Remember the graphic adventure game Myst from the early 90’s? Wasn’t that just an awesome gaming experience? Sure, there were no alien, no explosions, no guns and no gore; but hell, that was half the appeal wasn’t it? If we wanted Doom, we’d play Doom. In the meantime, when we wanted a game that made us think, perform logic games, and think strategically and mathematically, this game filled the void quite well.

From a gaming standpoint, Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game that contained hundreds of beautifully rendered environments and animations. It was also a game so big that it needed a CD-ROM to play, back when many computers still didn’t have them. It spawned four sequels, along with novels, music, and even inspired a MMO experience that remains in operation to this day, thanks entirely to the support and donations of its fan community.

Well according to a recent article from Wired magazine online, a fan of this old game created their very own Living Book.Using a small display, a hard drive and a hollowed out book, creator Mike Ando was able to create a beautiful replica of the very book which is used to navigate from realm to realm (called Ages) in the game.

According to Ando: “Ever since I first played the game, I always wanted my own linking book. Of course, there was no way my old bulky 486 would fit within a book, but as time marched on technology advanced and computers became smaller. Eventually technology caught up and it was possible to shrink everything down to fit inside the book.”

Who knows? Given time and further miniaturization, not to mention flexible, paper thin displays, this might very well be the look of books in the future. Just don’t expect them to pull you into different worlds, a la the Myst game –  at least not real ones. No, that won’t happen until the technology becomes really advanced 😉