Here’s a nice summary of Myst and Riven for those curious based on what Drew said (also for you Drew, since you didn’t seem to remember everything).
Atrus can create worlds inside of books because of a special type of writing he knows. He has two sons, Sirrus and Achenar. Apparently one of them went crazy one day and destroyed most of his books. As punishment, he locks them both inside specially made prisons (again created by books). Then he tears the pages out of the books so they can’t escape. He isn’t really sure which of them did it so he calls you to his island to help him determine guilt. You go to each age to get pages for each brother’s book, return them to the book and that gives you a bit more of each side of the story. Eventually as it turns out both brothers collaborated to destroy Atrus’s work because they’re assholes. If you choose to free either one of them they leave you trapped in their book. The only correct option is to go to Atrus and tell him to trust neither.
Atrus eventually calls on you again to help free his wife Catherine from the clutches of his father Gehn in the prison age Riven. Again you are also tasked you to imprison Gehn and destroy the age as it has become unstable and is basically ruined. Gehn has set himself up as a demigod to the primitive inhabitants of Riven and is just a generally shitty dude, trying to use Catherine as a bargaining chip for his own freedom. Eventually either you imprison him and rescue Catherine or he kills you. Also it is entirely possible to destroy Riven without saving Catherine or Gehn which makes Atrus very unhappy.
I love Myst for being a revolutionary puzzle game in its own right, but Riven is still one of my all time favorite games. Both favor experimentation over complex solutions, both have a story that is drip-fed between the beginning and the conclusion, and both give you the ability to make the wrong choices and fail your mission. Riven in particular is phenomenal though, as its depth was just revolutionary for its time. Instead of a traditional inventory (there is one but you don't really add to it during the game) your knowledge of the ages and experimentation used to teach you the way things work are crucial to solving puzzles (for example, in Riven you are able to find a schoolhouse that features a little wooden toy that is ostensibly used to teach kids about their numbering system. You need to learn this numbering system to solve a few puzzles, most notably to reach Gehn. This information is never just handed to you. You have to actively seek it out, discover the logic behind it, and extrapolate.
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