By Orb
May 2003

Whether you love it or you hate it, hardly a gamer exists who does not acknowledge the hugeness of the phenomenon that was Myst. Ever wonder where the Brothers Miller came up with all that stuff that later became such an unqualified commercial hit? The guess that I'd hazard, based on the games below, is: Practice!

Did you know there were pre-Myst Miller games? Little practice worlds on the Millers' way to fame and glory? If not, here's a rundown of how and where the point-and-click genre's roots evolved.

The Manhole (1988)

Originally released in 1988, The Manhole won the Software Publishers Association award for "Best New Use of a Computer." The Manhole, as well as the two games that followed, were produced using HyperCard, a program well-known to any Macophile whose OS memory goes back as far as System 6. (HyperCard is the software predecessor for what PC users now call a "slideshow" game format.) It also was the first game published on a CD-ROM. In 1994, it was rereleased with fresh renderings, color, and sound as The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition. The Manhole Masterpiece Edition clearly is the most evocative of what was to come from Cyan.

One of the most interesting things about The Manhole is that it appears as though some of the environments made for the game were tweaked and reused by the Millers for Myst. To an adventure gamer brought up on the Myst style of games, this is a fascinating look at how these designs came about, as well as an indication of just how much of a fluke the initial success of Myst must have seemed to the Millers. I mean, if you were going to create something that would become a worldwide phenomenon, would you do it by ripping off some kiddie twiddleware that you'd made a couple of years before? I think not.

This point itself makes The Manhole extremely entertaining. Exploring the initial environment, an old abandoned ship, you begin to get a sense of the familiar. Get in an elevator and experience deja vu. From the doors shutting to the button design, we've been here before—it's the Stoneship Age but like a drugged-out flashback.

The Manhole was produced by Cyan as a children's title, and Robyn Miller completed the original's artwork in three short months. It's not exactly edutainment as there's no real instruction going on, just a little light game-playing. It is fun, however, to look at it as a historical precedent to Myst and what followed, which I'll leave the clever reader to label as bliss or bile in game cloning.

The game itself has no real puzzles to solve; the puzzle of the game is in finding your way from one game area to another. The environments themselves obviously were fastidiously rendered, much more so than the usual design of children's gaming from this time period. In playing the Masterpiece Edition, the Millers' honing of their craft for their big break becomes evident—much of the design of The Manhole is almost as detailed as the original Myst. The Manhole uses the same sorts of textures and looks, with some motionless cartoon characters thrown over the top of the screens that speak in cartoon bubbles that appear when the character is clicked on. It really has the air of an excellently produced trial run.

There are textures and locations in The Manhole that obviously are reused in Myst. Comparing them side to side, this becomes immediately evident. For the ardent Miller follower, this is a happy surprise, as it's like visiting places new but strangely familiar. The game itself is done in the now oft-maligned point-and-click slideshow style of Myst, which originally was designed by the Millers for use in The Manhole to make their computerized world as close to the real world for kids as possible by intentionally eliminating any computer interface. It draws on objects and ideas from children's stories such as "Jack and the Beanstalk" and Alice in Wonderland.

The music for The Manhole was written in part by Robyn Miller. The game CD can be played as a regular audio CD to hear the game's soundtrack. The music is all very entertaining but by no means containing anywhere near the depth of the Myst soundtrack, and it is, interestingly enough, in an entirely different style to what would come later.

The Manhole, billed as "A Whimsical World for Children of all Ages," is only of real interest to those who are Myst or Miller fans and those who love click-through diversions. If you are an adventure game fan who enjoyed Myst, you'll get a real kick out of playing The Manhole.

Cosmic Osmo (1990)

Cosmic Osmo originally was released in 1990 on diskette, in black-and-white. Later, in 1993, it was rereleased as an expanded version on CD called Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel. Why waste a good thing? Believe it or not, making Cosmic Osmo gave the Millers the idea that they could do more with their game-making and actually make a living working within the medium.

You explore various worlds in Cosmic Osmo, via a spaceship called the Osmobile. There are eight different worlds that can be traveled to via the ship, and paths and doors interconnect all of these in one way or another.

The game is surreal. There are a few simple yet engaging puzzles, but mostly the game gets you to wander around and explore and click on things. What I find most interesting is that the style of Robyn Miller's art in these games, as far as the original black-and-white is concerned, is very similar to some of the more well-known art from the underground comix movement of the 60s and 70s, stuff from Rip Off Press or Kitchen Sink Press, and most notably Bill Griffith.

There's a great humor to Osmo. In the spaceship, hit a button labeled "swab" and, sure enough, cotton swabs fire from the ship like torpedoes. In another room, there's a picture of Osmo with Jethro Bodine (or actor Max Bauer, from the sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies) on the wall. Who would've guessed they were pals?

Interestingly enough, I found the black-and-white gameplay every bit as (or more) entertaining as a colorized remake. Robyn Miller's art, and the original game designs, stand the test of time completely under their own steam. Unfortunately, there's zero market for a rerelease of a black-and-white game, and Cyan obviously, and rightly, felt these titles had to be updated in order to be repackaged and sold.

The music of Osmo is jazzy and very cool. As with The Manhole, the game loads with the music as a separate audio CD. The music in this title is strong enough to stand on its own, so this makes sense. Also, surprisingly, there's a lot of it.

Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Suedo (1991)

Spelunx is the final black-and-white children's title released by Cyan, originally published on disk. Color was added in 1993, and the game was rereleased.

You explore a seemingly endless series of caves and underground tunnels. Unlike The Manhole, which was billed as being "For Children of all Ages" and Cosmic Osmo, for "Ages 5–Adult," Spelunx was made specifically for children between the ages of 5 and 12. Perhaps because of this, it is the title that most closely resembles edutainment, as kids playing can learn about astronomy, music, chemistry, biology—basically the gamut of the various sciences, in kind of a precursor to the Tivola titles we're playing now, Physicus, Bioscopia, et al. There also are activities designed to increase creativity. The game features a mapping system.

Spelunx is another point-and-click title designed in similar fashion to its predecessors. Like Osmo, the art is much more simply done than the more detailed renderings present in The Manhole Masterpiece Edition. But the designs intimating worlds to come are present here as well, including a bookcase that is beginning to have a greater similarity to that in the main island of Myst, albeit in cartoon form.

All three of these titles were hand-drawn by Robyn Miller, quite a feat indeed. All were made on Macintosh computers.

The best part of these titles is that Cyan has, for the most part, taken on the task of reinventing them by continuing to update and rerelease them. For those interested in the preservation of the history of computer games, this is a path other early designers should, and hopefully will, follow. Of course, my and other archivists' constant bleating regarding the preservation of early computer games as art is about as popular as someone demanding silent film preservation was in the 1930s.

Bonus round question for those fans of minutiae: How did Myst get its name?

Answer: From the title of Jules Verne book Robyn Miller was reading when the story was written—Mysterious Island. Get it? Myst-erious Island? Makes one wonder where the ideas for all those mechanical puzzles came from, eh?