I'm not a game player but I'll check out Myst, and I appreciate the suggestion of the Difference Engine, which has been on my list for a while. At the Maker Fair going on right now in San Mateo, a number of the people featured in this blog have items on display!

Gene, if you are an SF reader, and interested in steampunk, then pick up a copy of William Gibson's and Bruce Sterling's novel "The DIfference Engine". It's a great introduction into the tropes of that genre.

This article looks just like my bookmarks on my browser. Look also to shows like Max Headroom, Terry Gilliam's work, Brisco County Jr, The Wild, Wild West, the movie Dune (more the Lynch version than the Sci-Fi Channel version), Dinotopia (the books and the TV movie), the works of HR Giger, et al. They fall under a category of artwork I call "Techno Obscura" or "Modern Noir" which includes film, TV, and illustrative artworks marked by ad hoc technological developments which utilize deprecated or archaic devices and implements to accomplish current and more advanced technologies. For example, ancient typewriters used as keyboards crudely attached to loose computer equipment in Max Headroom or the mish-mash of technologies in the Millennium Falcon. It's like a world full of Rube Goldberg-type machines. Maybe i should write a wiki page on it...hmmm.