The Parable of Myst II

"Now everyone is more intense. We don't come to work in sweats anymore. It's not that people are clock-watching, but you have a feeling that not everybody has the passion. People who did have the passion lost it. Instead of having this family of people, we actually had name tags at our company picnic."

In "Myst," you fall from heaven onto a deserted island. As you move through the islands, you gather hints about this world's origins and your role in it. You've fallen into a world created by someone who has mastered The Art: the ability to write things into being. Two brothers created these worlds, moved before you through this imaginary-yet-real universe, and became tyrants over their creations. Now they've withdrawn. It's your job to figure out what happened to them and to determine what will happen. It's "The Chronicles of Narnia" meets "Lord of the Flies," "The Tempest" meets "Heart of Darkness." without all the words to slow you down.

In Spokane, the Miller brothers created a new world for themselves. They wrote themselves into a wooded island of new possibilities: wealth, fame, power. Now they must navigate through this realm themselves, not knowing what's going to happen next, what they will discover. An uncertainty has slithered into the garden. The job has begun to feel more like a task than a game. What worked before doesn't apply. Things feel different.

They struggle to hold fast to what they believe: You are what you do, and how you do it means everything.

Nice Apples, But What's That Moving in the Grass?

In the beginning: It is six years ago, Rand Miller is working for Citizens National Bank of Henderson, Texas and tinkering with computers at night. Robyn Miller studies anthropology at the University of Washington, thinking about a career as a physician's assistant, and on weekends does art. Chris Brandkamp is an accountant at Myers Accounting in Van Nuys, California and is working literally inside an antique Burroughs adding machine: it's something straight from a Kafka short story -- a one-ton contraption so huge it has its own chair attached to it. It goes cha-chung, cha-chung, cha-chung, printing out spreadsheets. Chris is a man in search of a passion.

For different reasons, they all come to Spokane. They meet at Northview Bible Church, where the Millers' father preaches. All three are deeply religious. What they do for a living, and how they do it, matters. They decide to combine their skills in the evenings and make computer games that don't contain sex or violence. A fourth partner, Chuck Carter, joins the team.

One year leads to the next: they sell three games for children, "The Manhole," "Cosmic Osmo & the World Beyond the Macro," and "Spelunx & the Caves of Mr. Seudo." It's recreation, a pastime. But with "Cosmic Osmo," they realize they might be able to make a living this way. They conceive "Myst" and harbor a dream: they can turn their hobbies into a career. Maybe their work and their lives can actually be fun.

For two years they work on the game, each in his own basement, linked by modem. The labor pushes them to emotional and financial breaking points. When they finish all the images and put them together, it doesn't quite come alive. Something is missing. It doesn't ... sing.

They need sound and music. Robyn composes and performs the score, and Chris spends weeks gathering sounds: running a car over gravel in the driveway to simulate a crackling fire; recording a swimming pool's lapping water; holding his tape recorder near an air-compressor tank attached to an industrial staple gun to capture the sound of the appearing and disappearing squares in the "Myst" library's fireplace. His sound-mixing studio is an old refrigerator box.

They add the sounds and music, and go through the game again -- and this time it's as if they've thrown gasoline on a fire! Everything comes alive, including the game's creators. They've done something magical and they know it. They get cocky. It will, they predict, sell 20,000 copies, maybe even 30,000. "Really! No way, man. Who knows? That would be so cool."

The truth is, it has to sell. Otherwise they're ruined. Before they're done Rand and his wife, Debbie, are paying part of their grocery bills with government food stamps. They've worked twelve-hour days continuously and haven't taken a weekend off in two years. Still, they know most CD-ROM games sell no more than 10,000 units, bringing royalties of $12,000 on a $50,000 investment.

Broderbund releases the game in September 1993. "Myst" astounds everyone. Within a week of its release, word spreads on the Internet and demand skyrockets. Within five months, 200,000 copies are sold. Sales hit 500,000 in January 1995. Four months later sales top a million and now are approaching 2 million. The Millers are profiled in publications from "Newsweek" to "People," and they appear on "Good Morning America" and "MTV." They have one agent for publishers, another to handle Hollywood offers, and a third for merchandising. "Myst" has become the multimedia equivalent of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" or Nirvana's "Nevermind" -- a popular hit that's also a fresh and original demonstration of a medium's potential. They nailed it.