Pyst

Pyst (stylised as PYST) is an adventure

Parroty Interactive was a division of Palladium Interactive, whose other brands included Ultimate Family Tree and Palladium Kids.^[5] Parroty intended to create National Lampoon-esque^[6] "humorous CD-ROMs, web sites and other forms of interactive comedy".^[7] This title served as Parroty's debut game in the interactive parody space, which would be followed by games such as their Star Wars parody Star Warped.

Development

The basic concept of Pyst was to show what Myst Island (from the best-selling game) would look like after four million people (that game's players) had visited and "explored".^[2] Pyst developer and comedian Peter Bergman wanted to give Myst players the ability to "'experience the island in a whole new light".^[2] Palladium President Ed Bernstein wanted the game to be a "transformative work that moved way beyond Myst", in order to avoid copyright issues with Myst publisher Broderbund, on the grounds of the new game being a parody work.^[8] A spokesman from Broderbund said the company was unfazed by the project, commenting "We've seen imitators and they usually just give us a good chuckle".^[8] Bergman discovered that the sense of comic timing he had for his live shows couldn't be replicated in the digital realm, and he had to adapt accordingly.^[9] Firesign Theatre website Firezine said that the game was illustrative of Bergman's ability to "survey America's culture and obsessions like a maniacal monitor reflecting the absurdness of it all, while casting his iconoclastic eye to read the entrails of the present coarse and our delirious future".^[10]

Bergman collaborated with David Ossman, Phil Proctor, Melinda Peterson, sound designer Ted Bonnitt and other players from his Radio Free Oz show to produce the game. In addition, he hired Mike Sansonia to create the game's music, while Ted Bonnitt directed mouth-sound-effects artist Fred Newman to record voice tracks to blend with recorded sound effects. The effect was to create a sound design with distinct, comedic character.^[10] John Goodman plays "King Mattruss", the ruler of "Pyst Island". The 2004 book Game Work: Language, Power, and Computer Game Culture noted that this was an example of the then-recent trend of famous actors starring in digital movies within games.^[11] Goodman and Bergman had worked together in radio, while Goodman also had appeared on the Proctor and Bergman Comedy Service series prior to Pyst.^[10] The game also includes an original song, "I'm Pyst", performed by Goodman and written by Bergman.^[3][12]

Release

Before the game's release, Bergman and the Parroty Interactive marketing department were both secretive about game-related information; Bergman said this was "unusual for me".

Pyst Island is full of litter, most of the buildings are ruined, and graffiti reveals secret doors and solutions to puzzles that challenged players in Myst.^[19][20] Pyst utilizes three-dimensional graphics, animated drawings, and pre-recorded video and audio.

Gameplay is a simplified version of the playing style used for Myst. The game consists of a series of pre-rendered, interactive visuals of Pyst Island locations. With Bergman's "seal of disapproval", the concept is that the familiar Myst locations have been vandalized by millions of virtual players who have been trapped on the island, having "giv[en] up on trying to finish the damn thing", and as a result have trashed the space, while a shady entrepreneur has built a "Dorian Grey money-making scheme".^[10] However, unlike in Myst there are no real puzzles to solve. The player simply explores a setting, and then moves to adjoining locations at will.^[21]

The game does not feature the Myst-style point-and-click interface. Instead, the players are shown an image on a postcard with four arrow keys, on the edges, that players click to change the image on the postcard.^[22] The player moves through the scenes clicking the lateral arrow keys; clicking the upper and lower arrow keys two postcards are shown for every scene, all featuring a special Pyst currency in a stamp, stylised as "5F".

Critical reception

The game received mixed reviews. While noted for its novelty as one of the first parody video games, Pyst was seen as not living up to its full potential as a parody of ripe and timely subject matter and was criticised for lacking in gaming content, being more of an interactive story than a game.

Electric Playground praised the game for having a "cheeky attitude and an irreverence" not found in the source material.^[23] Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture wrote that Pyst challenges the central conceit of Myst, whereby the "untouched landscape" navigated by a "lone trailblazer" is reimagined as a popular, commercialised tourist attraction.^[24] PC Primer thought it was "side-splitting" and "light-hearted".^[25] MacGamer gave it the distinction of being the first parody video game, and deemed it a "mildly amusing, short-lived parody with no gaming component".^[26] Electric Games unfavourably compared it to an older, and in its opinion better, parody entitled Mylk due to the latter being free and having gameplay.^[27] Computer World thought that the game offered salvation to the multitude of players who remained perpetually stuck on Myst Island.^[28] The Sunday Mirror thought Goodman was "at the core of the game".^[29] The Daily Mirror thought it was a good alternative to those stumped by Myst, describing it as "not really a game but...a lot of fun".^[30] Salon said the game "cheerfully capitalizes on that frustration" of playing the mysterious and elusive Myst, and added that the "emergence of full-scale parodies" like this was a sign of the video game industry's "arid decadence".^[31]

Electronic Design called the game a "wacky parody" that reimagines the well-known island as something out of an industrial nightmare.^[32] In the Eyes of the Setting Sun deemed it "satirical",^[33] while BusinessWeek thought all of Parroty Interactive's work was "hilarious".^[34] Billboard found it to be funnier than Myst and "all-too-short".^[12] Plotting New Media Frontiers thought that the existence of parody games demonstrated that "generic conventions are well established and part of the culture associated with computer game playing", citing Pyst as a prime example.^[35] Computer Shopper said the title was "no-holds-barred" and "pulls no punches" in its odd sense of humour, and deemed it a favourable alternative to those who were annoyed by Myst's "inscrutable puzzles".^[15] CD Mag thought the game was "somewhat witty".^[36] Emil Pagliarulo of The Adrenaline Vault saw Pyst as an example of how Parroty Interactive made games that were "completely original simply by capitalizing on unoriginality".^[37]

A demo of the planned sequel to Pyst, Driven (an allusion to the Myst sequel Riven), was included on CD-ROMs of later Parroty Interactive games, including the "Pyst Special Edition" re-release of the game.^[2] Driven was graphically more advanced and allowed greater movement. The full game was never released, however. Palladium Interactive was bought by The Learning Company in 1998, who proceeded to dissolve Parroty Interactive before the title was finished.^[54]

References