> The illustrations weren't _that_ brilliant on their own
The impressive part is that they weren't illustrations, they were individual renders of from 3D models of the worlds, designed, built and rendered on computers with a small fraction the processing power of my cell phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI
I think "Walk" is stretching it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst: "The player moves the character by clicking on locations shown on the screen; the scene then crossfades into another frame."
So, just like Google Streetview, with way fewer, way higher quality images.
Back to the 'rabbit out of the hat' subject: I found the 3D view in iOS maps on an iPad way more a 'rabbit' thing than I found Myst a rabbit at the time (the first city I saw it was Rome. I looked at a few others, but still think that is the best)
The impressive part is that they weren't illustrations, they were individual renders of from 3D models of the worlds, designed, built and rendered on computers with a small fraction the processing power of my cell phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94pzx_9LkVI