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Tech Guide
PYST! MYST parody gives silent island new life
October 25, 1996
Web posted at: 8:00 a.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Dennis Michael
(CNN) -- One of the biggest interactive hits ever is the CD- ROM "MYST."
Four million people have visited that silent, foggy island looking for the answer to an unknown puzzle.
A veteran multimedia comedian has found the answer -- laugh at it and make a buck. His answer was to create a parody of MYST called PYST.
"This island is a nightmare since all of you arrived, clicking and snooping and spreading germs," PYST begins.
MYST was ripe for parody. Since millions of people have been there, PYST's creator Peter Bergman reasoned the place should look a little worse for wear.
"There's refuse and dead birds and graffiti. All the secret doors have been labeled 'Secret Door, duh!' There's pollution and there's sewage," Bergman explains. "On the PYST shopping channel, we're offering the original pillars from the pillar garden."
John Goodman stars as King Mattress, and some of Bergman's partners from the Firesign Theatre make appearances as well, making the software laughter friendly.
"It is not a game. It's not a frustrating adventure game. It's a parody of that," Bergman says. "There is nothing you can't access easily. It's not 40 hours of game play. It's a couple of hours of pure comedy."
PYST will also take you to a private site on the World Wide Web. It presents a precursor of Bergman and Parroty Interactive's next project: "Nut-Scape," a cyberspace parody of the World Wide Web complete with the Amish Shopping Channel and Nut-Scape Microsnot Exploiter.
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