Myst was something of a revolution when it came out in 1993. Its prerendered graphics easily blew away the competition and its cerebral challenges became something of a pop culture phenomenon. Ever wonder why Lost is set on a tropical island? Blame Myst. The sales weren’t too shabby either, Myst has sold over twelve million copies worldwide. Yesterday, we got to sit in on a phone conference with Myst DS producer, Manni Granillo, who filled us in on the upcoming DS port and their future plans for the DS and Wii.

The developers at Hoplite Research have taken great pains to bring the full Myst experience to the two-screened handheld. It took some cleverness to deal with space considerations and the smaller screen size, but absolutely nothing has been removed from the original game. All of the video has been included (the developers even wrote a new compression algorithm for it). The voice acting is intact. In fact, the entire soundtrack is still there. The original raw audio files have been enhanced for the DS speakers. The bonus Rime Age uses some new music along with tracks that were recorded for the original Myst and never included. Remember the piano puzzle? Even that hasn’t been compromised for the DS. You’ll have to listen and make out the individual notes. Better pack some headphones.

Of course, the interface has been tweaked to make use of the DS’s hardware. The stylus obviously replaces the mouse; however, the on-screen pointer has been removed to make the game harder. Any gamer who has gone through a pixel hunt in an adventure game should be cringing at that. We’ll just have to wait and see how that plays out in the final version. The difficulty increase from not having a pointer has been balanced by giving the player a bunch of new tools. You now have an in-game notepad to take notes with. If you’ve never played Myst, let me assure you that you will be taking notes. You also have a camera to take a snapshot with. You’re only allowed one picture at a time, but it should still be a major boon when solving puzzles. You also get a magnifying glass, for those times where you need more detail on a particular item. The zoomed-in view will appear on the top screen. When not using the magnifying glass, the top screen will display a minimap. Now, they don’t want to make things too easy for you. The map doesn’t actually display where you are in the area.

Those who have beaten Myst before will need some sort of incentive to five back in. Well, the developers have included a bonus “age” for those players. The Rime Age was designed by the Miller Bros, but didn’t make it into the original Myst. This arctic-themed age was included in the “Real Myst” remake, but has been redesigned from the ground up for the DS. Manni estimated that it would add an additional ten to fifteen hours onto the playtime (which he estimated at over 80 hours for a first time player). Not a bad bonus at all.

What’s next for the developers at Hoplite? Riven is being considered for a DS port. They just have to figure out how to get such a long game onto the DS. Multiple carts or an episodic approach are being considered right now. The team is also working on bringing a couple of other classic adventure titles to the DS, although they remained elusive on which exact ones. Interested in a Myst for Wii? Don’t count it out. The developers are looking very closely at Nintendo’s console.

Myst DS should do pretty well in our post-”Brain Age” world. It’s one of those games that transcends generational lines. Old and young gamers alike can find something to enjoy there. The title should hit store in mid-March and will carry an ESRB rating of E.