from realMyst
Ever since I found a game for my iPad called The Room, I’ve been on a search for other games that are comparable. The Room is really a game about synchronicity – where clues and hints guide you toward some new discovery. I’ve found two possible contenders, although neither of these games has the three-dimensional, tactile satisfaction of The Room
The Lost City – at just 99 cents – isn’t just a bargain, it’s fun. The world you enter is beautifully rendered, deftly layered. The deeper I went into these layers, the more I discovered about myself. It was like an excavation of my own psyche, but within the parameters of the game. I was forced to think outside my comfort zone.
I know this probably sounds silly for an iPad game. But as I was playing around in this world, I was thinking that it’s the same format Dan Brown used in The DaVinci Code, where the main character, played by Tom Hanks in the movie, was forced to solve riddles and puzzles that revealed the next layer of the mystery, and the next and the next until he arrived at the truth: Christ had impregnated Mary Magdalene and that bloodline survived to the present day.
This game lacks the stunning, three dimensional graphics of The Room. But I love the Indiana Jones feel of the game, the length is more satisfying, and I still haven’t solved the last several clues. So, stumped as I am, I looked for other games by the same developers and ran across The Secrets of the Grisly Manor.
This one has so many puzzles and twists and turns that you really have to remain vigilant and take notes. It helps if you have an eidetic memory, which I don’t. I admit to using my iPhone to snap photos of a clue in one frame so that I could use them in another frame. No synchros here, just one foot in front of the other.
So my brief foray into iPad games has yielded a couple of insights that I can apply to my fiction. Plant your clues and your puzzles, but don’t over-explain. When you can, cut to the chase. Every story, like every game, is predicated on a quest – for truth, love, revenge, knowledge, spiritual wisdom, or the key ingredient in your grandfather’s invention!
In fact, after I solved Grisly Manor,I embarked on another search for games and found realMyst, the Myst video game from 20 years ago now beautifully rendered for the iPad. In many ways, it’s better than The Room, visually stunning, complex, and it even has a story. It’s pricier than other games – $6.99 – but it instills such a spirit of adventure for exploration that it’s worth the extra few dollars.
In between my searches, I dropped by Whitley Strieber’s Unknown Country and watched a video from the International Space Station of objects zipping across the continent in what seemed like seconds. On Strieber’s site, these objects are called Fastwalkers. The word hit me. It’s now the title of my new novel, which doesn’t have anything to do with UFOs. But the world resonates. It fits the story. So,four games, about $10 of entertainment, and new creative insights. A good deal all around for the early part of 2013.
Hi Trish & Rob,
If you’re into iThings, have you seen this?
https://thesynchroproject.com/
It looks intriguing – an iPhone app for attending to synchronicities. (Now all I need is an iPhone…)
Yes, we’ve seen it. I think it’s about collecting synchros for academic study. Thanks for the link!
I was just over at Amazon giving Steven Strogatz’s book “Sync” a review after reading it and saw that there were two other books called “Sync” now as well.
One is a fiction book by J. Lee Dunn about –
“When Maeve & Adrian flew to Mexico to meet the designer of a new computer game, the last thing they expected was to find themselves traveling to another world to learn how to protect this world and a myriad of mysterious Other Worlds from a millenia-old threat…”
https://www.amazon.com/Sync-J-Lee-Dunn/dp/1475278039/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358668306&sr=1-6&keywords=Sync
And the other is a book by a Philippine pastor named Dennis Sy,
with a full title of “SYNC: How to Know God’s Will for your Life”.
https://www.amazon.com/SYNC-Know-Gods-Will-ebook/dp/B007PX47X6/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358668306&sr=1-2&keywords=Sync
I think I’ll pass on both of them,but it was a bit of a sync with the fiction book on sync mentioning a new computer game in the plot,this post here and the book I just finished reading on mathematical sync in the universe.
As for the pastor’s book on sync I’d rather read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.-)
Get it? Pasta/pastor…spaghetti .-)
Got it! 🙂
I really want to download these games! But I just cannot have one more distraction right now, unfortunately. On my list for later. Thanks!
I take five or 10 minutes a day to play. The distraction doesn’t have to be huge, but for me, it seems to be necessary, iike watching an episode of a show I like to get my mind off writing.
Trish,
Rob,
Did you see how big the sequel to realMyst i s! Riven is a 2 gig plus download! Ouch!
Also during that era of Myst , out of japan came a game named Gadget. Just a mystery I never finished.. Trains, hotel rooms, weird named scientists and some stunning graphics. I wonder if realMyst and Riven are airplay enabled. Could be wild on. A big screen.
Be well
Laurence
I play about ten minutes a day and at the rate I’m going, may never get through realMyst. I didn’t realize Riven was so huge!!
I thought Myst was beautiful, if inpenetrable, back in 1994. But decided to steer clear for fear of becoming obsessed. But these look beautiful……………
Your comment made me laugh…if impenetrable! It’s still impenetrable!
One of the books that I’m reading at the moment is called
“Personal Development For Smart People” by a guy named
Steve Pavlina.
Before he got into the personal development game he was a games developer,
designing and making computer games in the 90’s.
I’m not usually into these type of books,but this one is good.
It also led me to his great blog –
https://www.stevepavlina.com/
and he has some great free audio pod-casts
https://www.stevepavlina.com/audio/
on his site,all of which I have listed to,and probably will again.
His ex-wife Erin calls herself a psychic and has her own interesting blog as well
https://www.erinpavlina.com/blog/
She has some interesting things to say on the paranormal.
Off to check your links, Daz, thanks! Sounds like two interesting sites.
I guess creative insights everywhere.
Even in ipad games!