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This is great to see again, Myst and Riven were one of the few games I played through with my older brother, kept extensive notebooks and speculated upon. In Riven he really took a scholarly approach, as we'll soon see is pretty well necessary for "puzzle 2", but the shoddy computer we were playing the game on couldn't actually handle rendering those rotating globes so we always had to skip past them quickly. As a result he fully figured out the encompassing puzzle, but never realized it until I finally broke down and cheated and looked up what the fuckin' deal was, because we'd been stuck for what felt like weeks.
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Nov 18, 2016 22:51
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Corbeau posted:The box and CD cases were quite beautiful, too, being done up like the Rivenese art we've seen ingame.
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Nov 18, 2016 23:42
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My friend had the 5-disc Riven CD-ROM release, I want to say each island had its own disc but I'm not certain. Definitely a sight to behold to my nine-year old self who was still somewhat new to PC games.
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Nov 18, 2016 23:45
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C-Euro posted:My friend had the 5-disc Riven CD-ROM release, I want to say each island had its own disc but I'm not certain. Definitely a sight to behold to my nine-year old self who was still somewhat new to PC games. Yup. One disc per island, so you swapped discs for every tram ride. I can't recall which disc had the place currently in the LP.
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Nov 18, 2016 23:49
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Bruceski posted:Yup. One disc per island, so you swapped discs for every tram ride. I can't recall which disc had the place currently in the LP.
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Nov 19, 2016 00:17
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Bruceski posted:Yup. One disc per island, so you swapped discs for every tram ride. This was the reason I never got far into the game. All the disc swapping was just too much hassle.
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Nov 19, 2016 03:55
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I can't remember if this game was still back when CD drives had a caddy the CD had to be installed in rather than the modern "cupholder" style. Whether for this game or others, my family only had a couple of caddies so swapping the disks between those was an extra step for anything that needed swapping.
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Nov 19, 2016 04:14
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It doesn't come through in the screenshot format, but in addition to the CD-swapping you're also usually locked out of performing actions while animations play. Patience was absolutely essential to playing Riven - not just because you'd struggle to figure out puzzles, but because you couldn't physically play the game too fast. 
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Nov 19, 2016 05:04
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You can skip most animations though. A notable exception is the room rotating when you're not actually looking at it, which is really annoying if it takes you a while to figure out that puzzle.
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Nov 19, 2016 14:05
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In June of this year, Loading Ready Run (a Canadian comedy troupe that also streams video games and such) played through Myst in two sessions, roughly two and one-half hours apiece. You can view them here and here if you have ~5 hours to kill. The reason I bring this up is that, besides watching two genuinely funny guys who are really enjoying the game bumble their way through half-forgotten puzzle solutions, they also take the time to draw attention to how certain effects were created, what the developer was attempting to make the player infer from the things being shown, and how a generation of game developers failed to understand what made Myst a successful game, and have inflicted upon us 20 years of games that would have been passable if not for having Myst-styled logic puzzles shoehorned into them. My favorite bit is how, despite neither of them having played or being familiar with the plot of Riven, managed to draw a coherent parallel between how Atrus creates his worlds (trying to understand how his writing programs the world to do certain things and try to limit instability thereby), and how some game developers look at games that were created with that kind of care and understanding, decide they want to make something like it, but then just blindly copy the formula without understanding how or why it works, creating buggy and incoherent messes. They managed to get to "Why Gehn is the bad guy of Myst and Riven" without actually knowing that he exists.
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Nov 20, 2016 06:36
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35min into part 2, the look on their faces when the realize it's a tone-matching puzzle...
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Nov 20, 2016 20:55
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I love this kind of "let's actually analyze this game and what's going on and how people think about it and all sorts of poo poo that leads on from that." I wish I knew where to find more of it without Youtube thinking I mean Game Theory.
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Nov 21, 2016 07:07
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Dr. Buttass posted:I love this kind of "let's actually analyze this game and what's going on and how people think about it and all sorts of poo poo that leads on from that." I wish I knew where to find more of it without Youtube thinking I mean Game Theory. The video is from their "Talking Simulator" streams, the goal of which is to do exactly that sort of thing, and you can find the playlist here. I really want them to come back and do Riven and Exile at some point, because I'd love to hear their take on them. Really hope you don't feel I'm taking anything away from your LP by linking this stuff, M.c.P.
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Nov 21, 2016 07:38
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Oh not at all, I found it quite interesting and a good watch. Next LP post coming soon, should be a fun set, and following it with a lore post surrounding the folks that just sleep darted us in the neck.
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Nov 21, 2016 07:55
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Entry 11 Soundtrack – Moiety Prison So I’ve found the Resistance, or the Moiety, to be more exact. Or they found me, really. Two of them snuck up on me in the linking book cave, while I was writing the previous entry. In that moment between being struck by their dart and losing consciousness, I recognized them. The fellow from the prison, and the masked one that rescued me from the cage when I first arrived. I didn’t get a chance to thank them. I may have mumbled it in the altered state that sleep drug left me in as they took me to where I am now.  I woke up with a pounding headache on a stone slab in a very sparse room. The only other furniture was a rough table with a bowl on it.  The bowl had some water in it, which I drank greedily. It helped with the headache a little.  Looking around, I noted the bed seemed to be solid stone, though a bit warmer for some reason. Regardless, it explained the pain I was beginning to feel in my back. Thinking of what happened before I took an unwanted nap, I felt at my neck where the dart had hit. I didn’t feel any wounds, but the area was a bit numb. I wondered how long I’d been out.   I took a look out of a window outside. The air was cool, but lacked the scent of vegetation and salt water that filled Riven. Far, far below I could see the little pier I had arrived on when I first got to this Age. I was probably inside that giant bulbous tree then.  On the other side of the room, behind a corner, was a door.  Trying the door only gave me a solid thunk. I was a prisoner again.  The opening in the door let me look through, revealing a whole network of smaller trees, rope bridges, and lights. As I watched, a man, holding a cup in his hand, casually sauntered his way from one door to another.  Despite the dark from being inside the tree, this place felt much more relaxed than the village on Riven. Another figure passed by one of the windows, leaving a shadow as it went. I thought back to the village, utterly barren and motionless in fear of my presence. On the other hand, I was locked in here pretty tightly.  Unsure of what to do, I stepped back inside the room and sat on the bed. I spent a little time rehearsing what I might say when the Resistance finally got around to me. “Atrus” *mimic writing* “Help Catherine” *Put hand on book* “Stop Gehn” *Stabbing motions with a pen* Thankfully I didn’t have to embarrass myself again. A rattle at the door signaled someone coming in.  A Rivenese woman came in carrying something in a red cloth. She spoke, though once again I was lost on what she was saying. I think I recognized the name “Catherine”.  She smiled, probably to put me at ease, though her eyes betrayed uncertainty. What she had was what demanded my attention. Books, one of them familiar.  She made to leave, speaking more and gesturing towards the books she left on the table. I stayed put and ended up not saying anything. It was clear everyone involved was a little uncomfortable with the situation.  After she left, I went to the table. My heart leapt a little as I picked up the heavier book on the bottom.   The Trap book. I had finally found it after chasing a shadow around most of the islands of Riven. Opening it up revealed a perfect image of Atrus’ home on D’ni.  The other book was different. As I picked it up, a paper came out and fell to the floor.  It was revelatory, to say the least. Catherine is, thankfully, still on Riven. Or at least she’s accessible if she could get a message to… Nelah, apparently. To free her I would have to get into Gehn’s office, wherever that is. On a second read, it was frustratingly vague. But then, she did note it was an urgent message. And Gehn, surely, could read it as well if it was intercepted. The book, as it turns out, was Catherine’s journal that she kept when she arrived on Riven. I sat down on the bed and began to read. --- Editor's note: Catherine's journal is very long and written in a very spidery cursive that does not play well with 1995 resolutions. For easier reading, please consult the transcript Here. Soundtrack – Catherine’s Prelude     The journal was undated, and frankly a bit rambling. I felt a little uncomfortable, going through this woman’s private thoughts, but pressed on. She told the Resistance to give it to me, there must be something important. It’s at least a bit comforting to know I wasn’t the only person to arrive in that cage. Catherine, though, knows these people and speaks their language. I wondered if anyone here could give me a spoken primer before I got back to Riven.      But Catherine had far worse things to deal with. Apparently her, Atrus, and Gehn’s final confrontation above the Star Fissure had been expanded and overblown to the point that the Resistance, the Moiety, have granted the happy couple Godhood. A symptom of Gehn’s own claims to divinity, made worse by a fabricated prophecy that she would return to save them. And here she was, without a plan, tricked by her sons, and thrust into leadership by people who used to be friends and family.     Regardless of their beliefs, the Moiety has grown despite Gehn’s own efforts. Cut off from any that refused to join, which is tragic, but might be the only reason they’ve survived this long. I wonder what Sirrus and Achenar told her that convinced her to come here. Or what they told Atrus, for that matter. I suppose I’ll wonder for a long time. I don’t think Atrus or Catherine will tell me.       Of course, arriving on Riven I would have no idea what it was originally supposed to be. Catherine would. Riven used to be a single island. The tram lines, the small islands, they were built after the fact. After Riven began to tear itself apart. If Atrus is correct, his writing is all that prevented the Age from annihilating itself, but even then the damage is clear. Furthermore, it’s only Village Island that’s open to the public. The rest are reserved for Gehn and his servants. Whatever that last island is for, there’s no doubt it’s a secret place, hidden from the Rivenese people.   …   Catherine discovered the fears I had, and expanded on them. Gehn would write the materials for the Art into his Ages, it’s obvious. At least as of this entry Gehn hadn’t created a working book. She can’t have been here that long, right?       Revelation after revelation. The Star Fissure was apparently underneath my very feet when I first arrived on Riven. The strange contraption was a means to observe it, and the Moiety even found the code to the device. This knowledge is tinged by finding out that Gehn threw people into the Fissure and used the telescope to watch them fall. The Myst book fell in that same hole, and eventually found its way to me. But what about these unfortunate people? The Myst Book had already changed hands several times before getting to me. The fate of the people might forever be a mystery. Neither Catherine nor Atrus really know what it is. Catherine seems confident, regardless. I wish I shared her faith.    The giant daggers, the one by the Star Fissure and the one in the jungle, were written by Catherine. I suppose it’s only to be expected that they became such powerful religious symbols, even if the Moiety don’t know precisely how Catherine is responsible for it. Gehn tried to paint them as symbols of Riven’s failure. I doubt that he was very successful, but who knows how this schism would resolve itself in the minds of the people.      As for Gehn, his progress in making new Ages is concerning. Even Catherine is uncertain how far he’s gotten, the man surrounds himself in secrecy and rarely demonstrates what he’s capable of. There’s at least one Age. There may be more. However, the books are imperfect. It looks like the spinning domes I’ve been finding are some sort of… charging device for the linking books. Catherine calls their use obvious. It must be nice to know so much about the Art.    More and more, despite her own indecision and humility, I am shocked by Catherine’s sheer overwhelming talent in Writing. Gehn manufactured enormous, crude devices to overcome a shortcoming in his own books. Catherine merely dreams, and her problems are solved. The crystal frame on the linking book here was written into the very Age I’m in, solving the issue with the books with a simple, portable device. These drawings are impossible to decipher but clearly they work. I can see why Atrus fell for her.       The end of the journal, and an explanation of this Age, Tay. Catherine wrote this Age for the Moiety. She had honestly planned to destroy the linking book afterwards, saving who she could but cutting herself off from Riven, Atrus, Gehn… If she had done so I might have been searching forever. There’s some measure of fortune in the fact that she was presumably captured almost the moment she got back to Riven. Her fears that Gehn was using the domes as bait were not unfounded after all. It looks like the Moiety failed to discover the code for the domes though. They ended up having to sneak inside one after it was used by Gehn, then wait for it to be powered. I might be able to do the same thing, but will I have the time? Atrus seemed to measure the time remaining in days, if not hours, and Gehn’s person seemed to be completely absent from Riven.  I had finished reading and was trying to digest everything I’d learned, when a rattle at the door signaled Nelah’s return.  She was carrying another book and a crystal frame, and tried to speak to me once again. I admit I was a bit too overwhelmed to return the favor right then.  When she placed the frame on the linking panel, I could see the image flicker to life. Truly amazing.  Before she left though, she addressed one last thing to me. I couldn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear. Save Catherine. And if you can, save Riven too.  With that, she left. I noted the click of the lock as she closed the door.   The book was a way back to the secret cave on Riven. The crystal frame powering it and possibly responsible for the strange pattern on the panel itself. I’m taking the chance, here on Tay, to rest in a safe space and wait for the crick in my back to fade away. I’ve been flipping through Atrus’ journal to remind myself what needs to be done. Gehn is still out there, probably on his own age behind safeguards and secrecy. Somehow I need to thwart them and confront him myself. He’s an old man, but if his buildings and temples are any indication, a ruthless one. Then I would have to rescue Catherine, wherever she is. Another passcode to retrieve from Gehn’s inner sanctum, then to actually find Catherine’s prison. With any luck it’ll be somewhere Gehn can talk to her, rather than solitary confinement in some purpose built Age. And finally, I would need to signal Atrus with some sort of fundamental change to Riven. Catherine fears opening the Star Fissure would have disastrous consequences. That may be just what I need. After so much time wandering the islands, climbing ladders, riding roller coasters, and getting shot in the neck I wasn’t that much further than I was when I got here. But I was getting somewhere.  I had a weapon after all. The Trap linking book. With any luck, I could use it without getting killed in the process. M.c.P fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 21, 2016 11:03
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Wow, this text is nearly unreadable and there's so much of it. 
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Nov 21, 2016 14:46
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Catherine's handwriting is by far the hardest puzzle in the game.
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Nov 21, 2016 15:56
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Here is a transcript of Catherine's journal http://www.mystwiki.com/wiki/Catherine%27s_Riven_Journal
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Nov 21, 2016 16:15
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I'm so glad it wasn't just me, christ. My patience with cursive gets worse the older I get.
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Nov 21, 2016 16:16
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... yeah that thought did cross my mind. I'm going to edit the transcript link into the post.
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Nov 21, 2016 16:55
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To be a fly on the wall when Cyan was coming up with Catherine's journal font... "Hey, what font should we use for Catherine's handwriting? A classical sans-serif? A vertical even leaded rounded text?" "Make it look like someone killed a spider and wiped it diagonally across the page."
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Nov 21, 2016 20:48
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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It's been said already, but it still blows me away just how much thought was put into this game, especially given the era it was made in. Myst was technically impressive, but in the end it still kind of boils down to a bunch of puzzles mishmashed together. This game is really something else, and it's a shame I never got the chance to play it thoroughly.
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Nov 21, 2016 21:08
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IronSaber posted:To be a fly on the wall when Cyan was coming up with Catherine's journal font... Why on earth would they use a text font for something that someone wrote by hand? That would have been even worse.
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Nov 21, 2016 21:52
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Also I just want to say that I miss the days when journals were actually journals, you know? In pretty much every video game since probably Bioshock, "journals" meant random NPCs recording a couple lines of thoughts, and then leaving the recording device on the ground in the middle of nowhere for no reason.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:07
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M.c.P posted:... yeah that thought did cross my mind. I'm going to edit the transcript link into the post. I believe you forgot to turn off italics after the editor's note. To give this post some content: The information that Riven was once a single island (and probably bigger than the current four combined, given the speed at which everything is falling apart) does a lot to make the world feel more real, like a place where a somewhat large number of people could actually live for an extended period of time. In Myst, the Ages you would travel to felt strangely like shrunk-down versions of the actual Ages described in Atrus' journals. I noticed in the video linked by RickVoid that the Stoneship journal mentions how Atrus met multiple new people in addition to the original three when he revisited that place after a few years. Now I'd like you to imagine even three people spending their lives on that tiny piece of vegetationless rock, let alone a whole community. This is probably one of the main reasons why the Ages in Myst felt so lifeless and sterile, obviously existing only to provide the player with puzzles and strange vistas. As was already thoroughly analyzed in this thread, Riven is on a completely different level in that regard.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:41
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Fister Roboto posted:Also I just want to say that I miss the days when journals were actually journals, you know? In pretty much every video game since probably Bioshock, "journals" meant random NPCs recording a couple lines of thoughts, and then leaving the recording device on the ground in the middle of nowhere for no reason. Even before Bioshock for sure, I remember Thief had little one-page scribblings from people, and System Shock 2 did the whole "four-sentence audio log randomly left in the bin" thing. I like Catherine's Journal. It feels really authentic to the setting, looks and reads like a real journal, and the handwritten look adds to that. If you read it carefully it's a bit too expository for someone writing solely to themselves, but as far as a way to communicate to the player it's far more artfully done than the usual codec call format.
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Nov 21, 2016 22:50
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RickVoid posted:In June of this year, Loading Ready Run (a Canadian comedy troupe that also streams video games and such) played through Myst in two sessions, roughly two and one-half hours apiece. You can view them here and here if you have ~5 hours to kill. Pro-click here. Best reaction was them unlocking the chest in Stoneship and finding that it contained another key 
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Nov 22, 2016 01:23
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Fister Roboto posted:Also I just want to say that I miss the days when journals were actually journals, you know? In pretty much every video game since probably Bioshock, "journals" meant random NPCs recording a couple lines of thoughts, and then leaving the recording device on the ground in the middle of nowhere for no reason. The worst is how in the high-tech future society of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, people carry around PDAs instead of phones and all any of them contain is a single message. But really, all journals, emails, books, audio logs, etc. in video games are bad. "Stop playing the game to read/listen to some exposition." It just means you couldn't think of a good way to get that information into the game in an organic way and took the lazy option. If it's necessary for understanding the plot or setting then you've failed to understand or make use of the medium you're working in, and if it's not then you should just cut it and stop wasting everyone's time.
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Nov 22, 2016 02:57
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Tiggum posted:The worst is how in the high-tech future society of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, people carry around PDAs instead of phones and all any of them contain is a single message. The soundbite approach can be done, and done well, it just... requires a little bit of loving imagination, by which I don't mean "establish the presence of voice recorders and then pretend everything is fine", I mean, just, christ, think up a use for short voiced bits that works! It doesn't even have to be literal findable audio diaries, either! Just... Okay, examples off the top of my head. Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: you are using weird wraith magic to hear fragments of memories imprinted upon objects. A diegetic approach that works; through reference to magic, we do not have to justify the presence of these particular lines in this place in the game (though we do have to tie them to the object and its stated history, of course). République: Several. You find voicemail messages on answerphones which either haven't been listened to yet or haven't been deleted yet and emails that are currently on screens - it makes sense that these messages are getting to these desks. You find videogames on disks, which your friend on the radio who is a huge nerd will give you little spiels about (and when he's not available, you get nothing). You find (banned) books, and when you examine these you hear a little speech from the local charismatic dictator about why the precious citizens need to be shielded from this poison - an interesting non-diegetic application; purely flavour and not actually revealed to the main character, just... a thing. The Witness: Rather than little soundbites you're finding recordings of readings of, like, actual passages from books and speeches and stuff, frequently unabridged and notably not short, thematically linked to surroundings, and with an (eventually revealed) reason they are lying around the place for you to find. The Talos Principle: lip service is payed to the notion that the realities of networked computers are in play; access to the totality of information is impossible but some resources may be cached on various machines, so on so forth so the doling out of logs one at a time is justified. One thing that all of these games have in common is that they all use their audio-diary-fuckery for flavour and not as a player gating mechanism, because that's the bullshit where you have to start justifying why someone would read out loud the combination to their stupid safe into a recorder and leave it lying around somewhere.
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Nov 22, 2016 03:48
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Fedule posted:One thing that all of these games have in common is that they all use their audio-diary-fuckery for flavour and not as a player gating mechanism, because that's the bullshit where you have to start justifying why someone would read out loud the combination to their stupid safe into a recorder and leave it lying around somewhere. I'd say this is one of the keys here, so to speak. Audio/Text files like these should just be flavor for building the setting. In fact, I would argue that sometimes these things are necessary to establishing your setting, because you can't always do it via dropping it in other ways. Bioshock and Myst/Riven are good examples, and in general games where your PC isn't going to be interacting with other people a whole lot. This information should be accessible somehow. This is especially true the more fantastical the setting is. I mean, it could be worse. Could be Kojima where the whole thing is explained in massive required infodumps. But as far as games where I liked the audio/text log approach, surprisingly: Doom 3. You could keep playing while listening, and you could get rewarded for doing so by getting safe combinations, and nothing stops you from just looking up the combinations online/remembering them for future playthroughs.
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Nov 22, 2016 04:30
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The journals in Riven would not fly in modern games. They are enormous blocks of text and required reading to find the passwords for various things. They work in Riven because it is designed to be a slow paced game. When you're already sitting with a notebook trying to figure out what the hell these animals are, it isn't too much of a stretch to take the time to read a block of text that might reveal some hints. Another note is that Catherine and Atrus' journals are a bit special. They sit in your limited "inventory", meaning they're available to read at any time for refreshers or notes. I think they also save the page you were last reading if you exit, so you can continue where you left off. That said, how interesting they are depends entirely on your personal investment in these people you rarely if ever meet and your patience towards their using personal journals to articulate their personal problems.
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Nov 22, 2016 05:23
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IronSaber posted:To be a fly on the wall when Cyan was coming up with Catherine's journal font... Obviously none of you went through the hell-training required to understand most cursive handwriting a.k.a. being taught it by nuns during kindergarten. Pussies  Of course, my actual handwriting is now a mish-mash of cursive and block letters. But oh, well, at least it's unique. The talk about infodumps in games reminds me of when I was playing the original Resident Evil on PSOne. I was near the end of the game, and still believing that the whole zombies/monsters was an unfortunate accident. Then I found a disk with a powerpoint presentation that made it clear that Umbrella was creating the monsters on purpose to sell as weapons. Yeah, nowadays everyone knows that Umbrella is to Bio-weapons as Apple is for over-priced phones, but this was back when RE1 was pretty new. And I think it was kind of optional, since at that point you were like half an hour away from going into the Tyrant room and getting info-dumped by Wesker.
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Nov 27, 2016 05:57
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M.c.P posted:That said, how interesting they are depends entirely on your personal investment in these people you rarely if ever meet and your patience towards their using personal journals to articulate their personal problems. I get your meaning but at the same time I feel compelled to point out that that is the literal purpose of personal journals. Seriously though if you got poo poo you need someone else to know don't put it in your journal.
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Nov 27, 2016 11:53
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Dr. Buttass posted:I get your meaning but at the same time I feel compelled to point out that that is the literal purpose of personal journals. I have a disgustingly dry sense of humor sometimes.
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Dec 1, 2016 05:41
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Entry 13 The Linking book on Tay returned me to the Moiety’s secret room behind the prison. I was at a bit of a loss though.  I would need to trap Gehn first, and all signs pointed to him being in his newly written Age, but the domes protecting the linking books were still a mystery to me.  Still, there was something I had missed, quite a while ago according to this journal. It was well enough that I was back on the village island. The prison entrance rumbled into place, and all the guards and villagers were still cowering in their homes.   I was left alone as I walked back to the clear cut part of the forest. The one spare track leading to the last island suggested another way in.  The cart here, likely for lumber, seemed like the culprit.  I climbed into the cart and noticed a lever on the side. You could… conceivably pull it from up top, but it seemed like people were meant to ride this thing with the lumber. I decided not to dwell on it and pulled the lever.  The cart began to steadily trundle down the rail line.  It was honestly a fairly sedate trip at first, but as the cart continued I noticed a glow from ahead and the ride began to pick up speed.  The glow turned out be strange rings emitting heat. The burn was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t the worst part.   The cart started to go at breakneck speed through the rings. I just had time to notice the water around me, kept at bay by whatever mysterious mechanism governs it. The hot air rushed by in my ears, and I felt every ring passing by emitting its heat. It was everything I could do to stop myself from being thrown from the cart into the ocean in between the islands.  It was a long trip between islands, but eventually it was finished.  At the top, I recognized the locked building and the long footbridge.  The cart had slowed down by now, and slowly trundled into another cave.  Gradually the cart pulled to a stop at a metal grate. I took a moment to catch my breath before climbing out.  Which turned out to be a bad idea. The bottom of the cart opened up and dumped me in a chute.  And then I landed in a wood chipper.  Fortunately it wasn’t on. I tried the lever out of morbid curiosity but it didn’t do anything. Which was just as well, I could imagine this process being automated.  Instead, I clambered off the machine and took a look around.  The island looked like a giant caldera lake, with high sheer cliffs surrounding the entire area.  Along the shore were two wrought metal machines.  One was the wood chipper I arrived on. A pile of wood shavings still sat on the dirt besides the machine.   The other appeared to be a boiler, considering the boiling water, the heat, and so on.  The machines I recognized from one of the stained glass images. Bookmaking machines, isolated on their own island. This may just be Gehn’s inner sanctum.  The center of the lake had some sort of mechanism poking out of it, with tubes running towards the machines here, and one more leading up into the cliff face. I wasn’t all that interested in making wood pulp, so I left it alone.   A path behind the boiler led further around the lake. A balcony above the lake marked my destination.   It was just another climb up the cliff face to reach it. Not the easiest thing in the world but my impromptu nap on Tay had left me refreshed.  So I didn’t curse and shout when the hatch at the top merely clunked in place. This place was very secure, no doubt about that.  I clambered down and took another look around. The large outflow pipe of the boiler led up the cliff face as well, and was more than large enough for a person. Maybe that was another way in.  I turned back to take a closer look at the machines.  First off, the strange device in the middle of the lake.  Taking a closer look showed that there was a lever for controlling it, and it seemed to turn to the three pipes. I thought back to the steam powered bridges on Temple Island. Looks like I could only power one thing at a time.  I thought to test it out, turning it to the pipe leading to the wood chipper.  Returning there and pulling the lever revealed I was correct. The machine whirred to life with greased efficiency, probably enough power to reduce a tree log to dust in moments.   That was enough messing around though. I rerouted power to the boiler to see if I could open it up.  I noticed the large access door on the side, but it was securely closed. Probably a safety feature, as I could hear the water boiling inside.  Around the corner were the controls, which seemed like an arcane mess at first.  I poked around with random levers. The one on the right turned off the heat, but the inside was still full of water.  Trying the handle near the window didn’t do anything at first, but I noticed the pipe tracing to a point to my left.  It was the pipe leading from the junction in the lake. Looks like there was another split here.  Switching it caused some sort of platform in the boiler to raise to the top of the water. Interesting, maybe for cleaning out the inside.  The wheel on the left raised the tube to some kind of device, but nothing else. But I realized it was probably powered. Flipping the steam switch to its original position created a churning sound as water emptied out of the boiler.   I had mostly just pulled things at random, but it worked. The boiler was empty and ready to enter.  It was still warm and very humid inside. The metal flooring and rails were hot to the touch.  But the platform let me enter the pipe at the bottom of the boiler   The trip was cramped, dark, and humid. This was probably the pipe for emptying wastewater after the wood pulp was finished.  After crawling for a while on my hands and knees, I noticed a light from ahead, and a ladder set into the pipe. At least this one wasn’t straight up and down.  Reaching the top revealed the exit to the pipe.  I was a little concerned when the view appeared to be the ocean far below.  Checking below revealed a perfectly reachable ledge below me that didn’t involve plummeting into the ocean.   I hopped down and followed a barely there dirt path around the top of the cliff. Reaching the top gave me an excellent view of the lake below.  The path led to the balcony I had seen from below.  First things first, I wanted to open up a path that didn’t involve climbing into a boiler.   The hatch had a handle on this end, which clicked and opened up easily. Now the only thing barring my way up here was a two story climb.  But I didn’t anticipate going back down there. I entered the doors of the balcony to see more of this island.  Ambient: Dripping water I entered a cool, dark cave. Something about the way my footsteps echoed on the grating suggested an open space far below me.  It was still humid, but cool and clammy instead of warm and cloying.  The only thing in the cave was some sort of cage device though. I tried the lever, and nothing happened. I was confused at first, but then I remembered the device in the lake, and the third pipe disappearing somewhere in the cliffs.     It wasn’t a long trip, especially with the hatch opened, but my legs were burning from all the climbing I’ve been doing.  I got back and caught my breath. I noticed that there was a steady noise coming from above, and noticed the fan there. The grate had popped off, somehow, but the fan itself was still running. But why ventilate a cave?  In any case, I was curious about this thing device. The handle at the top opened the cage, revealing a pad. It looked like a trigger of some sort.  The bowl at the side was full of pellets of some kind, some sort of animal food. I picked one up and carefully placed it on the pad.  The lever lowered the cage into the depths of the cave. I sat and waited for a bit, but nothing happened.  I strolled back to the balcony to look around. There didn’t appear to be any other paths around here.  I could even see a metal walkway to the right, but thus far I didn’t see any way there. While I was looking around, I heard a snap from inside.  I headed back to the device and pulled the lever to lift the cage from the depths. It was closed.  Curious, I used the handles to pry the cage open.  A small orange and black frog stared at me from inside. It chirped, just like the eye near the tram station. Interesting. I wondered if the bright colors meant the same thing here as they do on Earth.  It hopped, looking like it was trying to hide. Then it hopped away into the darkness. After a second, I heard a splash as it hit the water far below.  It was an interesting diversion, but I had reached another dead end. The island here, which seems to be for making books, is distressingly barren. Sensible, if it was an old caldera. Still, I know there’s more to this island. I just need to find where that entrance is. M.c.P fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Dec 8, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 07:09
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Brilliant, I love Riven! Never finished it when I was wee, but I revisited it years later and managed to get to the end(s) once I was less dumb. Fantastic LP so far, I think the narrative style you've got is a great fit for the game. Thanks for doing this, I'll be reading this one cover to cover!
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Dec 7, 2016 09:21
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Leave the little frog alone.
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Dec 7, 2016 09:56
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Lore – Catherine and the Rivenese This is going to be a bit different. In truth, I’ve been wondering how to get some of this extant information put out there, but I found that much of it seemed to be restated information. Anything I wanted to write seemed to be covered well enough by Catherine’s journal and the details on the islands. So we’re going to go over the backstory, but we’re going to do it while appreciating the Cyan team’s world building skill. So… Gehn’s plan  As Atrus and Catherine write in their journals, Gehn is trying to revive the D’ni. As far as Gehn knows, he and his son are the last people in the Multiverse capable of the Art. Gehn hopes to revive it, with himself as its humble and righteous god-king, of course. No one else can possibly lead the fledgling empire.  So he wrote inhabited Ages, dozens of them, using phrases copied from whatever ruined books he could find. Riven, his fifth Age, was early in the process, but by some coincidence of luck it turned out to be a relatively stable one with a large, populous island that perfectly suited his needs. As Catherine notes, he probably wrote the materials for the Art into all of his Ages, and he himself was extremely knowledgeable about how their creation.  But it wasn’t enough to simply have the resources to write, he needed people. People he could mold into the new D’ni. He didn’t anticipate any problems. They were created by his imagination, after all, surely they could fit his needs? Of course, it didn’t work like that. Gehn would create a battery of Ages for this purpose. Some, like the 37th, crumbled from Gehn’s poor writing. Others may even have rebelled, though Gehn obviously wouldn’t bring those up to Atrus or his other subjects. If Atrus and Catherine hadn’t trapped Gehn on Riven, the cycle might have proceeded indefinitely. But instead he was confined to Riven for two decades. We don’t need no education  Riven’s original culture is, by and large, gone. Gehn has gone to great lengths to either appropriate or eliminate the original Rivenese culture and raise the people as D’ni subjects. There are just a few traces left, kept alive by the villagers and the Moiety.  There seemed to be a respect, if not a reverence, of the various creatures that also live on the islands.  There was a definite fear of the wahrks that lurk in the oceans, a fear that Gehn was perfectly willing to use to his advantage.  And there was a reverence for what Catherine calls the “Great Tree”, which judging by the size of the trunk, was probably as tall as a skyscraper. The names, beliefs, and otherwise are simply not present in this game or the books. Gehn has been at work in Riven for more than 20 years by the time the game begins, so a whole generation of the Rivenese people simply do not remember a time where Gehn was not in power, Catherine included. Katran Katran confides in Atrus that when she was young, she felt disconnected from the others in her village. Whether that’s simply youthful confusion or an aspect of her talents isn’t really gone into, but as she entered the Guild of Writer’s school she quickly stood out as a quick study. She and a number of her fellow Rivenese are inducted into the special program, under the direct tutelage of Gehn. Part of that process is getting a brand on the neck symbolizing their status but…  I think the game devs forgot that little detail. maybe she got it removed. Learning the art was extremely tightly controlled. No special ink, no special paper, and lots of rote copying of phrases. It did, however, come with the privilege of traveling to D’ni and helping Gehn with his projects in the ruined city. Gehn’s teaching wasn’t really one that brooked questioning, and as a result most of Katran’s peers didn’t really take a lot of initiative. Katran did, however, manage to get her hands on a blank book and ink, and wrote an age in secret. After she started working with Atrus, she showed it to him. Katran’s unnamed Age The first thing off about the Age was that, according to Gehn, non-D’ni were simply unable to perform the Art. Of course, Gehn has been known to lie, and the D’ni themselves wanted to prevent outsiders from learning the Art. The second thing was the use of symbols Atrus didn’t recognize. When he questioned Katran about it, she said she made them up. Further reading showed that the book contradicted every rule Atrus knew about the Art, that it shouldn’t even function as is. The third through nth things became apparent when they visited the Age  What they first saw upon arriving was a massive waterfall flowing upwards into the sky, then slowly splitting and falling in streams around the outsides of the island. The sky was dark, but filled with glowing creatures like fireflies that seemed to merge and split constantly. After Atrus picked his jaw up, Katran led him through a long and windy tunnel that messed with Atrus’ sense of direction, and took him to the other side.  On the other side the ‘island’ was bathed in light. Around the edges, large storm clouds endlessly poured rain into a large central lake, which emptied through a hole in the center. Here a multitude of multicolored butterflies filled the air and landed on the surface of the water. Atrus realized that it was a closed system. Water flowed through the center and came pouring out the other side, where it somehow streamed around the outside edges to fall as rain back into the lake. But how it was possible, and how there was a shift in gravity from one side of the ‘island’ to the other, he hadn’t the slightest idea. Atrus and Catherine Atrus, as shown in Myst, is prolific, scientific, and observant. He wrote hundreds of Ages, some populated, some not, but as his journals show he does so out of an endless sense of discovery. There are some elements he might anticipate, but his hopes are to understand how his writing effects the worlds, how their fantastic elements operate like they do, and perhaps to meet and befriend the people that live there. He is an iterative explorer, driven by a wish to understand. Catherine, however, is a dreamer, a savant that the D’ni Empire itself may have never seen.  Catherine’s worlds are few, but they are all unique and operate in ways that defy physical law. Tay might be her most normal Age, written as a refuge for her people. Though even Tay was created in part to create a material that fixed Gehn’s broken books. She exists as a refutation of D’ni in general and Gehn in particular. The D’ni themselves might have been kind enough to avoid enslaving Ages, but their xenophobia and tradition blinded them to possibilities they wouldn’t have dreamed of. The D’ni are gone, but the people carrying on their Art have already surpassed them. That’s going to be the last of Lore for a little while. We’re actually closing in on the end of the game, so I hope you stay tuned while we finish our exploration of Riven.
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Dec 10, 2016 16:00
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In the classroom, the chalkboard reads: The Rules of Gehn Gehn is our master. Gehn created us. Gehn defeated Atrus.
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Dec 11, 2016 09:54
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M.c.P posted:The first thing off about the Age was that, according to Gehn, non-D’ni were simply unable to perform the Art. M.c.P posted:Learning the art was extremely tightly controlled. No special ink, no special paper, and lots of rote copying of phrases. Why were they learning the Art if they were (supposedly) unable to perform it?
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Dec 11, 2016 12:53
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