(Image credit: MicroProse Software, Defy Reality Entertainment)
While Myst and its sequel Riven are omnipresent games thanks to developer Cyan Worlds constantly remaking them, games directly inspired by Myst are few and far between. The most notable example is Jonathan Blow’s maze-obsessed puzzler The Witness, which distressingly will be a decade old come January.
Now though, veteran publisher MicroProse has just released Neyyah. That may read like onomatopoeia for the noise Minecraft villagers make, but it is in fact a first-person 3D point ‘n’ click puzzler, one that doesn’t so much wear its Myst inspirations on its sleeve as have them tattooed all over its body.
Created over seven years by solo developer Adam Gwynaire, Neyyah transports players to not one but several remote islands dotted with strange plant life and mysterious structures. Like Myst, it’s a first-person point and click adventure that involves reactivating arcane machinery by solving puzzles that interconnect in obscure ways.
There’s a trailer for the game below. The 3D environments certainly look the part, though I’m less sold on the FMV cutscenes used to tell the story, which have a (somewhat endearing, in all fairness) am-dram quality about them. According to a recent press release, the game’s cast includes Gwynaire’s “ex-wife and stepchildren” alongside several theatrical actors from the home city of Perth, Australia.
The press releases mentions an intriguing detail regarding Neyyah’s extensive soundtrack, which features more than 80 individual tracks composed for the game. Around a third of which was composed by Gwynaire. The other two-thirds, however, were created by Zaedyn Turner, who was apparently between 10 and 14 years old during the composition process.
Frustratingly, there isn’t an example of Turner’s work online, though there is a track composed by Gwynaire available on YouTube. It certainly captures that wistful Myst vibe, ie something that would fit on that Pure Moods CD your mum had in the car in the mid-1990s.
Neyyah is available now. While it only has a handful of Steam reviews so far, they currently sit at a 96% positive rating. “If you enjoyed Myst and Riven you are unlikely to find a closer love letter [to] those games than this,” writes user SpudGunMcGee, though BoonMike, who enjoyed the game overall, says that Neyyah’s exacting replication of Myst’s structure “remind[s] me of all the quality-of-life improvements those ’90s games don’t have.”
