There was. Examples are the adventure games that were produced by Detalion (a Polish studio) (most popular ones:
- Schizm: Mysterious Journey
- Mysterious Journey II (also known under the name "Schizm II: Chameleon" and in Germany "Schizm II: Trügerische Wahrheit")
- Sentinel - Descendants In Time (also known under the name "Realms of Illusion" and in Germany "Sentinel: Verborgene Existenzen")
(To my knowledge) mainly in Germany also the RHEM series (an indie game series) had its followers.
What all these games did - in my opinion - wrong, is that they concentrated a lot on puzzle solving (often with really hard puzzles; especially about the Schizm/Mysterious Journey series some people say that you'll probably only like them if you either study mathematics or physics ;-) ) and not so much on exploring. Myst and especially Riven mainly concentrated mainly on exploring, while not so much on puzzle solving. This IMHO made the huge appeal Myst and Riven made, which other studies "didn't get".
- Schizm: Mysterious Journey
- Mysterious Journey II (also known under the name "Schizm II: Chameleon" and in Germany "Schizm II: Trügerische Wahrheit")
- Sentinel - Descendants In Time (also known under the name "Realms of Illusion" and in Germany "Sentinel: Verborgene Existenzen")
(To my knowledge) mainly in Germany also the RHEM series (an indie game series) had its followers.
What all these games did - in my opinion - wrong, is that they concentrated a lot on puzzle solving (often with really hard puzzles; especially about the Schizm/Mysterious Journey series some people say that you'll probably only like them if you either study mathematics or physics ;-) ) and not so much on exploring. Myst and especially Riven mainly concentrated mainly on exploring, while not so much on puzzle solving. This IMHO made the huge appeal Myst and Riven made, which other studies "didn't get".