove that people want content. Even the people who level are enthralled when new content comes out. It’s a simple extrapolation to say, why don’t we do that more often? Why don’t we do it like television does, where we try to provide new stuff every evening so people will come back? Anyway, that seems like a no-brainer and I hope people don’t look at Myst Online and think it disproves that theory.

Alex: You had an idea in Myst Online where users could write their own ages?

Rand: There were a couple phases that we had planned that were pretty amazing. The first was just that you got your own real estate. Every person in the game had, oddly enough, an island that was supposed to be reminiscent of Myst island. It was built to be that way because it was done by Atrus’ daugher, Yeesha. You owned it and through your adventuring in other places in Myst Online you would start to modify that island. It became a place where you could bring people to and they’d see, for example, a giant tree growing there. And you could tell them your story about how you got that. Or maybe it’s raining. Or even your island is growing, you’ve got a peninsula sticking out here, how did you do that? Well, because you’d adventured and found things. That was our first level of customization. But in our minds the progression was that eventually people wanted to write worlds. There was a whole element in Myst that gave us portals through books. That’s where we were going. We wanted people in Myst Online to eventually be able to write their own ages. It was a phased approach, but sadly because we weren’t that successful, we never got many stages under our belt.

Alex: It could have been something incredible. I don’t know if you’ve seen What Dreams May Come (it’s a bit schmaltzy)? It reminds me of that, in the sense that everyone has a personal heaven or area that’s specific to them. What you were trying to do, way before things like PS3 Home where you have little trophies and purchased items, you would have more fundamental things. Your island would take on characteristics of it’s own in relation to what you did in the world. I hope you can bring Myst Online back. I’ve seen people that are still on forums talking about it, hoping, pleading…

Rand: The community is one of the things that have kept us going. They invigorate us in spite of all the ups and downs. We have a core group of fans that see the deep level of work we’ve put in. There’s so much detail in that game. Even after you’ve been through the puzzles, if you wander back through the places we’ve built, you’ll see that much of the environment and detail wasn’t done trivially, it was done to be part of the story. Everything had a reason that was there; the person that built it, his history, what they did, where they were. That level of detail, that commitment, builds a loyal fan base and in spite of everything, that’s a lovely legacy to have.

Alex: Myst back on the Mac?

Rand: It’s always in the back of our minds. The interesting thing is that taking the original Myst experience and putting it back on the Mac is like seeing a film from the 70’s that you thought was amazing and watching it again now. And saying, oh boy, I’ve changed or the world has changed, it’s not quite the way I remember it! The screen size that Myst was rendered at was so small compared to what we have now. We have these postage stamp sized screens, of course on the iPhone it fills it; we have to actually shrink the images to fit on the iPhone! The world has changed and the iPhone gives us enough power to do it in the palm of your hands. 

We had the same desire to bring games forward, that was realMyst. What if Myst was a true real time experience? You know, it wasn’t perfect. It was a bit of an experiment. A lot of the puzzles, a lot of the elements, didn’t translate well - but the environment did. The world felt alive. Wandering around and it started to rain or the it changes from night and day. There were a lot of things in Myst that pointed you in the right direction, so you could see a little button that you needed to click. In a real time 3D environment your ability to roam and go everywhere almost gets in the way. It’s not quite so intuitive because there are so many places to go. It’s all an experiment, we’ll see what happens. I, like you, would love to have the definitive package of the Myst series on the Mac. It might be that the Mac evolves into other platforms more conducive for gaming. If there’s a tablet Mac or a larger iPhone format, that might actually be something we want to focus on instead of the laptop. I know that the touch screen is amazing with Myst. Myst did not map well to joysticks and all other console orientated devices. It needed a tactile feel to it (and I’m using that term loosely).

Alex: There has been a few rumours out about a new iPhone coming out this summer. How do you think Apple are going to manage that? They could end up in a situation where they have three models of iPhone, each one being progressively more powerful, but with performance gaps between them?

Rand: It’d be a real pain for developers, but that’s who’s lap it will fall into. The very success of the iPhone has allowed Apple to basically do what they want. To a certain extent they can change the platform now and say “if you want your game to work, you fix it” - 

Alex:  - and people will because it’s making them potentially a lot of money -

Rand: - exactly. Once you get an install base of 30 million that can potentially play your game, you realise the next model is something you have to pay attention to. And if it makes money you can do that. One of the most frustrating things about the gaming industry is shooting at moving targets, as far as the delivery system goes. You have to anticipate what the next thing is. Fortunately with Myst, we haven’t had to do that. When what you’re doing is retrofitting your older product onto the new platform it takes a lot of that pressure off. If Apple upped the speed, upped the screen resolution, luckily for us it won’t effect us for Myst. We’ve learned to love the iPhone platform for other reasons as well. We have a lot of designs in the back room that would work really well on the iPhone.

Alex: Any hints on what you’re working on?

Rand: At this point I’m not sure that any of them will see the light of day. It’s interesting, publishers will tell you they want something new, something fresh, something that’s never been done before. We present a couple ideas, one of which was really innovative and unique, a whole different way of looking at interactive entertainment, and they tell us that this is incredible! They pass it onto their marketing department, ask how many will they sell and the marketing department says they don’t know, they’ve never had anything like this before!

Alex: [laughs]

Rand: It’s a bit of a dilemma. I can actually understand; you don’t want to put a lot of money into something you’re not sure of, but frankly, Myst was unique for it’s time and a lot of publishers made a lot of money on taking a chance with something that hadn’t been done before. It’s all a gamble. We’ll see what the future holds.

Alex: Do you think it’s harder for smaller developers today, compared to when you came out with Myst?

Rand: It was much easier back then. Firstly, we were a garage operation. It was still a lot of money back then to develop Myst, I think it was $500,000 - more actually - which is pretty trivial in today’s numbers. But you see the same thing happening on the iPhone. To me, the most interesting things are coming out in the casual game play market. A guy in his garage or a small team in a garage can act in a very risky way without risking their entire lives, their livelihood, company and shareholders - all that encumber larger companies. We did Myst with six people and it was pretty risky, but not like doing Riven with thirty people and Myst Online with forty. There’s something about a small group that helps them move quickly.

Alex: The larger you become the more outsiders you need, then you need to juggle their expectations. I guess also the larger you get, the greater the risk. The movie Watchmen cost $150 million to make, on it’s opening weekend it made $15 million. There are concerns that it isn’t even going to recoup its expenses. I wonder what the limitations of development are?

Rand: It’s a similar feeling to movies. As movies grew and grew back in the early days, they became more and more expensive to make. At some point it was out of the reach of the average person. Then technology changed and there were ways to make cheaper movies. Then there was this thing called television. Suddenly it was a different platform and it didn’t have to be an hour and a half long, it could be the entertainment thing in a half hour segment. The whole paradigm shifts and gives other people opportunities to innovate in ways they couldn’t before. The iPhone feels a bit like that, not because it’s an end all be all, because it opens the door to a different feeling of entertainment from a gaming perspective. I think that’s why so many developers have responded so favourably to it.

Alex: And we don’t know what’s on the horizon. It’s easy for pundits and reviewers to say it’s the time where small time or larger developers are coming to an end, but you don’t know what products are waiting to be released or what methods of experiencing games lie on the horizon.

We’ll have some news on a development preview of Myst for iPhone soon. Thanks to Rand Miller for taking to time to speak to us.