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[CHUCKLES]

Robyn: Just a little bit.

Kyle: In the interviews I've read, you've said you had enough notes to do ten cd-roms and took some of those notes and channeled them into the book. Talk about the experience of creating for this medium as compared to the shinier.

Rand: Some of those notes weren't made to be a cd-rom. We made these notes but there is a story behind it, there is a very linear history that goes behind this very non-linear game that we are trying to let people wander around in. And so those don't apply themselves to an interactive world, they apply to a more traditional form. So, from the beginning we were thinking it would be kind of cool to tell this story. And that is all we have done, is tell this story. But here we got the opportunity to tell the story ahead of time in a better form. And in addition, people can wander around a small part of it. We hope in the sequel it would be an even bigger part of it.

Robyn: Our greatest frustration would have been that we have never done this before, this was our first attempt at this linear medium. We came up with this story that we thought was good. We certainly got a lot of experience out of this. It was fun.

Rand: Yeah, how many people have this kind of opportunity - you've played the game, now read the book.

Kyle: Well, how many games are worthy of a book? There are a number of stabs in the book at presenting visual things. The antiqued edges of the pages, the sketches. Did you have a hand in those touches?

Robyn: At Cyan, we worked mostly helping out with the cover design. On the inside, Hyperion came up with a lot of that. The sketches themselves, we hired a guy. We'd send him pieces of the book and he'd sketch it out.

Rand: Our Myst fans will be thankful to know we didn't take precious time off Myst 2.

Kyle: So basically, you didn't do anything on this....

[LAUGHTER]

Rand: Oh, you'd be surprised how much time it took to not do anything on the book. It was unbelievable. It really eats into your time. . David Wingrove wrote it. It is our story in his words, but it wasn't just that easy as 'here is the outline, write it', I mean, it was hours of tweeking the outline.

Robyn: And it goes back and forth and back and forth.

Rand: And then it was hours with David Wingrove going, "No, that's not our words" and he's going "No, I know, it's my words." "No, take it out."

Kyle: Hmmm. Any fist fights?

[LAUGHTER]

Robyn: There were some close calls.

Rand: But we're all friends nowwwwwww!

Kyle: Dave working on the second book?

Rand: There were some late nights.

Robyn: Notice he didn't answer that?

Kyle: He went right on didn't he?.

[LAUGHTER]

Rand: There were some late nights, going till two in the morning. One time when David was there and the editor was there. And one time until four in the morning. You can imagine how tense it gets at two in the morning and you are saying, "I don't want the word 'the' there." "I do."

Robyn: I think I was the most impatient person there.

Rand: But we're pleased, it is a good read.

Kyle: It is.

Robyn: David Wingrove did a really good job of putting it together.

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