Disclaimer: This is not my original work! It is a remake/restoration/copy of the original piece by Jon Bois. Please do not put this page on any game database. You can access the original pages on the Wayback Machine.
Barry Bonds enters the World of MYST (2004) is an interactive story made by Jon Bois, originally published on the comedy website progressiveboink.com (sidenote: a bunch of people from this website including Bois later end up joining SB Nation).
This is a remake of the piece published twenty years after the original piece's release, seventeen years after Barry Bonds' retirement, in the midst of the 2024 World Series.
It is a copy built to look as close to the original work as possible in presentation... but under the hood it's quite different. The original piece was made in HTML 4, and as a result the original pages still accessible through the Wayback Machine are quite mangled due to some of the code being outdated/depreciated. This copy is made in HTML 5 and CSS 3.
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Barry Bonds enters the World of MYST is one of my favourite early works by Bois. Re-reading this after completing MYST (1998) for the first time was particularly nice, which prompted me to remake it for fun.
You could trace a direct line from this piece to 17776 (2017): they're both pieces of interactive fiction, about sports, both imagine--or in this case, gives us a very small glimpse into--a future that is utopic.
Most of all, what comes across is the soft, kind quality, a sense of deep love for human beings (even famously arrogant ones like Barry Bonds) that permeates most of Bois' work.
Something I've noticed while transcribing this piece is that the diary entries are dated from March to October (albeit scattered across many years). That's exactly the months in-between a standard baseball season--including spring training--takes place, which makes complete sense considering this is a story where the concept of beating MYST is an overt metaphor for winning the World Series.
I'm sure people before me have noticed it, but I like this small detail a lot.
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While this is a faithful copy of the original, it's not an exact one. I took the liberty of changing certain things. The main reason for my changes are accessibility and ease of use; I don't believe they fundamentally denature the piece. I've also deliberately not changed things that an editor/publisher usually would when reprinting a book as this is a copy and not a reprint.
Fun fact: I started working on this in 2022, had a completed working version that I never published anywhere, then I forgot about it until I came back to it in 2024 and redid all of it... Just in time for the twentieth anniversary of its original release. :)
Hope you enjoy discovering or re-discovering it! It's really good!
March 8, 2008
Welcome, stranger! You have found my personal writings, the archive of Barry Bonds. You doubtlessly recognize me from my days in your world as the guy who made a cameo appearance in "Rookie of the Year".
Allow me to alleviate your confusion. I am so good at baseball that they pretty much have to let me in, no matter how big of an asshole I am. In fact, during my last season I bet against a corked bat that my team would lose while using steroid pills as gambling chips and juggling a pair of doctored baseballs, and they still had to let me in. They didn't let me pick the hat I wanted to wear on my plaque, though .
As proud as I am of my vast accomplishments, there was something missing. I was an excellent fielder, hitter, and baserunner. But all those feats paled to the one thing I was never able to do.
I never won the World Series beat Myst. And that is why I have come to this island.
I bought the game in 2002, the year I made it to the Series . I gave it a shot, but it was so involving and time-consuming that I soon gave up. A coach of mine told me, "Barry, you can hit as many home runs and pull as few hamstrings as you want. But if you were a truly great player, you would be able to take your team to a Worl beat Myst."
I have now finally decided to take these words to heart, and fully round out my career. In these books I plan to record the highlights of my sojourn through this land. I expect to encounter many an amazing experience. Wish me luck!
Barry
March 9, 2008
Christ, this game actually looks really easy!
I spent some time looking around today, and found that this entire island could fit inside a baseball field. I had explored everything after about three minutes of clicking around.
I went ahead and threw all the old books in this library away so I could make room for my writings. No loss, really. All of it was filled with boring bullshit like this:
What the hell kind of game is this? I should at least get to have a gun or something. Judging from the screenshots I thought this was a first-person shooter. Then it seemed to me like it was more like a first-person walker-arounder-for-no-reasoner. Now I find out that it's a first-person book-reader? WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST MAKE A BOOK INSTEAD OF A GAME
MACHINE GUN PLEASE
March 11, 2008
All right, I think I've finally figured out the point of this game. I'm in an island built by this guy. He actually built all this shit himself. And for some reason, his sons are trapped inside of books that get poor reception.
That's right. Both of his sons are trapped inside books with little TVs in them. I'm not really sure why.
There's the blue guy who tells you not to touch the red page
and
The red guy who tells you not to touch the blue page.
So basically, the gameplay in this game just comes down to judging whoever says NO DON'T DO THAT the best.
I'm confident that now that I know what the hell I'm supposed to do I'll be able to solve even the most "Giant"-sized problem! That's why I left Pittsburgh, by the way. Whenever I said I could solve the most Pirate-sized problem, people just assumed that I was unable to solve any problem that involved elements that were greater than six feet. Then some guy stopped me on the street and came to the conclusion that since I could handle six-foot problems, I would make an excellent gravedigger and that that why I was called "Bury" Bonds. He was 5'10", so I threw him into a cement mixer.
-Barry
March 14, 2008
I've flipped every single damned switch on the entire island, to no avail. Then I flipped them all off. Then I realized that they are merely switches and their feelings cannot be hurt by an obscene gesture, so I flipped them off literally.
Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to throw away all those books. But really, shouldn't the game have come with a disclaimer? Like THIS GAME REQUIRES YOU TO BE ABLE TO READ BORING JOURNALS AND READ SCHEMATICS. At the very least, it should only have been sold in edutainment toy stores. You know, right next to the Playmobil sets and crappy wooden toys that kids just end up throwing at each other. I used to bring my kids to Sammy Sosa's house to play with his kids' wooden toys, but one day one of his kids broke a wooden dinosaur across my son's head and cork flew out. That was the end of that.
March 15, 2008
Yeah, I've definitely decided that throwing those books away was a stupid idea. I remember one of them containing a map of the entire island and giving some information as to what everything is and does. Oh well! I'll just make my own map!
March 19, 2008
This game is impossible. I'm supposed to do whatever one of those guys in the TV-books tell me. Too bad I have no fucking clue of what they are talking about. So I've just sort of been fucking around. I was going to play some pepper with myself against the library wall, but whoever made this island is a Nazi.
Today I thought about just leaving the island and calling a career. I mean, 804 home runs? A career .303 batting average? That's nothing to be ashamed of. But not winning a World Series Myst is going to haunt me for the rest of my days until I fulfill my destiny. Resignation is not an option.
Wait, yeah it is. I quit.
Regards
Barry
October 8, 2035
I thought I would never see this land again, but alas, I am back. Twenty-seven years have passed since I last recorded an entry in this library. I spent those years as a journeyman. Only the teams without any chance of reaching the playoffs would take a chance on an old-timer like me, and since 75% of the teams in baseball have no chance of reaching the playoffs, I bounced around a lot. In the space of twenty-six major league seasons, I amassed another 804 home runs for several teams, starting with the Milwaukee Near-Future Brewers and ending with the Chicago SpaceCubs.
How crushed was I to learn that Barry Bonds, the man with 1608 home runs over an astounding forty-nine seasons, was still viewed as "the man who couldn't win it all Myst"? I was so mad that I went to Cyborg Bud Selig's office, ripped off his oxygen helmet, and watched him suffocate in the now-toxic Earth atmosphere. Nobody pressed charges, because 1608 home runs buys you a free commissioner asphyxiation. But it doesn't buy you the full respect of the people or the history books, apparently. The back of my 2035 Topps baseball card still reads:
FUN FACTS
- Barry is left-handed!
- Barry enjoys reading and playing sport(s)!
- Barry has never beaten Myst!
That's such bullshit. I told the people at Topps to tell people that my hobbies include watching TV and fucking, just like I've told them every year since 1988, and it's been the same old "Barry enjoys reading!" bullshit.
At any rate, I'm back. I am much older now; hopefully the wisdom I have developed will help me to conquer this land.
-Barry
October 10, 2035
THIS GAME CANNOT BE BEATEN
I HATE YOU ALL
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FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
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-Barry
October 18, 2035
I am sorry for the outburst which you doubtlessly read earlier. I am older now, and should conduct myself as an old man should.
Or should I?
Geriatric complacency does not come from wisdom. It comes from low blood sugar and Alzheimer's. Any old man that you find that has all his faculties is pissed off, and that is because his life was not what he wanted it to be. He knows that he only had one shot, and since no man is perfect, he failed in some way. My failure? I have never worn a World Series ring shirt that says "I BEAT MYST AND I RECEIVED THIS SATISFACTORY T-SHIRT ".
I didn't want to do this, but if I don't beat this game I cannot die a happy man. Time to use the same approach that I took to break the home run record: Take a shitload of steroids.
-Barry
-Barry
November 1, 2025
I am ashamed that I must keep apologizing for myself. The steroids I took did not, in fact, help me to solve this wretched isle-puzzle. Rather, it sent me into a rage. I employed my superhuman strength to uproot a tree, which I used to hit various structures on the island. I only stopped when I believed that they were intentionally walking me.
It doesn't seem as though this isle wants me to win anyway. .
-Barry
November 13, 2025
Barry,
My name is Atrus, and I am the architect of the land. I would first like to commend you on your beautiful penmanship. Furthermore, you are a stupid son of a bitch for not reading any of my books. I must admit, however, that they ultimately would not have been much help. The reason for this is that this game is impossible to win.
I built dozens of puzzle fragments into this game which give the impression that they may lead somewhere or link in some way. But they don't. Did you think that those switches actually did anything? Nope. Nobody in the history of the world has ever beaten Myst, and if they tell you otherwise then they are lying. Myst was a finely engineered conspiracy to generate buzz and sell a shitload of strategy guides. They made off with their money, and now every professional athlete must either beat it or lie about beating it, or else they're stuck with the stigma of not being a team player.
The best example I can think of is taking one's team to the World Series. It is impossible. The entire team must work together and there are too many unknown variables involved; one player cannot carry an entire baseball team to a championship.
There is something that I'd like to show you. I will document these proceedings for our gentle visitors in the next volume.
- Atrus
November 14, 2025
"Come with me, Barry."
"Barry, this is the planetarium."
"Aw man, all these years I thought it was a special dentist's office for blind dentists who did not want to use lights so as to save electricity, since the lights would be no good to them, since they are blind."
"Your birthday is July the twenty-fourth, nineteen sixty...four? That's correct, isn't it?"
"Uh, yeah, but...what are you doing?"
"Proving a point, Barry."
"Ahh...an early-morning baby, were you? I hope your dad didn't have a game that day."
"Heh, yeah. Never was much of an early riser, though."
"Let's give this contraption just a moment..."
"Look up, Barry. This is what the sky looked like on precisely the minute in which you were born. This was before you and Bobby Bonilla were the "Killer Bs", before you shot your mouth off at wanting to "take out" Babe Ruth, and before anyone had the slightest idea that you would become one of the greatest baseball players of all time."
"Oh, so you mean there were stars in the sky when I was born? Neat."
"Always the asshole...You know, when you were a child you weren't so bitter. I don't know if it was your inflated ego, or an over privileged childhood that gave you such an unfriendly demeanor. The reason I brought you here, Barry, is to remind you that you are not defined by your statistics or what others think of you. And from light-years away, it's all the same to the stars. You are Barry Lamar Bonds, and you held tremendous value to this universe since the day you were born."
"Th-thank you."
"So you couldn't beat Myst. Nobody has. But at least you took it to seven games, huh?"
"Yeah...I guess I did."
-Jon