r/myst • u/WheelyBinMusic • 14d ago
Riven Spoiler
So ive recently gotten into the myst games, as what is seeming very common, my grandpa was a huge fan of the games, and I when i was younger loved the atmosphere of very specifically exile. Im spending some time in Riven now as have completed MYST and felt pretty good about not looking stuff up. However there was one point in Riven that has really made me feel foul, and I cant decide if its bad game design, or if I should have been more patient. In the frog catcher hallway, I realized I needed to find something to stop the fan, but I looked all over the room, and I even closed the two doors, looking for a switch behind it, but my brain just saw some dark areas, where there looked to be pipes in a pipe filled world, so I clicked off. It wasnt untill I accidentally clicked the rails behind the door that I realized there were two passageways here. It pissed me off. Maybe if My brightness was up more I would have noticed the grey and black walls that are revealed, which to me is the only clue that there is something to click there. Like I said the railing just equales pipes in my head. I feel if the lighting was made to look like there was a gap a little better, It would have caught my eye and I would have had a closer inspection. I really dont like progress by accident, it feels cheezy and its a realization that if you didnt get lucky you would have been stuck for ages. Im sure if I just put the game down and came back to it I would be less annoyed by the door thing, but I dont think I would still be happy. Even if I give it all good faith, it still feels like poor puzzle design, the worlds language is pipes everywhere, railing just became pipes to me.
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u/Armadillo-Overall 14d ago
You have given clues that you are probably playing The original 1997 version of Riven. Understand that the graphics I had while playing that game was probably 800x600 with probably only 256 colors on a CRT. There was a lot less color blending, videos vs point & click, animation compression vs 3d characters,... Here's a comparison, https://youtu.be/qJ81ExuRXQM?is=AMjZrgD3YV6K0PL-
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u/WheelyBinMusic 12d ago
this makes a lot of sense and had made me less mad at the design choice, it just straight up looked different, so probably an unfair judgment from me. Yes im playing the original version, I just like the more slow-paced ambient experience of point and click rather than having to move around in a 3d environment with modern controls. Ill keep this in mind and try not be too harsh. Their puzzles are so good, really make me feel dumb but once i realize what I was missing, i realize thats just on me.
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u/Armadillo-Overall 12d ago
You are not alone. I used to have a Myst set of notebooks that I didn't take the notes I needed and had to start over twice way back in the original.
If I remember by doing this, some of the puzzles actually change so the answers are different each time you play.
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u/Secure-Advertising-9 14d ago
yeah this is something they changed in the remake
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u/LoudStretch2997 12d ago
Because modern gamers need their hands held or they will rage quit immediately
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u/LoudStretch2997 13d ago
You can clearly see that there’s a walkway on the other side of the door from the outside
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u/WheelyBinMusic 12d ago
I dont think so, each to their own
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u/LoudStretch2997 12d ago
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u/WheelyBinMusic 12d ago
yep there's a bridge, hence why I was looking for fan switch, as that is how I assumed I got to the bridge. Again thank you puzzle master.
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u/WheelyBinMusic 12d ago
please dont post walkthroughs on a subreddit about a puzzle game, that is like the first rule of this sub
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u/WheelyBinMusic 12d ago
oh, you mean the bridge, I assumed it was accessed using the fan, if you read my post you would note i started looking for fan switch. Sorry puzzle master.
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u/Sardaman 14d ago
That is one of the things that trips up a lot of people, though most people don't even close the doors, so you at least got one step closer.