Care to talk about Riven for a bit?

The Game Room
1

A year or so ago I was looking for a new game to play, and not being a great fast-twitch or FPS gamer I was a little stuck on what to buy. I recalled really loving Myst when it came out a decade ago. It was pretty challenging and I enjoyed completing it.

So, I figured I’d checkout the sequels. I bought the 10th anniversary package that contains Myst, Riven, and Myst III: Exile. The first thing I did was replay Myst. I wanted to make sure I knew the full back story in case you needed the background for Riven. I was amazed at how much of the game I’d forgotten and how challenging it was on replay. It probably took me most of a weekend to complete.

Then I popped Riven into the computer and got started on phase two. I was not prepared for how much more challenging this game would turn out to be. I spent the better part of a week exploring and solving whichever puzzles I could. Some came to me and others were utterly maddening. The biggest challenge I found was that the new world was just so huge. It was almost impossible to map it out and get a idea of how everything laid out. The style of navigation made some of the winding and interweaving paths downright dizzying.

Eventually I got to a point where I was stuck. I’d explored all of the locations I could get to and solved all the puzzles I realized that I had clues to. The game is so non-linear that it’s sometimes difficult to understand what’s a clue and whats just a feature and it’s hard to connect obvious clues to their puzzles because they can be spread out so widely and the clues have layers, where one clue is a clue to another clue and so on.

When I was stuck I took a step back and forgot about it for a stretch. Eventually I revisited it and tried to sketch out a map of the different islands in order to find some type of clue or idea of where I needed to explore further. This turned out to be mostly fruitless and I eventually caved and resorted to looking up some online hints. They helped without giving me too much of a leg up. It felt like I was cheating but I still was pretty lost so I wasn’t completely beaten.

Those couple clues allowed me to gather all the clues I needed to solve what seemed to be the “big puzzle”. Turns out I was wrong. When I entered that combination nothing obvious happened and I proceeded to give up completely.

So, about 6 months later, I see my notebook sitting by my desk and decide that it’s time to finally finish this damn game. I decided that it was time to set aside my pride and I Googled up a complete walkthrough. I started from the beginning so that I could see the whole picture and discover where I missed a few pieces. The most helpful part was that there was a complete map included which cleared up a lot. The walkthrough also eliminated all the doubling and tripling back that you had to do in order to identify what some of the more obscure levers and switches did.

I was closer than I realized to solving the “big puzzle” but it made clear how many more things had to happen after that big puzzle was solved. And it also made clear how many clues along the way I missed that were crucial to the endgame. Had I done this on my own I’d have had to almost completely re-explore the world in order to compile and decipher the clues I missed.

So, finally, after a hand-holding walkthrough, I finished it tonight. I consider this a complete and total failure of the game. I was hoping I could empathize with any dopers who recall their harrowing Riven experiences. So, what did you all think of this game? I find it hard to imagine a puzzle style game being much more challenging.

2

Riven is my favorite of all the Myst games. I did solve it without a walkthrough; however, that was spread out over the course of some six and a half years (I got it when it came out in '97, played and played and played, but did not make it to the end. I probably returned to it sporadically after that, but most importantly, in 2004, I borrowed the discs from a dormmate, installed it up, and made a project of it for a week or so, the exact details now hazy, but the important thing being that it culminated in long-overdue victory late one night, accompanied by great celebration by all.)

I would say that I found it considerably easier to figure things out when I returned to it, but then, that’s to be expected given the shift from middle school to college. I loved it, though, even when I wasn’t making quick progress. The environment is so well-done, the sense of free-form exploration that comes through and the sheer vastness of the one large interconnected Age (as opposed to Myst with its many smaller ones). And while the puzzles may be based on that weird Myst-logic, once you’ve settled into that zone, they’re not so bad (and when they are, it just makes solving them that much more rewarding). All in all, I’d call it one of the best games I’ve ever played. (It’s just too bad these kinds of games have such low replay value; at least, until you’ve waited long enough to forget everything)

Hm, it looks like the things I particularly liked about it (nonlinearity, a huge world, and, oh yeah, clues spread out, puzzles connecting over large distances) are the same as the things you particularly disliked about it. Any other games you consider failures? I may want to check them out. :slight_smile:

3

Incidentally, my memory of Myst III is that all those things I just listed that I liked about Riven and you disliked are much toned down in it; it’s much more linear, and broken down into small manageable sections, so to speak. I still enjoyed it, but not nearly as much. Which means it may be much more appealing to you.

4

To clarify, I didn’t particularly dislike the game because of it. I just found those aspects to be more difficult than my patience allowed. I enjoyed trying anyways. For the record this is the only game I’ve ever failed to solve.

Any puzzle game that requires you to learn a base-5 numbering system using completely invented numerals based on the actions of a quasi-random number generator built into children’s toy is really trying to confound you.

5

As it happens, though I recognized the base five thing going on (I mean, everyone on Riven is obsessed with the number five), I misinterpreted the numeral system in some completely stupid and actually incoherent way, the details of which I don’t remember, but which caused me to sometimes translate things one (correct) way and sometimes another (incorrect) way, until I was set straight by my roommate who noticed my inconsistencies as he watched over my shoulder. So while I’d like to claim that wasn’t really so bad, perhaps I don’t have the warrant to legitimately do so. Plus, I’m fairly certain that in that large span between purchasing and beating the game, I had somehow, through cultural osmosis in the right crowds, involuntarily picked up the general idea that there was some puzzle somewhere in Riven that required manipulating numbers in a non-decimal base (I guess that’s the signature puzzle of the game or something; at any rate, it’s the only one I’ve ever heard anyone talk about). So that I solved that one at all is no accomplishment at all, really. Alas.

6

I didn’t think so, myself. It appeals to people who love archeology. There is a wiki set up about the Myst Worlds, if you care to read over there about the various people and setting. I’d wanted to get into the online Myst games, but the 4th of this month they announced that the most recent (third) online game will end in sixty days. :frowning: cry :frowning:

7

I liked the world of Riven , but unlike the older games there was no interaction with a character at points in the game. It made it seem less friendly and forlornly abandoned. I was given a poll prior to release, and indicated a bad way to go with the game was to expect people would hang out on line chatting with other people as aviators. The crowd that liked to pretend they are eating and drinking with an avatar is the crowd that hung out in Active Worlds. The people playing the game were puzzle solvers and had modems with slow connections, not teens that wanted to chat. By the time I finished the game the group feature had closed down. Now you can wonder a big empty place when you’re done. I did like the customizable aviator you start out making for the game. The puzzles and world scenery was excellent.

8

Are you sure you’re thinking of Riven? There was no customizable avatar or online component.

9

No I described Uru Ages Beyond Myst. Oh well. I did play Riven too. I wasn’t as happy with that one. One puzzle was a killer, that I had to find the walk through to get past. It’s the only one I had to have a hint on.

10

I think there was one thing I needed to “cheat” on in Riven.

I found the Frog to be non-obvious. At least, I think it was a frog.

But the rest I figured out okay.
I thought the children’s game was really cool. I don’t think it was unduly random.

In Exile I had to cheat on one one piece. There was a path that I didn’t even know existed. Kind of hard to finish the area without visiting all the available places.

4 and 5 were okay too. I had to go online a few times, though. Not so much because I was mentally stuck, but I had to verify that I was doing the right thing yet not getting the result needed due to real-time aspects of the game and other glitchy things. It can be quite frustrating to do the correct thing and not get a positive result. Even after looking up some pieces online and verifying that I was doing things correctly, I had to try another couple of dozen times to get the game to proceed.

11

Riven is the game I replay the most in that series. My biggest hang-up was missing a particular clue almost every time I played it, as well as a few puzzles that leave me swearing for days. But I think the only time I needed to use a guide at all was the first time through, when my poor old computer kept crashing in a specific spot near the end and I couldn’t get the full clue or something.

There’s a Myst 5?? When did it come out? I can’t believe I didn’t hear about it. I never liked 4. The portrayals of the two brothers (particularly Achenar) gave the entire game a very sour note. It did have some good puzzles, though, I will certainly grant it that.

12

Those games were great, but the audio games were a pain in the ass to do when one’s deaf. :smiley:

For my last revisit to Riven (or possibly Exile) I ended up having to record a certain puzzle’s various components on my phone and then email the various audio files over to a hearing friend, along with a link to screenshots so that they could visualize it for me and help me figure out the right sequence. Geekage FTW.

13

That’s the combination to Catherine’s cell in Riven. I’m impressed by your determination and inventiveness I must say.

14

They were a pain for the people that can hear too. I had to try and match the tone with a keyboard being played at the same time. I had to write down the note and then I had to map the tones on the actual puzzle with the keyboard. I didn’t explain it to well, but it was a pain in some puzzles. Some weren’t as bad.

15

Which game are you talking about? There’s no keyboard in Riven.

16

In retrospect, I think Riven was arguably the best written of the first four Myst games. Myst, for all intents and purposes, didn’t have characters as much as it had static backdrops. But Riven gave you just enough interaction with the characters running around in the background to flesh out the game world. Exile and Revelations, on the other hand, had enough technological horsepower to thrust their characters out into centre stage and show you how silly the costumes and dialogue were.

But I don’t think Riven comes in first in the “quality of puzzles” category. The “big puzzle”, in particular…I can appreciate the idea of making one giant puzzle, overarching the entire game world, but (a) it was just another combination lock, albeit a ridiculously complicated one, and (b) the payoff for solving it was too small. Yay, I just…turned on the next series of combination lock puzzles. Whoo-hoo?

Yeah, I know…99% of puzzles in Myst games are combination locks. But there are rare exceptions. If they had managed to make the “big puzzle” something other than a combination lock, or increased the payoff, the game would have beat the rest of the series hands-down.

17

Sounds a bit like the puzzle to enter the Selenitic Age in Myst.

18

What do people think of Myst V? It’s the only one I haven’t played yet, perhaps because I never heard much buzz about it. It seems a little… different? A 3d engine and all. Well, I suppose that’s a small thing.

19

Myst, once I got past some initial awkwardness and frustration, was a fun experience. In retrospect, I regret not slugging it out a little more before reading the hintbooks (c’mon, you know I can’t resist a good book!), as the joy of exploring things and working out solutions one by actually does exist and isn’t just tired bluster. (I also didn’t realize the importance of an extremely bright monitor; I actually had to give up on one puzzle because of this.) Overall, it’s a little on the difficult side, but nothing a clear-headed, persistent thinker can’t manage. One of the really neat things about it (and you don’t hear about this very much) is that while you can run all over the place and look at stuff all you like, to make any actual progress, you have to stop, look (and sometimes listen), and think about how things work. Nothing happens by luck or raw determination. In all, it was a great game with a highly satisfying conclusion when you finally solved everything.

Riven was an abomination. Constant incomplete solutions, endless awkward steps just to open up paths, no continuuity whatsoever between the locations, a few puzzles that don’t have any solutions whatsoever, very often no way to tell if you’re even doing the right thing, and TOO. DAMN. HARD. Especially, but not limited to, the marble board, which has to rank in at least the top 50 of anyone’s Worst Computer Game Ideas Ever list. Even after I knew exactly what it was about and exactly what to look for, I don’t think I got the right combination even a third of the time. In all, it was nothing but an eternal exercise in frustration, misery, pain, torment, tedium, and aggravation, without the slightest bit of enjoyment whatsoever. Time and time again, I kept asking myself, “What the hell were they thinking?”

Oh, and as for my level of success of accomplishment…honestly, I never gave it any thought. The game serves me. The game is supposed to give me entertainment. Myst was a success. Riven was an abject failure, not only for what it was, but for killing about 98% of any interest whatsoever I had in these kinds of exploratory games.

(And of course, Exile took care of the other 2% by giving me motion sickness within the first 10 minutes, during which I never came within a football field of completing the FIRST puzzle. Even now, I’m amazed at how quickly a game completely turned me off. Even Bloody Roar 3 wasn’t that fast.)

20

Riven was overwhelmingly hard. I had to turn to a walkthrough to complete it. I like non linear games but Riven was almost surreal in its nonlinearity. Someone else mentioned the Frog. You know, I’m pretty observant, but I really don’t think I would ever have found that stupid frog without turning to a walkthrough. Talk about looking at the bigger picture :wink:

My favorite game from the series is undoubtedly IV: Revelations. I thought the storytelling was excellent, the puzzles were fun and at least mostly sensible, and the graphics were amazing. That, and a cameop and a beautiful song by Peter Gabriel (Curtains) which I simply cannot find anywhere to buy or download, made it all very memorable. Screw learning a number system - I loved learning to speak Monkey :slight_smile:

V was also good, though the first time I tried it, I could not get into it. I gave it another shot a few months ago and it ended up being one of my favorites.

Uru, by the way, sucked donkey balls, IMO. I never made it out of the first world; the FPS navigation and really annoying physical puzzles just frustrated me. Seriously, I don’t play Myst to see if I can jump over a stupid hole in a bridge. Best thing about it was the little bit of Peter Gabriel playing on the dude’s radio, other than that, total fail.