Despite following Starry Expanse until Cyan snatched them up, I had NO idea this was coming out today, nor that it was in the last Steam fest! The Myst remake was well-received, so I'm impulse...
Despite following Starry Expanse until Cyan snatched them up, I had NO idea this was coming out today, nor that it was in the last Steam fest! The Myst remake was well-received, so I'm impulse buying and playing this the first minute of free time I get.
For anyone out of the know, this is a remake of the sequel to Myst and is a much more cohesive game than its prequel. It does a much, much better job at integrating the puzzles into the world itself to give it an anthropological bend. Before Outer Wilds blew up in recognition, I called that "Riven in space" to convince Myst fans to play it; hopefully this is a chance to get some interest the other way. Myst is recommended playing beforehand, aside from being an enjoyable game, due to some minor story and world-building elements... But a story recap or Let's Play would be sufficient.
I didn't play Myst back in the day but I'm jonesing for a VR title that's more about exiting than shooting. Please tell me that Myst is what I'm after. Would you call it "immersive"? Despite not...
I didn't play Myst back in the day but I'm jonesing for a VR title that's more about exiting than shooting. Please tell me that Myst is what I'm after.
Would you call it "immersive"? Despite not playing Myst, I've listened to the soundtrack a thousand times. Does it feature in the new game, too?
Immersiveness is very subjective,imo. The game definitely shows it's age, it's not a made-for-VR title. I enjoyed myself,and looking around at the world and the mechanisms was amazing Have you...
Immersiveness is very subjective,imo. The game definitely shows it's age, it's not a made-for-VR title. I enjoyed myself,and looking around at the world and the mechanisms was amazing
Have you seen Cyan's Firmament? Aside from a couple bugs that have since been fixed, it's a really beautiful VR experience. The puzzles are simpler than the Myst universe, though I still had a bunch of head scratching moments
I'll have a look! For me, playing fully modded out Skyrim is immersive. I'm all for just walking around, looking at details and knocking stuff off of tables.
I'll have a look! For me, playing fully modded out Skyrim is immersive. I'm all for just walking around, looking at details and knocking stuff off of tables.
Try out any of Cyan’s VR games. They’re quite good. I honestly think they’re the best experience I’ve had with VR, even if they don’t take full advantage of every VR control gimmick. The...
Try out any of Cyan’s VR games. They’re quite good. I honestly think they’re the best experience I’ve had with VR, even if they don’t take full advantage of every VR control gimmick. The experience is kind of like a Meow Wolf installation, if you’ve ever been to one.
Amazing - thanks for the recommendation. I don't know if you're an artistic type, but my deep cut recommendation is music, an idea and Gravity Sketch. Creating in the third dimension is like...
Amazing - thanks for the recommendation. I don't know if you're an artistic type, but my deep cut recommendation is music, an idea and Gravity Sketch. Creating in the third dimension is like nothing else.
I saw that Riven arrived to quality reviews recently, and having missed it and Myst back in the 90s, I'm super excited to dive in. I've been looking for a game that doesn't hold your hand and...
I saw that Riven arrived to quality reviews recently, and having missed it and Myst back in the 90s, I'm super excited to dive in. I've been looking for a game that doesn't hold your hand and apparently this is it.
I've been interested in Myst/Riven due to their reputation, but I tend to avoid point and click games. Out of those I've played, their item combinations are too esoteric and the objects in the...
I've been interested in Myst/Riven due to their reputation, but I tend to avoid point and click games. Out of those I've played, their item combinations are too esoteric and the objects in the environment are too difficult to distinguish for the game's to be engaging and not overly frustrating. I think I've played one or two more modern ones where the interactions are proper logic puzzles.
Do these two follow similar trends as those sorts of classic points and clicks? Like, "combine the crowbar with the banana to get a banana peel, combine that with the bubblegum to get the key that goes in the light socket instead of the keyhole"?
This might be a tough genre line to draw, I am sure there's are games which straddle it, but I would classify Myst and Riven as puzzle games, while most of that...
This might be a tough genre line to draw, I am sure there's are games which straddle it, but I would classify Myst and Riven as puzzle games, while most of that kleptomaniacal-inventory-combination comes from adventure games. In Myst (and Riven, if I remember correctly) you don't have an inventory. You don't need to bring things from one place to another to solve puzzles. Instead, if you need to get something, it will be a piece of information, a diagram, the code for a combination lock. You are encouraged to keep a paper and pencil nearby while you play.
I just want to add that Myst and Riven also don't pull their punches, the puzzles can end up being frustrating just because of how difficult and challenging they are. I am no stranger to...
I just want to add that Myst and Riven also don't pull their punches, the puzzles can end up being frustrating just because of how difficult and challenging they are. I am no stranger to walkthroughs and have no issues looking up an answer if I'm truly stuck.
If that isn't an issue for you, then I'd say these games are perfect for you
Thanks for the warning! As long as there's a reasonable logic to it, I'll laugh at myself for not figuring it out after looking it up. I've been playing some beefy puzzlers recently, a game that's...
Thanks for the warning! As long as there's a reasonable logic to it, I'll laugh at myself for not figuring it out after looking it up. I've been playing some beefy puzzlers recently, a game that's "in-world" versus a logic void sounds like a nice change of pace.
Theres not really a lot of items. It's a lot more like a machine with a bunch of buttons and the whole thing is there. But information necessary for the solution is probably somewhere else and not...
Theres not really a lot of items. It's a lot more like a machine with a bunch of buttons and the whole thing is there. But information necessary for the solution is probably somewhere else and not clear at all.
Biggest warning is that Riven (and Myst but less so) has a ton of pixel hunting. Get ready to click on every brick in that wall because any one of them might have an invisible switch that opens up an entire hidden room.
Question: if I didn’t like Myst, is it safe to say I won’t like Riven? Myst always looked super cool to me as a kid, but I never got the chance to play it back then. I finally picked it up ~20...
Question: if I didn’t like Myst, is it safe to say I won’t like Riven?
Myst always looked super cool to me as a kid, but I never got the chance to play it back then. I finally picked it up ~20 years later and found it frustrating. It’s been a while so I can’t really give more specific thoughts because they’re lost to time, but it felt sort of directionless? Its puzzles felt more obtuse than clever to me?
That said, I usually love first-person puzzle games, and in particular enjoy “mystery puzzle island” games like The Witness and Quern: Undying Thoughts. Not liking Myst is a pretty big outlier for me.
Riven also looked super cool to me as a kid, and I’ve always thought it has an awesome name (what a great word!). I never did end up playing it though. With the remaster now out, I don’t know if it’s worth attempting to scratch that decades-long itch or if I should just leave it be. Any thoughts from those that have played it?
Riven is more organic than Myst in that the puzzles feel a bit more like an integral part of the world and its people, rather than some puzzles that someone put into a world, which is the vibe...
Riven is more organic than Myst in that the puzzles feel a bit more like an integral part of the world and its people, rather than some puzzles that someone put into a world, which is the vibe that Myst often has. The puzzles themselves are still fairly similar, but I would say that Riven is in every way a better game and a more enjoyable experience. It's a bit like Myst was a test run and Riven was the final product.
Unlike in something like The Witness, where your progress as a player comes primarily from learning the puzzle language of the game, in Myst and Riven, your progress is measured in you progressing in the story, or in your understanding of the story and unlocking new areas. If the story is of no interest to you, and the virtual worlds that you get to explore don't excite you, these games may feel quite directionless.
I would say that if you can spare both the money for Riven and a couple of evenings to get to know it properly, do give it a try, partly for historical reasons, but mainly to fulfil a dream which that kid version of yourself had once upon a time. I think we owe it to our younger selves to indulge in things that we didn't get to experience when younger.
And if you don't like the game, then you know you don't like it. Puzzle solved.
Thank you for this rundown. The end of it was honestly quite beautiful. I love your framing of getting closure on the game being a way of solving a personal puzzle. Simply brilliant.
Thank you for this rundown. The end of it was honestly quite beautiful. I love your framing of getting closure on the game being a way of solving a personal puzzle. Simply brilliant.
@kfwyre I played myst and riven as a kid, and even with the prima games paperback guide to help out they were still too hard lol. It was frustrating even then, but I loved them—all part of the...
@kfwyre I played myst and riven as a kid, and even with the prima games paperback guide to help out they were still too hard lol. It was frustrating even then, but I loved them—all part of the draw! Lean into it : )
I feel that Myst and Riven were both wonderful games at the time, but they don’t match well with the improvements in usability that we’ve had since the 90’s. In my mind, Outer Wilds is a true...
I feel that Myst and Riven were both wonderful games at the time, but they don’t match well with the improvements in usability that we’ve had since the 90’s.
In my mind, Outer Wilds is a true successor to the legacy of Myst and Riven, in that the knowledge you gain throughout playing is the only item you collect.
The original Riven discs are still somewhere in a box in my house. I’d love to revisit the game. I don’t have a newer PC ánd I don’t have VR either, I’m not sure if I should buy it again or look...
The original Riven discs are still somewhere in a box in my house. I’d love to revisit the game. I don’t have a newer PC ánd I don’t have VR either, I’m not sure if I should buy it again or look for the old game in the attic. Anybody have any experience with this new version on an old machine? I need to check the requirements.
It didn’t work too well on Win10 last time I tried it unfortunately—you’d have better luck with the PS1 version & an emulator, if you want to go that route.
It didn’t work too well on Win10 last time I tried it unfortunately—you’d have better luck with the PS1 version & an emulator, if you want to go that route.
Do you mean the 1997 PC version doesn’t run well on Windows 10, or the remake doesn’t? I assume the PS1 version will look even worse than the old PC version, that probably ruins the experience...
Do you mean the 1997 PC version doesn’t run well on Windows 10, or the remake doesn’t? I assume the PS1 version will look even worse than the old PC version, that probably ruins the experience even more.
Oh I meant the OG five CD-ROM set—don’t know about the graphics for PS1 comparatively, and I would shudder to play it without a mouse lol, bill so first choice would be the new version. But...
Oh I meant the OG five CD-ROM set—don’t know about the graphics for PS1 comparatively, and I would shudder to play it without a mouse lol, bill so first choice would be the new version. But compatibility-wise the PSX version does work.
I went down the GoG route since they had the OG version on sale: $2.58! It just runs super easy on my laptop, which is very nice. But ugh, it looks so much worse than I remember. I’m not sure I’m...
I went down the GoG route since they had the OG version on sale: $2.58! It just runs super easy on my laptop, which is very nice. But ugh, it looks so much worse than I remember. I’m not sure I’m doing myself a favor by revisiting this old game.
Yeah for the old one the GOG/Steam versions work using ScummVM IIRC, though with some minor compatibility issues with sound transitions - you could throw the game at that, or if you want anything...
Yeah for the old one the GOG/Steam versions work using ScummVM IIRC, though with some minor compatibility issues with sound transitions - you could throw the game at that, or if you want anything ironed out you can run via a virtual machine.
For the new one, it's a UE5 game so I'm not sure how other games in the engine do on old machines - Tekken 8 as an example I'm seeing people say you can get it going via very low settings at 60 FPS. Personally on a newer machine but in VR I'm seeing a lot of smoothness... Until a transition point to a new area, in which case there's some longer loading or there's a scene transition while you're not actually doing anything (ie the mine cart/mag-lev) and everything gets jittery. In one case a fire marble just, uh. Disappeared entirely for a second.
Well… isn’t this just convenient! GoG has a sale going on the old version and it is super cheap. I’m going to save myself a trip to the attic and try this ScummVM route trough GoG. Thanks for the...
Well… isn’t this just convenient! GoG has a sale going on the old version and it is super cheap. I’m going to save myself a trip to the attic and try this ScummVM route trough GoG. Thanks for the information.
Despite following Starry Expanse until Cyan snatched them up, I had NO idea this was coming out today, nor that it was in the last Steam fest! The Myst remake was well-received, so I'm impulse buying and playing this the first minute of free time I get.
For anyone out of the know, this is a remake of the sequel to Myst and is a much more cohesive game than its prequel. It does a much, much better job at integrating the puzzles into the world itself to give it an anthropological bend. Before Outer Wilds blew up in recognition, I called that "Riven in space" to convince Myst fans to play it; hopefully this is a chance to get some interest the other way. Myst is recommended playing beforehand, aside from being an enjoyable game, due to some minor story and world-building elements... But a story recap or Let's Play would be sufficient.
I had so much fun with Myst in VR :D I'm really looking forward to playing Riven as well
I didn't play Myst back in the day but I'm jonesing for a VR title that's more about exiting than shooting. Please tell me that Myst is what I'm after.
Would you call it "immersive"? Despite not playing Myst, I've listened to the soundtrack a thousand times. Does it feature in the new game, too?
Immersiveness is very subjective,imo. The game definitely shows it's age, it's not a made-for-VR title. I enjoyed myself,and looking around at the world and the mechanisms was amazing
Have you seen Cyan's Firmament? Aside from a couple bugs that have since been fixed, it's a really beautiful VR experience. The puzzles are simpler than the Myst universe, though I still had a bunch of head scratching moments
I'll have a look! For me, playing fully modded out Skyrim is immersive. I'm all for just walking around, looking at details and knocking stuff off of tables.
Try out any of Cyan’s VR games. They’re quite good. I honestly think they’re the best experience I’ve had with VR, even if they don’t take full advantage of every VR control gimmick. The experience is kind of like a Meow Wolf installation, if you’ve ever been to one.
Amazing - thanks for the recommendation. I don't know if you're an artistic type, but my deep cut recommendation is music, an idea and Gravity Sketch. Creating in the third dimension is like nothing else.
I saw that Riven arrived to quality reviews recently, and having missed it and Myst back in the 90s, I'm super excited to dive in. I've been looking for a game that doesn't hold your hand and apparently this is it.
I've been interested in Myst/Riven due to their reputation, but I tend to avoid point and click games. Out of those I've played, their item combinations are too esoteric and the objects in the environment are too difficult to distinguish for the game's to be engaging and not overly frustrating. I think I've played one or two more modern ones where the interactions are proper logic puzzles.
Do these two follow similar trends as those sorts of classic points and clicks? Like, "combine the crowbar with the banana to get a banana peel, combine that with the bubblegum to get the key that goes in the light socket instead of the keyhole"?
This might be a tough genre line to draw, I am sure there's are games which straddle it, but I would classify Myst and Riven as puzzle games, while most of that kleptomaniacal-inventory-combination comes from adventure games. In Myst (and Riven, if I remember correctly) you don't have an inventory. You don't need to bring things from one place to another to solve puzzles. Instead, if you need to get something, it will be a piece of information, a diagram, the code for a combination lock. You are encouraged to keep a paper and pencil nearby while you play.
That sounds perfect, exactly what I was hoping it'd be. Thank you for the explanation!
I just want to add that Myst and Riven also don't pull their punches, the puzzles can end up being frustrating just because of how difficult and challenging they are. I am no stranger to walkthroughs and have no issues looking up an answer if I'm truly stuck.
If that isn't an issue for you, then I'd say these games are perfect for you
Thanks for the warning! As long as there's a reasonable logic to it, I'll laugh at myself for not figuring it out after looking it up. I've been playing some beefy puzzlers recently, a game that's "in-world" versus a logic void sounds like a nice change of pace.
Theres not really a lot of items. It's a lot more like a machine with a bunch of buttons and the whole thing is there. But information necessary for the solution is probably somewhere else and not clear at all.
Biggest warning is that Riven (and Myst but less so) has a ton of pixel hunting. Get ready to click on every brick in that wall because any one of them might have an invisible switch that opens up an entire hidden room.
Question: if I didn’t like Myst, is it safe to say I won’t like Riven?
Myst always looked super cool to me as a kid, but I never got the chance to play it back then. I finally picked it up ~20 years later and found it frustrating. It’s been a while so I can’t really give more specific thoughts because they’re lost to time, but it felt sort of directionless? Its puzzles felt more obtuse than clever to me?
That said, I usually love first-person puzzle games, and in particular enjoy “mystery puzzle island” games like The Witness and Quern: Undying Thoughts. Not liking Myst is a pretty big outlier for me.
Riven also looked super cool to me as a kid, and I’ve always thought it has an awesome name (what a great word!). I never did end up playing it though. With the remaster now out, I don’t know if it’s worth attempting to scratch that decades-long itch or if I should just leave it be. Any thoughts from those that have played it?
Riven is more organic than Myst in that the puzzles feel a bit more like an integral part of the world and its people, rather than some puzzles that someone put into a world, which is the vibe that Myst often has. The puzzles themselves are still fairly similar, but I would say that Riven is in every way a better game and a more enjoyable experience. It's a bit like Myst was a test run and Riven was the final product.
Unlike in something like The Witness, where your progress as a player comes primarily from learning the puzzle language of the game, in Myst and Riven, your progress is measured in you progressing in the story, or in your understanding of the story and unlocking new areas. If the story is of no interest to you, and the virtual worlds that you get to explore don't excite you, these games may feel quite directionless.
I would say that if you can spare both the money for Riven and a couple of evenings to get to know it properly, do give it a try, partly for historical reasons, but mainly to fulfil a dream which that kid version of yourself had once upon a time. I think we owe it to our younger selves to indulge in things that we didn't get to experience when younger.
And if you don't like the game, then you know you don't like it. Puzzle solved.
Thank you for this rundown. The end of it was honestly quite beautiful. I love your framing of getting closure on the game being a way of solving a personal puzzle. Simply brilliant.
@kfwyre I played myst and riven as a kid, and even with the prima games paperback guide to help out they were still too hard lol. It was frustrating even then, but I loved them—all part of the draw! Lean into it : )
I feel that Myst and Riven were both wonderful games at the time, but they don’t match well with the improvements in usability that we’ve had since the 90’s.
In my mind, Outer Wilds is a true successor to the legacy of Myst and Riven, in that the knowledge you gain throughout playing is the only item you collect.
This looks great! I grew up with Myst but never got around to playing the sequel. By all appearances this should be a great way to dive in, finally.
The original Riven discs are still somewhere in a box in my house. I’d love to revisit the game. I don’t have a newer PC ánd I don’t have VR either, I’m not sure if I should buy it again or look for the old game in the attic. Anybody have any experience with this new version on an old machine? I need to check the requirements.
It didn’t work too well on Win10 last time I tried it unfortunately—you’d have better luck with the PS1 version & an emulator, if you want to go that route.
Do you mean the 1997 PC version doesn’t run well on Windows 10, or the remake doesn’t? I assume the PS1 version will look even worse than the old PC version, that probably ruins the experience even more.
Oh I meant the OG five CD-ROM set—don’t know about the graphics for PS1 comparatively, and I would shudder to play it without a mouse lol, bill so first choice would be the new version. But compatibility-wise the PSX version does work.
I went down the GoG route since they had the OG version on sale: $2.58! It just runs super easy on my laptop, which is very nice. But ugh, it looks so much worse than I remember. I’m not sure I’m doing myself a favor by revisiting this old game.
Yeah for the old one the GOG/Steam versions work using ScummVM IIRC, though with some minor compatibility issues with sound transitions - you could throw the game at that, or if you want anything ironed out you can run via a virtual machine.
For the new one, it's a UE5 game so I'm not sure how other games in the engine do on old machines - Tekken 8 as an example I'm seeing people say you can get it going via very low settings at 60 FPS. Personally on a newer machine but in VR I'm seeing a lot of smoothness... Until a transition point to a new area, in which case there's some longer loading or there's a scene transition while you're not actually doing anything (ie the mine cart/mag-lev) and everything gets jittery. In one case a fire marble just, uh. Disappeared entirely for a second.
Well… isn’t this just convenient! GoG has a sale going on the old version and it is super cheap. I’m going to save myself a trip to the attic and try this ScummVM route trough GoG. Thanks for the information.
IIRC Riven was sold as a combined PC/mac version, so you might have good luck playing it with a Macintosh emulator.