Hannah Gamiel’s history with Myst goes way back. Like way, way back.
“I remember sitting on my mom’s lap while she played,” she says. “I had no idea what was going on, but I remember how fondly my mom and dad felt about Myst.”
Today, Gamiel isn’t just witnessing a total remastering of the intricate, immersive world of Myst—she’s in charge of it. As development director for Spokane, Washington–based Cyan Worlds, Gamiel was instrumental in the launch of the reimagined version of Myst, our 2021 Mac Game of the Year. “My parents were very happy,” she says, laughing. “It’s come full circle.”
In many ways, Gamiel’s Myst is the same one her parents loved. “The graphics are wildly different, but we want you to feel like this is the Myst you remember playing,” says Gamiel.
That means you start on the same dock and visit the familiar realms of the original game. But you benefit from upgrades, like the ability to save screenshots to an in-game photo album (a welcome improvement over scrawling clues on note cards back in the day) and 3D free movement—no more jumping from static screen to static screen.
Myst has also been optimized for the latest hardware: Running natively on Mac with M1, the game is more beautiful than ever, taking advantage of Metal 2.1 and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution to play at 30 fps in 4K resolution.
Though Gamiel was introduced to Myst as a child, she didn’t actually play the game until college. After graduation, she landed an internship in the QA department at Cyan, and was later hired as a full-time software engineer, handling audio for games like Obduction.
After a brief break, she was lured back to Cyan by none other than brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, inventors of the original Myst. “I couldn’t say no to that,” she says. (There was a family connection too: Rand is her stepfather.) “Hannah really jumped into the industry with both feet,” Rand says. “When it was time to decide, ‘OK, how do we transition Myst to this new thing, where does this go?’ we brought back Hannah and Eric Anderson, our creative director. And on so many fronts, they’ve helped the company turn a corner.”
There were, of course, challenges in re-creating a title that’s held a special place in fans’ hearts for almost three decades. “We had a lot of tough conversations with Rand and Robyn,” Gamiel says. “What would they be comfortable changing? What would the fan base—which is very attached to what Myst means to them—say?” But in the end, she and her team got the ultimate stamp of approval from the original inventors.
“It was a very satisfying experience, this many years later, to step back into it,” says Robyn. “The Selenitic Age in particular is beautiful; the colors are spectacular.” (There’s another full-circle aspect here: Robyn has been playing the remake with his 10-year-old daughter, rediscovering challenges and worlds through a new set of eyes.)
Robyn’s praise isn’t lost on Gamiel. “It feels really good to do the game justice. Of course you want to make everybody happy—but when you see the original creators be really proud of what was made, you know you’re doing something right.”
In the end, the revamp serves to both bring the magic of Myst to a new generation and give longtime fans a fresh take—without losing the magic of the original. “People can decompress in an environment that’s not attacking or intimidating them. I think they’ll get that same feeling again, where they can get lost in a world and know that it’s going to be OK,” she says. “You’ll make it out eventually,” she adds, laughing.