Riven (1997)

The SCUMMVM engine prevents my typing.

and it was great! The updated version really made it exciting to play again and this time i finished it! I have been a MYST enthusiast for decades! If you like puzzle games i believe you'll like this one and the rest in the series!

Myst is one of those games from the fringe of my memory, elegant and mysterious. Nothing could touch the overall experience of playing it for the first time way back when. I hesitated to play Riven at first for fear of disturbing a perfect memory of an old game by experiencing something similar, now from an adult perspective. I was glad to find that my fears were misplaced. Riven holds its own! It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience that didn't require nostalgia goggles to be fun. It's full of puzzles of varying difficulty, including some very tricky ones that you shouldn't feel bad about looking up the solution for. It somehow managed to gracefully tread the line between showing the player more of the world while still maintaining the sense of grand mystery that gave Myst its strength in the first place. As the game tells you, they put a lot of work into the sound of the game. Having played it with headphones and without, I *highly* recommend the headphones route, and if you can, turn off the lights / pull the curtains / otherwise isolate yourself. They've made a truly immersive experience that I recommend you get lost in. This game is art, and it is timeless.

Riven is a masterclass of puzzle, atmosphere, and writing. What makes Riven unique, even today, as a venerable classic that has inspired countless other games, is how organic its puzzling feels. It never breaks immersion. There's never a moment of "why would they build that". In fact, it seems almost incorrect to say that Riven has puzzles at all. Riven has an environment, where people have lived and worked and struggled against one another, and the locations and objects they have made in that process present obstacles that will require your utmost ingenuity to overcome and attain your goals. The puzzle is the world, the world is the puzzle. It's a fantastic, seamless coherence between setting and puzzle design. It is difficult to put into words how engrossing this is to play. It can get frustrating at times because sometimes you will be stuck not because you have yet to figure something out or because you need to explore further, but simply because you missed something. My tip for this overlooking problem if you play this game is NOT to use a guide. It sucks the joy right out of solving the problems, and without that joy, the game is nothing. In fact, the game teaches you what kind of approach most of its puzzles require, so looking up solutions is only hamstringing your ability to figure out the puzzles later. So here's what you should do: first, take notes. You will not succeed without taking notes. Second, get into the mindset of the game. Why did they build this like this? Where would I create a lever/passage/what have you if I designed this area? Second, go through it slowly. Pay attention. Look around. Take in the atmosphere. Again, Riven isn't a game of puzzles spread out over an empty world. The world is the puzzle. You will need everything you see, because you will need context. As the promotional text says, you need to let Riven become your world. Then if you're still stuck ask for a hint on a forum. No guides!

First off: this game is old, but absolutely playable in 2022. It has almost no jank and the experience is smooth through the GOG installer. This game is an extremely immersive puzzle solver, with a great story and beautiful graphics. It's also pretty hard: you'll need to pay very close attention to all the things you see and hear throughout the game - all the senses available to the developer are used to full effect. Often I would find myself going out on a limb based on something I spotted earlier - and find it was the intended solution. Very satisfying! One point: this game is occasionally obtuse. I solved every major puzzle without hints, but I got stuck for some time in two places because I simply had not noticed a visual detail or clickable location. So my advice is click EVERYTHING that looks like a button, and [HINT AHEAD] open and close every door from every possible direction. This game is comparable in difficulty and satisfaction to modern puzzle adventures like Obduction (same developers) or even Outer Wilds, though it lacks the emotional connection I formed with the latter. Worth a try!