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This leads to the player's becoming something akin to their family friend, and subtly integrating the player themself as a character into the world of the game by avoiding dictating the nature of the protagonist. It is also worth noting that characterization of 'The Player' (sometimes called 'The Stranger') is achieved after an interesting fashion in that the few NPCs that play a primary role, Atrus and his family, treat the main character with familiarity that develops as the series progresses. (He also created Starship Titanic, which was a game with a very similar premise IN SPACE, with snarky robots.) The late Douglas Adams, upon playing Myst, cheerfully declared the game to be a ' Beautiful Void' due to the lack of other characters or life of any kind. It has even been accused of helping to hasten the 'death' of adventure games, even though many gamers were introduced to the genre by Myst and its sequels.
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Unsurprisingly, adventure fans are heavily divided over the merits of the game, with most players falling firmly into the 'love' or 'hate' camps. Myst is famous for its mind-bending logic puzzles and lack of character interaction - most of the games feature only a handful of NPCs and very little dialogue.
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