The music and the sound in Myst and Riven were both outstanding - absolute classics of the genre, and even more amazing given that they were an amateur effort by one of the creators, and not the work of a full-time composer or game sound designer.

There was one location in Riven where I spent about fifteen minutes listening to a short-ish music loop over and over and watching a simple atmospheric location animation, because both were just so perfect.

This really proves in the arts and creative business, it's really an individual's work that connects the souls. You can have a team of thousands of people, but if no one has any vision or creativity then their work can go straight down the toilet.

Prince of Persia and Rollercoaster Tycoon come to mind (and are apparently quite the HN darlings).

Even just the first minutes, the Cyan logo, and the introductory music, are etched into my brain. Every once in a while, despite the fact that I haven't played Myst in at least a decade, they'll just pop in my head.

I remember seeing a TV special on how they came up with the sound effects. One of them was created by something along the lines of rotating a vibrating wrench just inside a toilet bowl... and all the sound effects was stuff like that.

It was amazing learning all of that back when the game was new... and it's still a great lesson today: http://www.mystjourney.com/myst/studies/

The video has the bubbles-in-the-toilet-bowl explanation (see 7:30 onwards), along with a ton of other great nuggets.

When it's 1993 you start up the game and watch the Cyan logo....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUZ6V6CZtcg

Some of the best music ever composed for a computer game I'd argue.

I've some of the OSTs at home 'cause I liked it so much.

They're available on iTunes, FWIW. I'm especially fond of the Riven soundtrack; it's got a great meditative mood to it.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/robyn-miller/447729601