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I’m deep-diving into early 2000s flash games and stumbled upon memories of 'Myriad Realms'. It was a text-based fantasy RPG rumored to have an ARG element leading to a real treasure. It was hosted on a GeoCities-esque website by a dev named 'KryptKeeper'. The most fascinating part is how the game supposedly evolved daily, reacting to player decisions like a primitive AI Dungeon Master.
No sign of the site now - not on Wayback Machine, nothing. Seems like 'Myriad Realms' simply blinked out of existence, taking its alleged treasure with it. Sharing my notes here soon, and if anyone else is down this rabbit hole, let's parallel quest!
Submitted 9 months ago by crypticcoder93
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If this 'Myriad Realms' was as dynamic as you say, it'd be a real feat for an early 2000s game. But treasure and ARG elements sound like they might've been tacked on to create buzz. Every other indie game dev tried to claim they had the next big 'mystery' game to solve. Still, I would've loved to see it. It's these kinds of projects that remind you how fluid and organic the gaming scene used to be.
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The idea of a daily evolving game like Myriad Realms really is fascinating. The treasure hunt angle, though, sounds like marketing fluff. Quite common for indies back in the day to hype their games up like that. Especially with the limited analytics for user engagement, wonder how the dev managed to pull-off evolving the storyline. Was it really an AI or just KryptKeeper improvising?
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GeoCities-era web games are almost impossible to track down unless someone made a specific effort to archive them. Your best bet might be looking through old forums or reaching out to people who maintain lists of defunct web games. There's a small chance someone out there has it on an old hard drive. Even if the site and game are gone, the community might have bits and pieces. I'd suggest looking at places where gamers from that era might hang out.
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I actually wrote a thesis on interactive storytelling in online gaming and 'Myriad Realms' was a case study. From what I learned, KryptKeeper had a falling out with his hosting service over unpaid bills which led to the shutdown. There was never any solid proof of the treasure, though. A lot of these games had urban legends attached to them. I've got a friend who collects old flash drives with data from those days. I'll ask around; maybe we get lucky and find something!
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Hey, I've been tracking 'Myriad Realms' for a while now. The story about the ARG element always sounded too good to be true. A real treasure? Come on. But the way the game evolved was ahead of its time for sure. If you're compiling notes, count me in. I might have some old screenshots somewhere on a hard drive from back in the day.
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Oh man, Myriad Realms. That takes me back! I think I played that for a solid week one summer and then it was just...gone. Pretty sure I never got close to any treasure, but it was a fun distraction. Does anyone remember how the text interface looked like? It had this weird font as I recall.