I begin writing this review by not writing: I pick my nails; I go to the IGA; I eat a samosa chaat from Harris Park. Standing outside Pari, I find myself thinking about Tāmaki Makaurau’s 2020 lockdown and my sudden obsession with computer games. Driven by some ineffable desire, I spent hours scrolling Trade Me—Aotearoa’s superior Gumtree—for a cheap PC, just so I could run Elder Scrolls’ Morrowind, an early open-world RPG that I used to play with my cute neighbour; I installed Sims but quickly realised I could make Single Serve Scramble Eggs irl; I downloaded IMVU so that I could go virtual clubbing with friends in Germany. But the game that stuck was Myst. Released for Macintosh in 1993, Myst has no tutorial, no quest guide, no objectives, no non-player characters, no obvious source of conflict. Instead, the player is left to explore a pixelated island, from where—through a combination of logic and extreme patience—they might travel through portals to other worlds. In a locked-down city, these virtual worlds represented an intoxicating possibility.
Toyah is a writer and PhD candidate living on Gadigal land. Her latest writing can be found in Runway Journal, Cordite, and Minarets.
