much more different than the original in its intentions than its given credit for, though to me its clear that riven is far more matured and ambitious than any myst game. in fact, the moments it relies too much on referencing myst and the book of atrus are actually parts of the game i dislike. because much of how riven itself works, as a place where people exist and do things, becomes so important for the player in a utilitarian gameplay sense that it makes some of the extraneous story stuff, having to do with places that /arent/ riven, feel tacked on by comparison.
riven is a tale of obsession and imperialism, a world suspended in an anxious ceasefire as its imminent death hangs over. this is communicated not so much through logic puzzles to solve, but from moving through spaces and interacting with machines and observing details. the key to progress in riven is, ironically, understanding that people in riven have interpretations of these details and reasons for these spaces and uses for these machines outside of progressing in a video game. THEN, through understanding this, is your knowledge tested, and even these couple of logic puzzles are brilliantly framed; one of culture and guerilla warfare, the other of tyrannical power and ecological crisis, dialectically opposed to each other. its pretty common to have """environmental storytelling""" games set after some big crisis or eerie abandonment of its world, but few if any have ever struck sharply into the blood of implicit conflict like this game does.
this alone makes riven great, but experiencing it comes with very interesting questions that im not sure i know how to fully answer yet: if riven is a place with history and people, why does it feel so deserted most of the time? why does the ~immersion~ they were going for with the admittedly remarkably well-aged CG visuals feel almost intentionally undercut by huge striking symbols that inexplicably dot the landscape? why does this anthropological bent of the game essentially only go so far as framing the information necessary for logic puzzle solutions as culturally significant onto itself, as if someone took the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy's answer to the question of the meaning of life, "42", as deep enough on its own? why does this game about seeing things from other's perspectives ultimately take the form of a puzzle game with correct answers?
honestly these questions make me believe riven harnesses the uncanny valley more enchantingly than any game ive played. myst was an amusement park mish-mash of pre-rendered aesthetics that tries to be "real", but felt too comically at home in the 90s (the 50s cartoon rocketship next to the columnated greco-roman building for example), but riven's elements that would arguably break its "even realer" versimilitude instead give it a more geniunely alien atmosphere. things left unsaid, like how lonesome this populated place feels, and the massive weapons littered around, and that one element of this game that always reoccurs but is only profound /because/ it reoccurs, get the imagination going when not expounded upon. its a game in which its lore is actually important for gameplay, yet the lore only goes so far as that much of the time, putting its gameyness starkly at odds with its realism in interesting ways.
i think there is even a beautiful meta-narrative layer to this with gehn's inability to understand how his own works reflect himself in their instability, constantly unnatural out of his staunch belief in "a natural order of things". the idea of being immersed into a strange world that cyan always tries was executed in riven with an almost unsettling self-awareness of the limits of making a virtual world that cannot truly feel alive. whether intentionally or unintentionally, i think riven best reflects both the fallacy of trying to make games real and the tendency to make them unreal, and the tension of those contradictory forces existing in the same instance becomes so alluring to me. a game of conflicts through and through
riven is a tale of obsession and imperialism, a world suspended in an anxious ceasefire as its imminent death hangs over. this is communicated not so much through logic puzzles to solve, but from moving through spaces and interacting with machines and observing details. the key to progress in riven is, ironically, understanding that people in riven have interpretations of these details and reasons for these spaces and uses for these machines outside of progressing in a video game. THEN, through understanding this, is your knowledge tested, and even these couple of logic puzzles are brilliantly framed; one of culture and guerilla warfare, the other of tyrannical power and ecological crisis, dialectically opposed to each other. its pretty common to have """environmental storytelling""" games set after some big crisis or eerie abandonment of its world, but few if any have ever struck sharply into the blood of implicit conflict like this game does.
this alone makes riven great, but experiencing it comes with very interesting questions that im not sure i know how to fully answer yet: if riven is a place with history and people, why does it feel so deserted most of the time? why does the ~immersion~ they were going for with the admittedly remarkably well-aged CG visuals feel almost intentionally undercut by huge striking symbols that inexplicably dot the landscape? why does this anthropological bent of the game essentially only go so far as framing the information necessary for logic puzzle solutions as culturally significant onto itself, as if someone took the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy's answer to the question of the meaning of life, "42", as deep enough on its own? why does this game about seeing things from other's perspectives ultimately take the form of a puzzle game with correct answers?
honestly these questions make me believe riven harnesses the uncanny valley more enchantingly than any game ive played. myst was an amusement park mish-mash of pre-rendered aesthetics that tries to be "real", but felt too comically at home in the 90s (the 50s cartoon rocketship next to the columnated greco-roman building for example), but riven's elements that would arguably break its "even realer" versimilitude instead give it a more geniunely alien atmosphere. things left unsaid, like how lonesome this populated place feels, and the massive weapons littered around, and that one element of this game that always reoccurs but is only profound /because/ it reoccurs, get the imagination going when not expounded upon. its a game in which its lore is actually important for gameplay, yet the lore only goes so far as that much of the time, putting its gameyness starkly at odds with its realism in interesting ways.
i think there is even a beautiful meta-narrative layer to this with gehn's inability to understand how his own works reflect himself in their instability, constantly unnatural out of his staunch belief in "a natural order of things". the idea of being immersed into a strange world that cyan always tries was executed in riven with an almost unsettling self-awareness of the limits of making a virtual world that cannot truly feel alive. whether intentionally or unintentionally, i think riven best reflects both the fallacy of trying to make games real and the tendency to make them unreal, and the tension of those contradictory forces existing in the same instance becomes so alluring to me. a game of conflicts through and through