I would like to recommend to anyone who loves the Adventure Game genre that you purchase and play the new Riven, just released back in June.

And for anyone who played and loved the 1997 version, you will find the remake, fully rebuilt in Unreal Engine, to be as good or better across almost every dimension. While still being very faithful to the original, some logical changes were made, and with some solid additions to the worlds and to gameplay which give it new life.

Cyan is and still is a small, indie game developer, and relies on word of mouth to be seen in a very crowded field of titles -- especially on Steam.

I bought it here hoping Cyan would get a better cut of the sale price than at Steam, but I'm a little surprised that there's not more discussion around it here.

So give it a go! Players familiar with the original are cautioned to try to take your time, savor getting reacquainted with an old friend, and play through the game as if you had never played it before, or you will probably miss stuff you don't want to miss.

There is some discussion in the sticky post. Steam version has achievements and GOG version still doesn't, although they said they're working on it, so let's hope they'll add them at some point. GOG uses Steam SDK API for unlocking achievements - it basically imports Steam achievements automatically for the English version. Maybe they want to add localised achievements too or not at all if their only option are English achievements.

Its much better than the original except for the live action characters. Loses something very special there. Still five stars anyway as it fixes many of the gameplay problems.

Yeah, I did like the FMV in older games, including but not limited to Myst. I'm surprised more hasn't been done to improve FMV gaming. I'm sure with today's tech somebody could do interesting things with it and help modernize the medium. Seems to have been largely neglected in the last couple of decades.

I was and remain a huge fan of the original Riven. I've only just started playing the 2024 remake, and overall it is a great experience. I understand why they had to go with computer drawn characters rather than the original filmed actors, and re-working some of the puzzles to suit the free-roaming 3D environment makes sense from a technical perspective as well as giving those familiar with the original game a few new challenges and surprises.

The only thing that disappoints me is that if they were going to the trouble of re-creating the entire game world in the Unreal engine, why could they have not taken the time to render a moving cloudscape in the sky? We have rippling waves, all kinds of subtle and beautiful lighting and shadow effects, and movement down to individual leaves and blades of grass, and yet ... we have a static sky with clouds that sit there and never move, like it was lifted from the original version of Riven itself. It just seems non-sensical to me. The remake of Myst from 2021 has a dynamic sky, water, shadows etc.

I am puzzled as to how something like this was overlooked, or considered not important? It breaks some of the immersion of the game for me and stops me labelling it as 'perfect'.

UPDATE:

Cyan support was kind enough to ask their person in charge of technical art about this for me. Their response was that the moving skies in Myst use FlowMapping, which works well with the soft/feathered skies in that game, but does not work as well with the crisp/hard-edged clouds used in Riven. If they used the same technique it would cause obvious visual repetition and be very noticeable. So, it is basically a technical limitation with current rendering techniques and/or the Unreal engine. Hopefully in the future there will be technological advancement that allow for a better approach.

I was just playing Riven 97, enjoyed it at first but found the puzzles got more and more obscure the further I went in. Started following a walkthrough but got to a point where even that didn't help (that thing with the marbles - seriously?) and had to shelve it.

Does the remake have better hints or maybe more info so you know what it is you're supposed to do? Okay I'm not the brightest star in the galaxy but sometimes it seems to solve these games you have to be either a member of Mensa or the kind of guy that doesn't remember the 60's.

Riven 2024 is a whole lot better on the puzzles. Its brought down from ridiculous to fun. You may be able to solve all puzzles now without cheating. If you decided to cheat, just rememeber everything can be solved in a day, not a year this time around. Something I always wish they thought about back then.

There's also the 3D aspect as well. 2D made playing the game worse as even a path is clickable so everything blended in. Now, you can actually see a path as the 3D aspect separates it. If that makes sense. Its no longer click everywhere and adds another layer of simplifying things.

And it helps that it has in-game camera. Don't have to draw things as another layer of simplifying. Even if it has bugs in every game they do.

But, just take the spinning domes. In 2024, the slider puzzle is gone. Although the whole spinning dome thing has changed for the most part, its far more enjoyable, and easier.

That sounds good, think I'll pick it up. It'll be fun to play it after finishing the original and compare the two. Thanks!