It kinda strikes me as endearing how completely off-script of a parody this is when juxtaposed with the actual Myst. Like, yeah, it's a parody of the game and uses its assets to poke fun at the fantastical whimsy of a techno-fantasy island, but it seems like the creators of this game saw fit to jam in the firey angst present in any amount of 90's alternative mindset or media aimed directly at mass media and out-of-touch establishments. The initially pristine island turned into a kaleidoscope of trash and marketing, almost entirely wrung into utilitarian capitalist mayhem, voices from the filthy mass of posters and derelict trailers. It's absolutely poor-taste in points though, a level of deep-seated misanthropy cast to all sides- I particularly didn't like the king character, played by John Goodman, and his one bit for the game's ending. Beyond it and many a poop joke, it's 15 minutes of gameplay where most of it is reading out posters and listening to audio.
It feels as though, by nature of its manufacturing as a CD-ROM and thus its contribution to the wider megapile of computer game diaspora, its existence almost necessarily plays out in such a way that feels more warranted and tasteful than the stuff that Newgrounds and such would call parody in its wake. Whether it's enough is another story, but I can tell its creation was not in total, unequivocable hatred for the game despite the literal trash made out of it. There is something else to be said beyond that Myst as a concept is silly, and for that I think it's somewhat of a league more respectable than the stuff born purely out of cynicism and nothing else.
It feels as though, by nature of its manufacturing as a CD-ROM and thus its contribution to the wider megapile of computer game diaspora, its existence almost necessarily plays out in such a way that feels more warranted and tasteful than the stuff that Newgrounds and such would call parody in its wake. Whether it's enough is another story, but I can tell its creation was not in total, unequivocable hatred for the game despite the literal trash made out of it. There is something else to be said beyond that Myst as a concept is silly, and for that I think it's somewhat of a league more respectable than the stuff born purely out of cynicism and nothing else.
Spent more time trying to set up DOSBox to play this than I did actually playing it and it still goes on way too long. Fecal funny.
đ
     âThe critical point of withdrawal is not the early phase of acute sickness, but the final step free from the medium of junk....â
     â William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 1959.
Played during the Backloggdâs Game of the Week (30th May â 5th Jun., 2023).
Subverting Myst (1993) is an exercise in simplicity. Despite its legendary status, the Miller brothers' title was filled with a certain modesty compared to the mainstream production of the time. Its abstract narrative and minimalist interactions lent themselves to the contemplation of an island whose contours were easy to grasp. This approach was facilitated by Sunsoft, who asked the Millers to produce a more mature title than their earlier children's games, such as Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel (1989) and Spelunx and the Caves of Mr Seudo (1991). A parody of such a classic title makes sense, as it turns the original concept of Myst on its head, capturing a universe whose interpretation was left up to the player. Parroty Interactive teamed up with Peter Bergman, a member of Firesign Theatre, to take on this challenge.
The radio comedy troupe Firesign Theatre is an institution of American absurdist production. Critical of presidencies from Nixon to Reagan, whose election came as a hammer blow to the group, Firesign Theatre has always placed its productions within a complex political spectrum, seeking to be clear-eyed witnesses to events in the modern United States. In Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968), the group criticised the hippie counterculture's fascination with indigenous people, comparing it to historical American colonialism and equating it with a form of white supremacy. The Firesign Theatre was never really a counterculture â at least the group repeatedly refused to be called one â but it did seek to contribute to public debate, rather than sinking into a social pessimism that could not be heard by the general public. Indeed, David McCarthy contrasts their method, 'firmly anchored in the present [and] from a position inside history' [1], with that of Daphne Oram.
Firesign Theatre's approach was also highly referential, playing with the radio medium to create a poetic contrast between the old-fashioned quality of the recording and the modern content of their albums. The sound is sometimes deliberately drowned in white noise, sometimes in discordant filters. The intonation is at times inspired by evangelical prosody, at others by television culture. This network of references creates a unique depth and holds the listener's attention with stylistically and aurally unexpected passages. As a direct parody of Myst, one might expect the same techniques to be found in P.Y.S.T.: to a certain extent, they are. However, the title sinks into a certain complacency and fails to create a structure as chiseled as Firesign Theatre's audio productions.
Myst's gameplay was particularly contemplative and uncluttered, with simple, open decors. P.Y.S.T., with its deliberately grimy art direction, is drowned out by excessive detail, and the few interactions that do take place leave the player largely passive. Because the various audio recordings are only played after clicking on the appropriate element on the screen, the game is often immersed in an unproductive silence: the complex layers of sound and fluid narrative of Firesign Theatre are a long way off. While the title retains a critical spirit, attacks on the punk counterculture and the USSR take precedence over those on rampant capitalism and television. Watching the various TV mini-sketches in the Garden becomes a chore, as does the horoscope parody in the Planetarium, which has been repurposed as a gruesome doctor's office. The humour in P.Y.S.T. is generally heavy-handed, dated and borderline offensive.
The undoubtedly disappointing aspect of the title is how far it is from being a no-budget amateur production. On the contrary, the behind-the-scenes parody shows very well equipped studios and a large crew. John Goodman even plays King Mattruss. While the irreverence of P.Y.S.T. may not be a problem, the dissonance between gameplay and world-building is underwhelming. While Firesign Theatre's productions have always been chaotic, this game parody simply lacks coherence and purpose. By contrast, Zork: Grand Inquisitor (1997), a return to a humorous formula after the very serious Zork Nemesis (1996), was far more competent in its writing and made far better use of its prestigious cast and radiophonic tradition, delivering a genuine point-n-click experience.
__________
[1] David McCarthy, ââAttitudes Toward Historyâ and the Radiophonic Compositions of Daphne Oram and the Firesign Theatreâ, in Jarmila Mildorf, Pim Verhulst (ed.), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020, p. 81.
     â William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 1959.
Played during the Backloggdâs Game of the Week (30th May â 5th Jun., 2023).
Subverting Myst (1993) is an exercise in simplicity. Despite its legendary status, the Miller brothers' title was filled with a certain modesty compared to the mainstream production of the time. Its abstract narrative and minimalist interactions lent themselves to the contemplation of an island whose contours were easy to grasp. This approach was facilitated by Sunsoft, who asked the Millers to produce a more mature title than their earlier children's games, such as Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel (1989) and Spelunx and the Caves of Mr Seudo (1991). A parody of such a classic title makes sense, as it turns the original concept of Myst on its head, capturing a universe whose interpretation was left up to the player. Parroty Interactive teamed up with Peter Bergman, a member of Firesign Theatre, to take on this challenge.
The radio comedy troupe Firesign Theatre is an institution of American absurdist production. Critical of presidencies from Nixon to Reagan, whose election came as a hammer blow to the group, Firesign Theatre has always placed its productions within a complex political spectrum, seeking to be clear-eyed witnesses to events in the modern United States. In Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968), the group criticised the hippie counterculture's fascination with indigenous people, comparing it to historical American colonialism and equating it with a form of white supremacy. The Firesign Theatre was never really a counterculture â at least the group repeatedly refused to be called one â but it did seek to contribute to public debate, rather than sinking into a social pessimism that could not be heard by the general public. Indeed, David McCarthy contrasts their method, 'firmly anchored in the present [and] from a position inside history' [1], with that of Daphne Oram.
Firesign Theatre's approach was also highly referential, playing with the radio medium to create a poetic contrast between the old-fashioned quality of the recording and the modern content of their albums. The sound is sometimes deliberately drowned in white noise, sometimes in discordant filters. The intonation is at times inspired by evangelical prosody, at others by television culture. This network of references creates a unique depth and holds the listener's attention with stylistically and aurally unexpected passages. As a direct parody of Myst, one might expect the same techniques to be found in P.Y.S.T.: to a certain extent, they are. However, the title sinks into a certain complacency and fails to create a structure as chiseled as Firesign Theatre's audio productions.
Myst's gameplay was particularly contemplative and uncluttered, with simple, open decors. P.Y.S.T., with its deliberately grimy art direction, is drowned out by excessive detail, and the few interactions that do take place leave the player largely passive. Because the various audio recordings are only played after clicking on the appropriate element on the screen, the game is often immersed in an unproductive silence: the complex layers of sound and fluid narrative of Firesign Theatre are a long way off. While the title retains a critical spirit, attacks on the punk counterculture and the USSR take precedence over those on rampant capitalism and television. Watching the various TV mini-sketches in the Garden becomes a chore, as does the horoscope parody in the Planetarium, which has been repurposed as a gruesome doctor's office. The humour in P.Y.S.T. is generally heavy-handed, dated and borderline offensive.
The undoubtedly disappointing aspect of the title is how far it is from being a no-budget amateur production. On the contrary, the behind-the-scenes parody shows very well equipped studios and a large crew. John Goodman even plays King Mattruss. While the irreverence of P.Y.S.T. may not be a problem, the dissonance between gameplay and world-building is underwhelming. While Firesign Theatre's productions have always been chaotic, this game parody simply lacks coherence and purpose. By contrast, Zork: Grand Inquisitor (1997), a return to a humorous formula after the very serious Zork Nemesis (1996), was far more competent in its writing and made far better use of its prestigious cast and radiophonic tradition, delivering a genuine point-n-click experience.
__________
[1] David McCarthy, ââAttitudes Toward Historyâ and the Radiophonic Compositions of Daphne Oram and the Firesign Theatreâ, in Jarmila Mildorf, Pim Verhulst (ed.), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020, p. 81.
One day, when they have run out of shit to nostalgia bait us with, they will have to go searching deep. Deep in the ancient ruins of a warehouse in California, a disc will be found, and upon that mighty circular artifact will be the writings of PYST. Knowing that they have landed the jackpot, the Future Media Conglomerate will set off creating the newest hit universe. There will be PYST limited series, PYST movies, and most importantly, PYST video games. They will all stay extremely faithful to the charming 1990's style and will even resurrect John Goodman with AI and CGI! Sadly, it will be a huge flop just as it was in 1996 because the world doesn't want media that shows the utter decay of such a beautiful landscape, mirroring the dystopia they live in. I know, however, that if I was alive in such a time, that I would be clapping my hands and wiggling all 8 of my oversized toes to get my hands on PYST 2: RePyst.
The only funny part of this "comedy" "game" is seeing John Goodman's horribly cropped body in the hot tub at the end
I can't believe they managed to mess up a parody of Myst. Not a single funny line in this.
Terrible. A slideshow that you can get through in 15 minutes and none of the jokes work. That said, it's fascinating and I also recommend the Making of Pyst video that's available on Youtube. It feels like a fever dream
Played for Backloggdâs Game of the Week on the Discord (30th May â 5th Jun., 2023)
I remember first hearing about Pyst a long time ago and thinking the initial concept was a potentially strong one; after years of people playing it, with a good number of people getting frustrated at the puzzles, Myst Island is now become a filthy ruin. I thought that would be amusing, especially because I was never much a fan of Myst because I think its puzzles suck and always stalled out playing the game early on ever since childhood. Too bad that the game squanders that entire concept almost instantly. This is mainly because itâs such a shallow parody of the game, it really feels like the devs just ran around Myst Island for like twenty minutes and didnât play much farther, its especially telling because they donât use anything from the actual Ages, just locations on Myst Island that are mostly open to the player from the start. The game also doesnât really make fun of the puzzles, probably as I said, because the devs probably didnât get very far in the game so all there is mainly the most humdrum 90âs âcomedyâ you can think of. Crunchy granola people sure are annoying right, guys?! Oh hereâs an X-Files reference out of nowhere! You see heâs the Prince Formerly Known as Prince, hilarious! The plot point of you getting guided around the island by two corpo reps before it gets bulldozed for a luxury resort is a decent one and I feel those parts were the closest things to actual satire.
The gameplay is barely there as you donât even get to explore a 3D version of Pyst Island, you just have still images of postcards of locations around the island. Thereâs some Humongous Entertainment style interactibles you can click on but theyâre just so half-assed in comparison. The game also just unceremoniously stops with no real ending, you just get to the cabin area with John Goodmanâs character of King Mattress in the hot tub and you just have to quit the game yourself. The game mainly feels so forced and passionless, like the only person I felt who was having a great time was John Goodman. Goodmanâs enthusiasm buoys the game a bit, especially when it comes to the main theme of the game, âIâm PYSTâ, which he sings and is the only genuinely fun thing about the game.
I am sucker for a 90âs PC multimedia oddities, but Pyst just ainât that good. I would still like an actual good parody of Myst though. Give me Pyst: Masterpyst Edition made by devs who are actually funny please.
I remember first hearing about Pyst a long time ago and thinking the initial concept was a potentially strong one; after years of people playing it, with a good number of people getting frustrated at the puzzles, Myst Island is now become a filthy ruin. I thought that would be amusing, especially because I was never much a fan of Myst because I think its puzzles suck and always stalled out playing the game early on ever since childhood. Too bad that the game squanders that entire concept almost instantly. This is mainly because itâs such a shallow parody of the game, it really feels like the devs just ran around Myst Island for like twenty minutes and didnât play much farther, its especially telling because they donât use anything from the actual Ages, just locations on Myst Island that are mostly open to the player from the start. The game also doesnât really make fun of the puzzles, probably as I said, because the devs probably didnât get very far in the game so all there is mainly the most humdrum 90âs âcomedyâ you can think of. Crunchy granola people sure are annoying right, guys?! Oh hereâs an X-Files reference out of nowhere! You see heâs the Prince Formerly Known as Prince, hilarious! The plot point of you getting guided around the island by two corpo reps before it gets bulldozed for a luxury resort is a decent one and I feel those parts were the closest things to actual satire.
The gameplay is barely there as you donât even get to explore a 3D version of Pyst Island, you just have still images of postcards of locations around the island. Thereâs some Humongous Entertainment style interactibles you can click on but theyâre just so half-assed in comparison. The game also just unceremoniously stops with no real ending, you just get to the cabin area with John Goodmanâs character of King Mattress in the hot tub and you just have to quit the game yourself. The game mainly feels so forced and passionless, like the only person I felt who was having a great time was John Goodman. Goodmanâs enthusiasm buoys the game a bit, especially when it comes to the main theme of the game, âIâm PYSTâ, which he sings and is the only genuinely fun thing about the game.
I am sucker for a 90âs PC multimedia oddities, but Pyst just ainât that good. I would still like an actual good parody of Myst though. Give me Pyst: Masterpyst Edition made by devs who are actually funny please.
Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2022/04/14/pyst-review-retrospective/
Like anything else that gained massive popularity, there were the inevitable parodies of and jokes at Myst. And probably the most infamous parody of Myst takes the form of the creatively bankrupt Pyst. Written by Peter Bergman, one of the co-founders of the Firesign Theatre, and published by Parroty Interactive in 1996 (Get it? Because âParrotyâ sounds like parody and they produced nothing but parody games), a whole three years after the release of Myst. And considering how lackluster that this âparodyâ is, thatâs a little late to the party.
There isnât really a plot to Pyst so much as there are jokes that your dad or uncle would make about something that theyâve only heard about because it was the big thing at the time. Well, I say jokes, but itâs more like a joke, singular, and that one joke is âWhat if 4 million people actually DID visit the island of Myst?â, which is how many copies that Myst had sold when this âparodyâ was released. And the incredibly obvious punchline to that incredibly obvious joke is that the island would obviously be trashed by the millions of people who tried Myst because it was popular, got frustrated at the puzzles, and gave up and just started trashing the place.
Apparently Peter Bergman along with the rest of the team at Parroty Interactive thought that this single joke was so incredibly funny that they thought they could press it to a CD and shit out to store shelves for money. And this was long before someone could easily dump their game onto any digital storefront was available at the time, in which you had to actually invest time and money to get your video game out. In any other game, a joke at the expense of Myst would either be a brief joke in an out of the way line of dialogue or note somewhere or a brief section of the game, not making a whole game based on a very limited joke.
The game actually begins with a narrator joking about how he fell into a manhole and accidentally landed onto the island of Pyst. I would assume that this is a reference to Cyanâs previous game called âThe Manholeâ, but considering how the rest of the game is, Iâm pretty sure itâs less of a reference and more of a joke that the developers thought was funny.
Once you land on Pyst Island, youâre greeted by a trashed version of the original Myst Island, graffiti covering every surface, trash strewn all over the place and anything that wasnât bolted down being torn up. Thereâs even a trailer park filled with trailers and porta-potties along with a giant TV called the âMumbo Jumbo-Tronâ plopped right in the middle of Pyst Island. And the game quickly makes it obvious just how much of a one-note joke the whole thing.
But getting around in Pyst isnât the same as getting around in Myst. Instead of the Island being presented with still images like in Myst, where you click on certain parts of the screen to explore the game, Pyst presents each image as a postcard and 99% of the âgameplayâ is pressing on something and watching an incredibly short âfunnyâ animation.
When youâre not clicking around the screen to see what moves, you can either click the top or bottom of the screen to see a message on the back of the postcard, with each postcard coming with two handwritten messages, one for the top or bottom. And this is where the few jokes that the âgameâ relies on quickly gets driven into the ground and becomes irritating really quickly, with whoever wrote the message complaining about how hard the puzzles are or how trashed the island is because of itâs popularity. To move from screen to screen, you just click on the right to get to the next postcard and the left to get the previous postcard. Which is extra amusing (or baffling on your point of view) since the first time you move to another area is when you move from the dock to the room with the holographic machine you have to click right despite it being located to the left of you when you first land on Pyst Island.
Each postcard does come with a speaker on the bottom right that has an announcement from the âOctoplex Corporation Tour Guideâ, with each announcement talking about buying out Pyst Island and changing it into a popular resort, including adding beaches and mini-golf to the Island. I have no idea is this was poking fun at the rumors of Disney making an actual attraction based on the original Myst before it got canned, or just a generic joke about giant companies jumping on trends and riding them until theyâve milked it dry and Iâm just retroactively justifying it in my brain and making the game more interesting than it is.
So basically the game is filled to the brim with lowbrow jokes that Iâm pretty sure were âedgyâ in the 90s, but are so incredibly lame and played out that the only other place that youâre going to hear them is a bad joke book and your uncle who told you a joke once when you were 7 that made you laugh and has been telling you bad jokes ever since because he got that one reaction out of you.
Surprisingly, the game also features Full Motion Video with live action actors just like the original Myst. Honestly, with just how lazy the introduction to the game was, I just assumed that the whole game would have been simple still images.
On the second screen, or postcard, a parody of the room featuring the holographic machine from the original game, we get out first look at the FMV with the three characters parodying the three characters from the original game. This includes Prince Syrrup, who is overwhelmed by the amount of people coming to the island and was entirely based around the world syrup sounding funny, the character named âThe Prince Formerly Known As Princeâ, a self-absorbed stereotype based on musical artist Prince and only here because someone thought the name was âThe Prince Formerly Known As Princeâ was clever, and King Mattrus, played by, of all people, John Goodman, king of the game and Pyst Island.
You read that right, John Goodman in this game, and heâs the best thing about the game, if only because of his charm and enthusiasm. At least I know where all of the budget went. But the absolute highlight of getting John Goodman to be in this game is that he sings the lyrics to the song âIâm Pystâ, which you can either play by selecting it one of the menus in the game, or by putting it into your CD player. Itâs incredibly catchy and I could actually see myself listening to it outside of the game.
And you might ask yourself, âIf Pyst is making fun of Myst, then how does it make fun of itâs puzzles?â, and the answer to that question is that it doesnât. Instead of poking fun at the puzzles in Myst, Pyst instead just makes fun at the people who visited Myst Island finding the puzzles of Myst being too hard. There isnât even an attempt to make fun of the puzzles of Myst. And everything I described about interacting with the game, clicking on stuff to get an incredibly brief animation, flipping over the postcard to see what the messages are on the back of the card, and them moving on is the entirety of the interaction with the game.
Adventure games aimed at children at the time had more interactivity than this. Just look at any of the games that Humongous Entertainment was putting out. All of the interactivity in Pyst would have been amusing interactive objects in the background of any of Humongous Entertainmentâs games. Even Myst, the very game that this was parodying, had more interactivity, and it was criticized heavily by hardcore adventure game fans for âdumbing down the genreâ. Myst had a variety of puzzles to solve, where this is just clicking on a few random things and getting a fart joke. Both âPajama Sam: No Need to Hide When Itâs Dark Outsideâ and âFreddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouseâ and even Edutainment games like âLogical Journey of the Zoombinisâ and âChill Manonâ (the sequel to âI.M. Meenâ) were released the same year as Pyst, along with multiple âPutt-Puttâ and âFreddi Fishâ mini-game collections that have just as much interactivity as this game, and are meant for kinder-gardeners.
Thatâs right, there is no gameplay to Pyst. If Myst was criticized at the time by dedicated adventure game fans for both dumbing down adventure games so that even your grandmother can enjoy it, then Pyst has no gameplay at all. Sure, you can click on a few things, but thatâs not gameplay. And the whole thing takes about an hour at most to get through and has no replay value. It still took me an hour to get through the original Myst when I was replaying it, and thatâs with me knowing the solution to all of the puzzles and knowing exactly where to go. And itâs not like the jokes in Pyst were so gut busting that itâs worth playing it a second time.
But then again, if Pyst did have puzzles, they wouldnât have lead anywhere like the ones in the original Myst because Pyst features Myst Island and ONLY Myst Island. The original game had several places you could visit beyond the initial island. Which means one of three things happened. One, the development team got stuck on these puzzles and just decided to wing it with what they had.
Two, the development team quickly ran out of material before they could make fun of the other areas of the game, and considering that you canât even visit all of Myst Island, with there only being 10 postcards in total for a place with several locations with multiple screens, is completely embarrassing. And three of these screens are on the back of the box, so youâve seen a giant chunk of the game even before buying it.
Or three, which is the most likely, the development team just jumped onto whatever was popular at the time, which would become more blatant as Parroty Interactive, the developers who made this game, went on to make more âgamesâ.
However there is exactly one good joke in the game, and itâs about the adventure genre as a whole, and that is a joke making fun at how older adventure games used to use words to interact with environment, such as âLookâ, âUseâ, and âSpeakâ, and presents it as the building blocks of the language of interaction in video games. And Iâm pretty sure itâs entirely accidental considering how the rest of the jokes turned out.
If youâre going to jump on the popularity of something, you could at least make jokes specifically about what youâre making fun of. Imagine if the game made fun of the maze in the Selenitic Age by having something that completely skips over it that somehow everyone missed, or the rotating fortress in the Mechanical Age having an âOverkillâ mode that spins it so fast that it makes you puke. Stuff thatâs still incredibly obvious and low hanging fruit, but at least interesting and with some variety.
Just like the original Myst, Pyst comes with a âMaking Ofâ video. In the same vein with the game, the making of video is filled with jokes mixed in with a few highlights on how the game was made. Itâs neat, but itâs more of a video of the developers having fun while making the game rather than being informative.
And the cherry on top the sundae is the credits, which have more people listed than the original Myst did. Thatâs right, the original Myst, a game that not only helped the gaming industry move from floppies to the CD-ROM, got more computers into peoples homes, and was more visually impressive, had less people working on it despite having more content. If a couple of people can end up making something like Myst at a time when not only making a video game was a lot more difficult than it is these days but getting it onto shelves, then Pyst is looking pretty shallow in comparison.
There was even going to be a sequel to Pyst called âDriven: The Sequel to Pyst.â, which a demo of it was included on later versions of Pyst. But due to the company going under, for some pretty obvious reasons, so that never came out.
In retrospect, was Pyst good? No, of course not, it was a product meant to jump onto a fad, and even if it had a few things going for it, itâs not really worth visiting unless youâre a hardcore Myst fan. The only thing the game had going for it was that it was $15 when it was released, which clearly shows that even the creators of this game knew how little they had on their hands. We could have had a game poking fun of adventure game tropes as told through a Myst parody and what we got was a few mildly funny jokes quickly worn out.
The creators of Myst seemed to be amused by this game, and they even have a copy of it in their vault over at âCyan, Incâ so clearly they had no hard feelings about it. So clearly this isnât worth getting annoyed over.
Like anything else that gained massive popularity, there were the inevitable parodies of and jokes at Myst. And probably the most infamous parody of Myst takes the form of the creatively bankrupt Pyst. Written by Peter Bergman, one of the co-founders of the Firesign Theatre, and published by Parroty Interactive in 1996 (Get it? Because âParrotyâ sounds like parody and they produced nothing but parody games), a whole three years after the release of Myst. And considering how lackluster that this âparodyâ is, thatâs a little late to the party.
There isnât really a plot to Pyst so much as there are jokes that your dad or uncle would make about something that theyâve only heard about because it was the big thing at the time. Well, I say jokes, but itâs more like a joke, singular, and that one joke is âWhat if 4 million people actually DID visit the island of Myst?â, which is how many copies that Myst had sold when this âparodyâ was released. And the incredibly obvious punchline to that incredibly obvious joke is that the island would obviously be trashed by the millions of people who tried Myst because it was popular, got frustrated at the puzzles, and gave up and just started trashing the place.
Apparently Peter Bergman along with the rest of the team at Parroty Interactive thought that this single joke was so incredibly funny that they thought they could press it to a CD and shit out to store shelves for money. And this was long before someone could easily dump their game onto any digital storefront was available at the time, in which you had to actually invest time and money to get your video game out. In any other game, a joke at the expense of Myst would either be a brief joke in an out of the way line of dialogue or note somewhere or a brief section of the game, not making a whole game based on a very limited joke.
The game actually begins with a narrator joking about how he fell into a manhole and accidentally landed onto the island of Pyst. I would assume that this is a reference to Cyanâs previous game called âThe Manholeâ, but considering how the rest of the game is, Iâm pretty sure itâs less of a reference and more of a joke that the developers thought was funny.
Once you land on Pyst Island, youâre greeted by a trashed version of the original Myst Island, graffiti covering every surface, trash strewn all over the place and anything that wasnât bolted down being torn up. Thereâs even a trailer park filled with trailers and porta-potties along with a giant TV called the âMumbo Jumbo-Tronâ plopped right in the middle of Pyst Island. And the game quickly makes it obvious just how much of a one-note joke the whole thing.
But getting around in Pyst isnât the same as getting around in Myst. Instead of the Island being presented with still images like in Myst, where you click on certain parts of the screen to explore the game, Pyst presents each image as a postcard and 99% of the âgameplayâ is pressing on something and watching an incredibly short âfunnyâ animation.
When youâre not clicking around the screen to see what moves, you can either click the top or bottom of the screen to see a message on the back of the postcard, with each postcard coming with two handwritten messages, one for the top or bottom. And this is where the few jokes that the âgameâ relies on quickly gets driven into the ground and becomes irritating really quickly, with whoever wrote the message complaining about how hard the puzzles are or how trashed the island is because of itâs popularity. To move from screen to screen, you just click on the right to get to the next postcard and the left to get the previous postcard. Which is extra amusing (or baffling on your point of view) since the first time you move to another area is when you move from the dock to the room with the holographic machine you have to click right despite it being located to the left of you when you first land on Pyst Island.
Each postcard does come with a speaker on the bottom right that has an announcement from the âOctoplex Corporation Tour Guideâ, with each announcement talking about buying out Pyst Island and changing it into a popular resort, including adding beaches and mini-golf to the Island. I have no idea is this was poking fun at the rumors of Disney making an actual attraction based on the original Myst before it got canned, or just a generic joke about giant companies jumping on trends and riding them until theyâve milked it dry and Iâm just retroactively justifying it in my brain and making the game more interesting than it is.
So basically the game is filled to the brim with lowbrow jokes that Iâm pretty sure were âedgyâ in the 90s, but are so incredibly lame and played out that the only other place that youâre going to hear them is a bad joke book and your uncle who told you a joke once when you were 7 that made you laugh and has been telling you bad jokes ever since because he got that one reaction out of you.
Surprisingly, the game also features Full Motion Video with live action actors just like the original Myst. Honestly, with just how lazy the introduction to the game was, I just assumed that the whole game would have been simple still images.
On the second screen, or postcard, a parody of the room featuring the holographic machine from the original game, we get out first look at the FMV with the three characters parodying the three characters from the original game. This includes Prince Syrrup, who is overwhelmed by the amount of people coming to the island and was entirely based around the world syrup sounding funny, the character named âThe Prince Formerly Known As Princeâ, a self-absorbed stereotype based on musical artist Prince and only here because someone thought the name was âThe Prince Formerly Known As Princeâ was clever, and King Mattrus, played by, of all people, John Goodman, king of the game and Pyst Island.
You read that right, John Goodman in this game, and heâs the best thing about the game, if only because of his charm and enthusiasm. At least I know where all of the budget went. But the absolute highlight of getting John Goodman to be in this game is that he sings the lyrics to the song âIâm Pystâ, which you can either play by selecting it one of the menus in the game, or by putting it into your CD player. Itâs incredibly catchy and I could actually see myself listening to it outside of the game.
And you might ask yourself, âIf Pyst is making fun of Myst, then how does it make fun of itâs puzzles?â, and the answer to that question is that it doesnât. Instead of poking fun at the puzzles in Myst, Pyst instead just makes fun at the people who visited Myst Island finding the puzzles of Myst being too hard. There isnât even an attempt to make fun of the puzzles of Myst. And everything I described about interacting with the game, clicking on stuff to get an incredibly brief animation, flipping over the postcard to see what the messages are on the back of the card, and them moving on is the entirety of the interaction with the game.
Adventure games aimed at children at the time had more interactivity than this. Just look at any of the games that Humongous Entertainment was putting out. All of the interactivity in Pyst would have been amusing interactive objects in the background of any of Humongous Entertainmentâs games. Even Myst, the very game that this was parodying, had more interactivity, and it was criticized heavily by hardcore adventure game fans for âdumbing down the genreâ. Myst had a variety of puzzles to solve, where this is just clicking on a few random things and getting a fart joke. Both âPajama Sam: No Need to Hide When Itâs Dark Outsideâ and âFreddi Fish 2: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouseâ and even Edutainment games like âLogical Journey of the Zoombinisâ and âChill Manonâ (the sequel to âI.M. Meenâ) were released the same year as Pyst, along with multiple âPutt-Puttâ and âFreddi Fishâ mini-game collections that have just as much interactivity as this game, and are meant for kinder-gardeners.
Thatâs right, there is no gameplay to Pyst. If Myst was criticized at the time by dedicated adventure game fans for both dumbing down adventure games so that even your grandmother can enjoy it, then Pyst has no gameplay at all. Sure, you can click on a few things, but thatâs not gameplay. And the whole thing takes about an hour at most to get through and has no replay value. It still took me an hour to get through the original Myst when I was replaying it, and thatâs with me knowing the solution to all of the puzzles and knowing exactly where to go. And itâs not like the jokes in Pyst were so gut busting that itâs worth playing it a second time.
But then again, if Pyst did have puzzles, they wouldnât have lead anywhere like the ones in the original Myst because Pyst features Myst Island and ONLY Myst Island. The original game had several places you could visit beyond the initial island. Which means one of three things happened. One, the development team got stuck on these puzzles and just decided to wing it with what they had.
Two, the development team quickly ran out of material before they could make fun of the other areas of the game, and considering that you canât even visit all of Myst Island, with there only being 10 postcards in total for a place with several locations with multiple screens, is completely embarrassing. And three of these screens are on the back of the box, so youâve seen a giant chunk of the game even before buying it.
Or three, which is the most likely, the development team just jumped onto whatever was popular at the time, which would become more blatant as Parroty Interactive, the developers who made this game, went on to make more âgamesâ.
However there is exactly one good joke in the game, and itâs about the adventure genre as a whole, and that is a joke making fun at how older adventure games used to use words to interact with environment, such as âLookâ, âUseâ, and âSpeakâ, and presents it as the building blocks of the language of interaction in video games. And Iâm pretty sure itâs entirely accidental considering how the rest of the jokes turned out.
If youâre going to jump on the popularity of something, you could at least make jokes specifically about what youâre making fun of. Imagine if the game made fun of the maze in the Selenitic Age by having something that completely skips over it that somehow everyone missed, or the rotating fortress in the Mechanical Age having an âOverkillâ mode that spins it so fast that it makes you puke. Stuff thatâs still incredibly obvious and low hanging fruit, but at least interesting and with some variety.
Just like the original Myst, Pyst comes with a âMaking Ofâ video. In the same vein with the game, the making of video is filled with jokes mixed in with a few highlights on how the game was made. Itâs neat, but itâs more of a video of the developers having fun while making the game rather than being informative.
And the cherry on top the sundae is the credits, which have more people listed than the original Myst did. Thatâs right, the original Myst, a game that not only helped the gaming industry move from floppies to the CD-ROM, got more computers into peoples homes, and was more visually impressive, had less people working on it despite having more content. If a couple of people can end up making something like Myst at a time when not only making a video game was a lot more difficult than it is these days but getting it onto shelves, then Pyst is looking pretty shallow in comparison.
There was even going to be a sequel to Pyst called âDriven: The Sequel to Pyst.â, which a demo of it was included on later versions of Pyst. But due to the company going under, for some pretty obvious reasons, so that never came out.
In retrospect, was Pyst good? No, of course not, it was a product meant to jump onto a fad, and even if it had a few things going for it, itâs not really worth visiting unless youâre a hardcore Myst fan. The only thing the game had going for it was that it was $15 when it was released, which clearly shows that even the creators of this game knew how little they had on their hands. We could have had a game poking fun of adventure game tropes as told through a Myst parody and what we got was a few mildly funny jokes quickly worn out.
The creators of Myst seemed to be amused by this game, and they even have a copy of it in their vault over at âCyan, Incâ so clearly they had no hard feelings about it. So clearly this isnât worth getting annoyed over.
I've spent some time trying to find this game. At some point i just got tired and decided to watch a gameplay on youtube instead. The video was very short but i still couldn't finish it because of how bad it was. Seriously not a single funny joke at all.