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. 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. Goodman and Bergman had worked together in radio, while Goodman also had appeared on the "Proctor and Bergman Comedy Service" series prior to Pyst. The game also includes an original song, "I'm Pyst", performed by Goodman and written by Bergman. 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". The game was originally planned for released on October 15, 1996. Released for Christmas 1996, Pyst remained on the CD-ROM best-seller list through 1999, according to the "Official Millennium Survival Handbook". The game was "highly successful"; in 1997 Palladium's vice president of marketing Rob Halligan said Pyst was "tremendously successful last Christmas and continues to sell well". A Mindscape press release issued through "Business Wire" said the game was the "top-selling parody product of 1996", selling over 200,000 copies worldwide. There was a website extension to the game, which allowed players to further interact with the game by "download[ing] updated video and audio clips and chat[ing] with other Pyst aficionados", the game being the first product by Palladium to include dial-up access to AT&T WorldNet Service. Hal Josephson, executive producer for Pyst, said there were very few business models at the time for how to make money online. In 1998, after Parroty's acquisition by The Learning Company, Palladium founder and chief executive officer Ed Bernstein said "it was a fun business, but not terribly lucrative". 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". "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.