knowing this, i felt compelled to likewise collect my thoughts in playing the game into a single journal. like a travel diary, i thought it might allow a in-game act of reflection and a space for working-through the game play.

it did just that and much more. in scanning the journal (60 pages) I offer an insight to how I played the game. because this journal is like a critical annotation on the game, following the chronology of my play, sketching the maps and footholds i used to “solve” the game, flowing from a reflective play experience of the game. and unlike commercial guides, which take you through games like tourist literature “highlights” regions, cities, or nations found in travel, this journal is a single individuals living of the game. which makes it far more interesting.

McCune_Myst_Journal_Final

the sunken ship haunts the island of myst, as it presents the island as not only a broken space in need of repair/solving but also as it presents the island as a culprit of violence against man-established order. the ship has sunk off the coast of the island suggests that hidden objects in the water (rocks, a reef) have subverted Atrus’ order from below: an appropriate metaphor.

but of course, the ship can be raised. the game player becomes more and more sure of that as s/he plays. for what on the island of myst cannot be made right by play and critical thinking. the island can be again mastered by reason, and made right / whole by the player’s interaction with it. interestingly, the player encounters the island at its most broken. the island cannot be made worse by the player’s interaction with it; the ship cannot be further sunk. instead, the island (by choice of the game designer) is only to be improved by play. it is inherently a gamer’s island. albeit an island that positions the gamer as a sort of scientist or engineer: to understand the nature of the island and its rules is to make the island whole again.

and to raise the ship is to set off away from the island. by improving the island, by restoring its objects of civilization, we are allowed off of it.

its not a new game, except in the way that a game player invokes that phrase, which is to say a new playing of a game. and in that sense it is most certainly a new game.

i’ve played three or four times, but done so in a way that didn’t ‘advance’ the game- i merely explored. now, playing to advance the game, to force it to open, to read into it as one progresses a novel by moving through the text, i take on myst anew.

and there’s lot to say, though right now i am both handicapped by lack of a critical framework (which i still forming, still attempting to construct a critical gamer(eader?)) and by absolute enchantment with finally getting OFF myst island (is that what it’s called?) into a totally new “age.”

a weekend and a foucault reading (the truly serendipitous “archaeology of knowledge”) will surely allow for new work and, if possible, progression.