Deconstruction: MYST - Part V: The Library

While seeking out marker switches, the player may have entered the library; if not, the player will do so from later exploration, finding mostly dead ends everywhere else (interactive objects like the planetarium viewfinder appear to be pointless at this point).

"Everything is broken on this piece of $#*% island!"

If the player has not flipped any marker switches, they will find the map on the wall to be interesting, but useless for such a small island.  If the player has flipped all the marker switches it is possible to reach (the one by the clock tower is currently unreachable), then they would surely touch the blinking icon and intuitively understand that the tower is turning based on the grinding sound; the player would also notice the hitch and that the line turns red when it lands on some icons.

The player may not necessarily make the conclusion that the marker switches are connected to the interactive map, if no switches have been flipped, or if all have been.  However, if the player, on exploration, flipped a few switches, but not all, they are more likely to realize what the marker switches are for, and will flip the rest of them.

The fireplace will appear to be a strange dead end, similar to the generator room or planetarium.

However, the player will come to understand the blue and red books quickly, finding static without the nearby page placed within, and less static with it, revealing Sirrus and Achenar.  It seems clear that the men trapped inside need pages of their respective color to lessen the static and talk without interruption, at the very least.  Sirrus is calm, while Achenar is desperate, but they both urge for pages.

"We gotcher red pages, yer blue pages, whatcha need?"

The player may come to the conclusion that the brothers are trapped in those books, and need pages to get out, but it is somewhat more likely that the player will think that the books are more like videophones, at least for now, since those books do not offer flybys (as static-filled as they might be) like the book of MYST did.

In any case, Sirrus and Achenar need the player's help, yet Atrus just warned that one of them (probably Achenar, he claims) burned most of his books.  It certainly seems that Achenar is the crazier of the two.  The player may consider helping Sirrus, but he seems a little too relaxed, and keeps the door open for suspicion.

Besides the prison books, the main shelves of the library hold the books Atrus mentioned, most burned badly.  A few did survive, and they become easily identifiable by their pristine spines.

The player may read these and find them fascinating, as well as note the clues for later puzzle-solving, or the player may find them boring and think "I don't want to read when I play a game."

Now, this secondary type of player will be completely weeded out by this point, if they have not given up previously.  These four unburned books are keys to accessing nearly the entire game.

Oftentimes, in RPGs, there are big blocks of text in the gameworld, tomes the player can read for no more than background information about the world.  They are mostly flavor text, while pertinent or necessary information is mostly found in cutscenes, small pieces of text, or other non-readable format.  In MYST, the solutions to puzzles are found in diagrams in these books, not in the text itself, but even so, an impatient player would be deterred.

I think Atrus doesn't know how to write sheet music.

However, the text of these books does what it can to be entertaining apart from the content, giving mystery and intrigue that encourage the player to read them.  The journal for Channelwood, for instance, has ink in multiple colors.  The text for the Selenitic journal disappears.

The final pieces of interest in the library are the paintings, which, when touched, open and close a secret passageway behind the bookshelves.  The passage leads to the tower, which Atrus previously mentioned rotates.

Upon entering the tower, the player will explore and discover a clue opposite the window, and it is here that the player will discover the first 'real' puzzle of the game.

Read Part VI: Getting to the Mechanical Age