Myst

I realized, the moment I fell into the fissure, that the book would not be destroyed as I had planned. It continued falling into that starry expanse of which I had only a fleeting glimpse. I have tried to speculate where it might have landed, but I must admit, however— such conjecture is futile. Still, the question of whose hands might someday hold my Myst book are unsettling to me. I know that my apprehensions might never be allayed, and so I close, realizing that perhaps, the ending has not yet been written…

In 1993 two brothers, Rand and Robyn Miller, released a computer game that seemed destined to fail. It contained none of the key ingredients of the other PC games of the time. No-one got shot or blown up, in fact there were no guns or weapons to be seen anywhere. Instead, the brothers created a beautifully rendered world into which the gamer was placed with little or no instruction.

 Instead of detailed guidelines and a back-story, the box in which the game came contained a blank journal… it seemed the gamer was destined to write their own story…

The game became a phenomenal world-wide success and before long the benefits of the free-exploration, problem-solving and lateral thinking game style were utilised by a teacher to enhance his students development in literacy. The teacher was Tim Rylands and he has since inspired many others (most notably Mark Warner) to make use of such a great resource for todays children.

It is with their inspiration that Clermont State School’s Grade 5F now embark on their own journey to discover what has, and what can be, written…

We invite you all to join us…

NEW – Download my Myst Literacy Unit Plan

Myst Literacy Unit Plan

This plan uses a walkthrough kindly supplied by Graham at

Adventure Game Walkthroughs

It is more a list of teaching ideas but does give sequence of learning, lesson ideas and assessment tasks.

If you use it, please give credit where due and I would love to read any thoughts and comments,

Mr F

The following is a list of the blog posts I have made during the teaching of the Myst unit…

• Pre-Myst
• The Practice Sessions
• A Solution to Atmosphere
• Session One
• Session Two
• Sessions so far…
• Torn notes and the Sword of Damocles
• Time
• Displays

The following are links to websites and documents that have come in very useful during the planning and implementation of this unit…

• Tim Rylands – the guy who started it all. His website and blog or great starting points
• MrWarner – the excellent website of Mark Warner from the UK. He took Tim Rylands idea and ran with it – some very inspirational ideas
• D’ni Jazz Club – everything you need to know about all Myst games – including back stories, characters, transcripts and walkthroughs
• Journals of Myst and Uru Archive – everything written in every Myst game is written here