Shine, shine like an unremembered Myst clon that kinda made me who I am

For some reason I recently stumbled onto a picture in my head and had to look it up on the internet (Also: I was extremly happy to find this game on GB). Said picture did not only immediately give me the creeps but it also triggered an unprecidented nostalgia flashback. And fear. Ladies and Gentlemen here is said horrible picture:

Oh, you are not scared? Well that's probably cause you didn't play this game. To be honest, even if you did play this game you are probably not scared. But I am. Cause this game scared me so much when I played it. Even though I barled played it. But let me explain:

Shine is a Myst-like game in a weird future setting. And that is literally everything I know about this game. How can that be? Well, when this game was released I was about 8 years old. I didn't have a PC but my sister did and for some reason we had an englisch version of this game (which is CRAZY cause I'm pretty sure this game is from a german developer). If my average-at-best writting doesn't make it obvious, english is not my native language so, being a typical 8 year old, I could not understand a single word of dialog spoken in this game which, since it's a Myst like game, was probably not a great way to play it. But also since I didn't understand a word everything in this game was even scarier in my imagination. I distinctly remember walking around the dessolated town (which, according to the wiki is actually a mysterie in the game and not just budget limitations as I thought when I started writing this) thinking "Where are all the people? Why am I alone here? What is going on?" and since this was also one of my very first videogames, and the fist one set in a "realistic different" world I had absolutely no idea of what's going on and that freaked me out. I hated this game. And yet I kept playing it. Why? Partially because I only had about 3 games and you can only play Bang! Bang! aloneso many times until it gets boring. (Pro Tipp: Shoot yourself. You can remove the ground beneath you thus making it almost impossible to get hit. You are welcome. Also I'm super pleased, not only because this game is actually in the wiki but that I also remember it's name correctly). The other reason was that this game fascinated me. I wanted to explore the world, I wanted to understand what was going on. Well, obviously that never happened. Did you play Myst? I probably wouldn't be able to finish Myst even today so there was absolutely no chance I would ever, ever progress in this game, I know that I found what has to be the first puzzle in the game but never was able to solve it.

But I could explore the world and that was all I did. For hours (cause I also remember this game to be a bit confusing as well) I just walked around the creepy world, scared of everything and everyone, I'm sure there are probably only about 10-20 screens max that I could actually visit at this point but that didn't stop me from revisiting them over and over again. I'm not sure if I missremember this, but I think at some point you meet other people but since I didn't understand a word they said I didn't know if I could trust them or not. Are they the monsters? Are there even monsters in this game? Maybe? Could be. I didn't know. And not knowing anything, not knowing what could potentially happen was what creeped my out the most. Looking back it was a fascinating experience, cause I was literally exploring a completely foreign world, had no means of communication and didn't understand anything about how this world worked. Today, even if I pick up a game without knowing anything about it, I can probably piece together enough just by looking at the intro so I don't expect this experience to ever happen again. I don' really know why I just now remember this game, but and guess nobody really cares about it but I just had to write this cause man.....nostalgia hit me pretty hard. I have to admitt I kinda hope that Vinny on some UPF suddenly wipps out this game but this will probably never happen and that's probably a good thing cause...well let's just say you won't find a lot Myst Let's Plays on the internet. For a good reason.

I have to admit that I'm kinda pleased to now read, that the game was actually supposed to be scary. It's pretty obvious since the german name of the games is "Shine-Fear has a name" but until I looked it up I would have never remembered this. Also I have to ask my sister why we had an englisch version of the game, but I doubt she even remembers the game. Other then that though I couldn't really gather any information on it cause finding information on this game seems pretty hard. I hope to somehow acquire a copy of the game, just so I can play to the very first puzzle and see what I missed, what I got right and most importantly which scenes trigger flashbacks for me but this also seems kinda impossible.

I also found the intro to this game online, but I almost wasn't able to watch it. Even today it scares me too much. Seriously. And this fact alone is super fascinating. But come on that shit is fucking frightening even if you are not 8 years old, right? Right?!

So there you have it, the weird, probably incoherent and badly written thoughts on a game nobody played or cared about but me (if running around the same screens without knowing what to do counts as playing) and I would be surprised if anybody actually read it all cause...why would you? But thanks if you did. Play me out Aswad!