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I would find it difficult to find a gamer over the age of 25 who did not at least attempt to play Myst. *raises hand at the attempt part* If I were to search for someone who did not list it among their top five "defining games" for electronic entertainment, I am not confident I would find many takers. I have absolute confidence in my ability to find agreement that Myst is THE original graphical adventure game — and nothing else comes close.

To define Myst as difficult is to liken diamond to marshmallow. Obtuse at its best, achingly punishing at its worst, the game could take more than 80 hours to complete. Yet, there were always cries for more. It spawned four sequels in Riven, MystIII: Exile, MystIV: Revelation and MystV: End of Ages. A massively multiplayer online version, Uru Live, launched, then failed, then re-launched, then failed again to finally succeed on GameTap.

Its parodies are legion. Its followers... they define the word fanatic.

For all of the series' strengths, and difficulty is one of them, it was also one of its downfalls. Eighty hours at a screen often pixel hunting, is a long time. Hint systems, inventory, and user interfaces as we know them today did not yet exist.

"Oh, you just searched the web!" I heard you think that.

Think back... the World Wide Web didn't exist until 1989 and the Internet wasn't public until 1994. This was the time of playing games by well, playing them. If you wanted hints you (hopefully) dialed up on your 14400bps modem to a BBS; or, you looked inside the latest issue of GamePro. Brady Guides didn't yet exist and Prima published their first guide to Myst two years after release.

Have I mentioned the game was hard and that many of us never finished it? Hooray for handhelds!

Manny Granillo, Executive Producer on the Myst DS project from Empire Interactive, arrived at the tail end of we press folks ooh-ing and ahh-ing about the season premiere of Lost. (Yes, we need to get lives beyond our televisions, too.) It was the perfect entrance for him. Apparently, the creator of Lost is a Myst fan and the game was a big inspiration in its creation.

How exactly did the biggest selling PC game of all time (ok, it was until The Sims surpassed it) end up being ported to the DS? And why the DS? Why not the PSP? (Ok, it is already available on the PSP in Japan and Europe, but we'll pretend for now....)

"When we considered the project more than two-and-a-half years ago it just "fit" better on the DS. Remember, the original was a matter of moving the cursor over the screen and looking for it to change to a hand which indicated an action could occur. This was before the brain game explosion — before the DS really took off. Since that time, both have occurred and ultimately, the result is a much larger group of people who fit our target audience. I like to say that Myst is the ultimate and original brain game; it is the mother of all brain games."

Brain game though it may be, I start having flash backs to aneurysms at my desk trying to solve some of the puzzles. Maybe they weren't aneurysms; it could just have been from the pounding of my forehead against oak. Why would I, or someone who completed the title, want to try again?

"When you take a close look at the game, it is one of the top 5 titles able to withstand any audience. Ages 10-65, male or female…and it can be played extensively. It crosses demographics and we want to expose new people to it. The DS does that. Also, we found that many people never completed the original. The portability of the DS along with improvements we made in the user interface will allow a player to complete the game in smaller chunks, on their own time, on the bus, wherever they'd like. If they didn't finish it before, they can now.

For the gamer that completed the game so many years ago, there is the fact that the game transcends time. Why does it still sell today?

And we have added new content, the Rime Age. This isn't what was included in realMyst. For those who don't know the full story, the Millan brothers originally conceived of the title included an area known as the Rime Age — it was the arctic level. It wasn't included in the original publishing. Years later, there was a version called realMyst that included it but it didn't have broad appeal and was pulled from the shelves.

But our Rime Age is unique. We worked with the Millan brothers to include the Rime Age as originally conceived. This is unique and never seen before."

The question that was nagging us all really was how do you pixel hunt on a DS? The user interface would have to be changed drastically. How do you do so and yet remain faithful to the original?

"It was a bit of a challenge due to the volume of information on a larger screen. We didn't want to lose that on the smaller screen while maximizing the advantages of a handheld. We also had to keep in mind that any changes we made would affect the balance of the game. Myst is designed to be difficult; but in order to be played portably, there has to be some adjustment.

We had to decide what we could and balance that with what to remove. We knew we didn't want to remove ANYTHING, only enhance what already existed. So, we found we had to be clever with space. Just deciding what size DS cartridge, how to manipulate the game data — this is a game with over 80 hours of gameplay if you look into every nook and cranny! And it doesn't have cheats or hints.

First we had to make a smaller footprint so it would fit on the cartridge and then we made sure to include the video."

Yes, I know what you're thinking as you read this. Video. All of the video from the original Myst plus the Rime Age included in the game?

"To do justice to the video we had to develop a proprietary compression just to place the product within the framework. I hope the players will notice and can appreciate the work required to get it to look good. There is also full voice over for the dialogue.

Then there is the sound. All of the original soundtrack and sound effects are included. The raw files have been digitally remastered and optimized. For the Rime Age, we worked with Cyan Studios directly to create additional music and sounds."

I found this interesting as I play most of my games with the sound off. But Myst, it includes audio puzzles. Right on cue, Granillo mentioned them as well.

"Remember the piano puzzle? That's all done with sound. We had all of the sound remastered so you could complete the puzzle. Now, being a DS you may need headphones but it will sound fantastic."

Yes, yes! But how does it play?!

"The stylus/touchpad works great. We've added a toolbar to the bottom screen. From here, you can move and activate items. But, because you can no longer mouse over and see the hand icon, the difficulty is moved up a notch — especially for first time users. Also available is a magnifying glass. This will be useful when you want to view items close up or read something such as a book in the library.

Above you can view a mini-map of the island. We wanted to balance the increased difficulty and the map is one of those concessions. While it won't immediately show you details of the entire island, it will at a minimum, indicate where you are. Over time, you'll develop a more detailed picture."

And on to my new favorite features....

"When talking to people we realized two distinct qualities about Myst play — the need to take notes and the fact that people were often running back to somewhere, taking a mental picture, then running off to complete the puzzle. I remember hearing that someone couldn't play Myst one day because they'd left their notes at home.

We've included a virtual notepad to keep notes along the way. This should help with the first problem and keep the titles intended portability. The second is the camera.

At any time, a player can take a "snapshot" of a location and carry this image with them to the next location to help solve a puzzle. However, to keep it balanced, we only allow one snapshot at a time. Once you take another, the previous is gone."

It was obvious there were several of the aforementioned "fanatics" on the call with me. I never did finish the game but my DS is an extension of my left hand — it's why I make so many typos. With the added Rime Age content, the title is expected to have an additional 10-15 hours of gameplay. Still, the interface changes appear to be thoughtful and there is no doubt in my mind that Manny Granillo loves Myst and has done his best to add to the legacy. Come March, I may find a book, describing an island... and be whisked away....