Myst for the tone deaf & the infamous keyboard problem
Laura Burchard
I've been doing Myst, and finding it considerably simpler than I expected
from reputation -- sometimes figuring out what the puzzles *are* is a bit
tricky, but the puzzles themselves have all been quite straightforward --
until I got to the space ship.
No problem getting in or figuring out what I'm supposed to do -- big
problem setting the sliders correctly. I made a stab at tone matching
which of course didn't work, and quickly went on to the counting method.
And counting. And counting. Again and again. I've done each slider a dozen
time -- many dozens for the middle three. I've now spent more time trying
to set the sliders than getting into and solving the other three worlds
combined.
I've come to the conclusion that there's tone transitions I'm just not
able to hear. No big surprise there, if you play two notes next to each
other on the piano I might not be able to tell if you are playing the same
note twice or two different ones, and I certainly won't be able to tell
you which one is higher.
I'm looking for ways around this. Is there...
A screen shot of the sliders in the correct position? I'm not sure this
will actually help, as I can't believe that I'm more than one or two notes
off even with my impairment, but it's worth a shot.
A code hack to get around this?
Or probably most useful of all -- a (win95) save of the game with the
sliders set correctly and nothing else done in the game?
I'm really finding this an irritating problem. It could have been so
easily avoided, by having the same arrow keys in the space ship as in the
planetarium. All the effort to make Myst have a simple intuitive
interface, and then they toss in something that is so dependent on fine
detail (and fine motor skill -- I swapped mouses and brought a new mouse
pad, trying to get the tiny tiny movements necessary for moving the slide
a note at a time.) I can only think that the brothers are the sort of
person who is so innately musical that they can't imagine anyone else
having any problem with the puzzle.
Random thoughts on Myst: For a person trained on Infocom, the puzzles are
amazingly painless. The only one that had me stuck for a bit was getting
out of Stoneship age, and even that was a 'yawn, it's late, I'll try a
couple more things tomorrow' sort of stuck, not a 'I've been through the
entire game three times and used every object found in every possible
place, I'm still stuck, is there a building I can throw myself off ' sort
of stuck in say, Spellbreaker :)
I don't think this is a *bad* thing, mind you. While you don't get the
rush from solving a fiendish puzzle unaided, you also don't get the hollow
feeling when you get stuck and frustrated and give in to looking for a
hint on the web (and accidentally finding answers you didn't want on the
way). I even did this a couple of times in Zork GI, and it was hardly the
most difficult of Infocom descendents.
The atmosphere is great -- the psychotic twin is really starting to
disturb me, especially after having found the little museum of death and
torture in the gear age. 'Hmm, what's in this chest--AIGH!'
Laura
--
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb
X-Review: http://traveller.simplenet.com/xfiles/episode.htm
Oscar Crabbe
See if you have the ability to reduce the mouse sensitivity by software
control, and count tones at the keyboard and at the levers. I used
Intellimouse that came with my system. I still had to adjust 1 lever by
1 tone. Remember to count base 1 at both devices. I used base 1 at the
keyboard and base zero at the levers the first time.
-Oscar
Laura Burchard <l...@radix.net> wrote in article
<68fe6m$2...@clarknet.clark.net>...
Thomas Sorauf
I used a tape recorder then matched to tones against that. That worked for
me.
T Sorauf
l...@clark.net
In article <01bd16b1$7246b1a0$b6e2...@oldcrab.netcarrier.com>,
Oscar Crabbe <old...@netcarrier.com> wrote:
>See if you have the ability to reduce the mouse sensitivity by software
>control, and count tones at the keyboard and at the levers.
That helped a bit, but what really helped was someone sent me a screen
shot of them in the right position -- I did one of my own then flipped
between them, and it was obvious what needed to be adjusted. Thanks to
everyone for their help.
One last thought on Myst (having finished it now) -- it's amazingly
melancholy in the end. You read about all these interesting people and
places and then you find out they're ALL DEAD. And all their kith and kin
horribly murdered (or worse, for the ones Achenar whacked) with them. And
those are the lucky ages that actually still exist. Cheery :)
Willem Senekal
I had to get my daughter to do the keyboard
thingy.
I do hope you are not, like me, also color-blind.
It was a problem in Riven (the underwater observatory
and the five-marble puzzle).
And you may also want to get hold of the book,
Myst - The story of Atrus to give you even more
background on the weird worlds of the D'ni and
Gehn's interference.
Willem