Cyan characters sure have a tendency to want you to do something for them, have information you need in order to do the thing, but not tell you the information. Sirrus and Achenar not telling you the secrets of navigating the islands to facilitate finding the pages, C.W. not telling you how to unlock everything, and here, Catherine not telling you how to get to Tay. It's like puzzles come so naturally to Cyan characters that it doesn't occur to them that they would function as obstacles to you. Of course, as a player, I don't *want* characters to solve the puzzles for me, but it is an unfortunate element of artificiality.
Well, in this case it might be that Catherine and the Moiety don't yet know that they can trust you, so solving the puzzle lets them know that they can - because you're paying attention to the environment and animals, and in the remake you bothered to learn Riven's numbering system, which are all things Gehn doesn't particularly care for. Made sense to me, anyways.
I thought the purpose of the domes in the original were that they were sort of stationary power conductors for the books they contained. Hence why the books inside would only work when you had restored power to Riven via the great dome.
Yeah, the rotation of the domes seemed like part of the power supply system for the books in the original. It's harder to explain why the domes rotate in the remake. The runic plates seem sufficient to contain the breaches (e.g. for the fissure itself) so the rotation seems unnecessary now. The way gravity works in the expanse is a bit weird, too (including how the central bridge seems to be anchored purely to the ball it rotates around), so while it's cool, I do find it less satisfying than the original in terms of world building.
34:55 Walking on the floating totem seems questionable on its own, but doing it when there's a carnivorous animal in the water that we know eats people? Yeah, this is something I would never try in real life.
Also, I hadn't noticed the manacles on the totems before. I figured the boat was used for feeding Gehn's pets, but I didn't think they would be fed people in this location. (Though I guess the people he feeds them here might already be dead, which would explain why the Rivenese cemeteries have wood effigies but no actual graves.)
To me the "Riven symbol" you can see from the Moiety scope on Prison Island looks like a fish, specifically some kind of tropical reef fish like a butterflyfish. It's a side view with the head is facing down, the circle is its eye, the round vaguely heart-shaped curves are its dorsal and ventral fins, and the rounded semicircle at the top is its tail fin. Of course, that's just me seeing what might not be there.
While I don't think it's a holy number, I have always liked the number five myself (look at my username) and thought it more important than most people give it credit for.
At 32:16 when I first came to this broken walkway in my playthrough and saw that my thalassophobia went through the roof and for a moment I wondered if I was playing a horror game or not. I had some serious anxiety in this area after that ;(
I found the side path on Prison Island on my first visit and explored around it, but I completely missed the telescope the first time. Like you, after I understood how the animal puzzle worked, I figured out the symbol through process of elimination, but I wanted to do it the "right" way, and I figured it had to be something on Prison Island due to how things lined up. It took me a bit, but I finally noticed the knives stuck in the root. Second time I managed to miss a new puzzle blatantly telegraphed by those.
We would love a "cyan games tier list" video from you... explaining why you like each one of the games... the flaws, the peculiarities, etc... ranking them...
A fully dynamic lighting system for a game might be a little while still. Obviously ray tracing can do it, but the technology still needs some more iterations to start reaching general maturity. But I guess the remakes are only made occasionally as well, so who knows, maybe if there is a next remake they'll have dynamic lighting. With luck they can use the technology to make everything look even better while they're at it.
Interesting with all the things you notice you didn't notice the gap in the fence, the one totem I had a hard time with was the one hidden in the village
For some reason I really like the fact thet Gehn's marble polisher gear transmission goes through a flywheel. You need to spin it up and then couple it with the rest of the mechanism (and also input a bit of energy every now and then to keep it going). It's... nifty. and makes sense
I also completely missed the prison island path on my first playthrough (in VR). I noticed the ladder outside the prison at the end of the game, then I realized there must be something there, went back and found it.
Finished Riven last night on a 15" mid-tier laptop with a graphics processor (versus using the main processor and RAM) and HD screen. Required several hours a day over three days. Phenomenal graphics and immersion. Using touchpad and WASD keys versus mouse and arrow keys on a full size keyboard became easier with time. General goal and story arc remains the same as the 1997 original (bought it when originally released). That helps, but the details of most puzzles and their problems to solve are definitely different. Those experienced with 1997 Riven aren't going to breeze through it. Eventually resorted to some notes on a small pad of paper as flipping to screen captures in game became cumbersome. Several different features of each island must be correlated and it's easier to do that on paper. That said, screenshots of key journal pages does make life easier. A bit of running around at the end to find some info needed not gathered earlier . . . similar to what you did in this video. Excellent video series on the 2024 Riven -- finally released 27 years after the original which I can still play on a Win10 PC, albeit with a few "patches" and hacks to install and make it work. The original 16-bit installer won't run even though the game is 32-bit. Just installed and started Firmament. Another excellent video and commentary.
13:27 While he could have used the wood from the Great Tree to make books, I personally believed Gehn cut down the Great Tree purely out of spite, given the tree's significance to the people of Riven and his own callousness after being trapped here.
I've not seen anyone else mention this, but if you look at the small domes through the eye peice, there is a line painted on them to mark the correct symbol
I full screen these videos, so I can't see the play bar, but there's just... a cadence you use, a breath you take, I don't know- but I always know immediately when you're about to say "in the next video" and tab out of full screen
I discovered the telescope, but I thought it was just a lense piece pointed at the mechanism that had the white stripe at it, and somehow was connected to the "window" above and acted like a telescope altogether. It wasn't until I accidentally zoomed in when the telescope was not down that I realized it was a telescope itself and that I needed my glass to see what it was. Lol
I also completely missed the backside of the Prison in my playthrough as well. I figured the final symbol was the fish symbol, just from I assumed that the symbols were mostly the same as the original game, and was able to deduce what its number was through process of elimination.
When you walked past that opening on the big tree island I wondered why you didn't go that way. I then thought 'well if he didn't go that way I suppose it's not a way to go even if it does look like it.'
12:15 - Why is there about 2° of tilt relative to the horizon during the entire time you're up in this area? At 20:19 it's apparent that there's no tilt anymore when you're at ground level.
6:41 I managed to beat the game without finding the totem on prison island. I never thought to try that path. I guessed the code later based on the original solution to the puzzle.
Imagine how strange and distressing this would be for someone from the early 1800s. You've never heard of electricity, or a maglev train, and you've probably only heard of elevators and never seen or ridden one. No wonder the protagonist has no dialogue, I think they're speechless!
I think the Moiety not being an adventure game protagonist, may have other means to reach the Prison Island too. Like swimming or rowing over there with a boat.
Considering all the structures Gehn has built, and all the fuel that he would have needed for smelting and forging metal, I'm guessing that most of the trees on Riven were lost to lumber and charcoal production rather than making paper. The villagers, by contrast, seem to mostly use sticks and poles that could have been coppiced.
Funny enough, I went straight through the gap when I first arrived. Didn't even bother to go to the front door as it was clear I would need the code first.
I was thrown off the fact that there were 6 totems with animals instead of 5. Since the entire age is all about the number 5, I didn’t even look for the sixth one. So I guessed as well.
Okay my favorite island is already way more morbid than I remember it being. Did I simply completely miss the manacles on my CDs or are those new? This island is still pretty though!
It's always been a little strange to me that Catherine recognizes the Stranger immediately, even though she's never met them before. I wonder if Gehn tried to interrogate her about them soon after they linked in?
22:59 The Moiety do know the symbols for the domes. If you look at the domes with the Moiety lens, you’ll see they have marked the correct symbol.
R.I.P to the actress who played Catherine. Unfortunately, She passed away 2 years before this came out.
Catherine: Gehn's watching you to see you make a mistake!
The Stranger: Well---I---uh---sort of caused a bridge to collapse 👉👈🥺 .
14:22 "I know what he's doing. He's watching you. He's waiting for you to make him a steak."
Atrus wants donuts, Gehn wants steak... it's a pretty food-motivated family it seems.
@@Dilandau3000 And Achenar wanted apples. (And Sirrus was probably dying for something with protein after almost 20 years of forced veganism.)
"That was his steak!"
Huzzah! Been looking forward to the next one. I still can't get over how absolutely gorgeous this game looks!
The starry expanse is the closest we'll get to seeing Super Mario Galaxy on this channel
34:57 It was at this point I wondered if Cyan made a new bad ending where you get eaten by the Wahrk.
So did I! That was scary!
every time that glowing orb goes by, i think it is Yeesha.
Cyan characters sure have a tendency to want you to do something for them, have information you need in order to do the thing, but not tell you the information. Sirrus and Achenar not telling you the secrets of navigating the islands to facilitate finding the pages, C.W. not telling you how to unlock everything, and here, Catherine not telling you how to get to Tay. It's like puzzles come so naturally to Cyan characters that it doesn't occur to them that they would function as obstacles to you. Of course, as a player, I don't *want* characters to solve the puzzles for me, but it is an unfortunate element of artificiality.
Well, in this case it might be that Catherine and the Moiety don't yet know that they can trust you, so solving the puzzle lets them know that they can - because you're paying attention to the environment and animals, and in the remake you bothered to learn Riven's numbering system, which are all things Gehn doesn't particularly care for. Made sense to me, anyways.
I thought the purpose of the domes in the original were that they were sort of stationary power conductors for the books they contained. Hence why the books inside would only work when you had restored power to Riven via the great dome.
Yeah, the rotation of the domes seemed like part of the power supply system for the books in the original. It's harder to explain why the domes rotate in the remake. The runic plates seem sufficient to contain the breaches (e.g. for the fissure itself) so the rotation seems unnecessary now.
The way gravity works in the expanse is a bit weird, too (including how the central bridge seems to be anchored purely to the ball it rotates around), so while it's cool, I do find it less satisfying than the original in terms of world building.
I understood it as the rotating created power the same way spinning a copper coil around a magnet generates electricity in the real world.
34:55 Walking on the floating totem seems questionable on its own, but doing it when there's a carnivorous animal in the water that we know eats people?
Yeah, this is something I would never try in real life.
Also, I hadn't noticed the manacles on the totems before. I figured the boat was used for feeding Gehn's pets, but I didn't think they would be fed people in this location. (Though I guess the people he feeds them here might already be dead, which would explain why the Rivenese cemeteries have wood effigies but no actual graves.)
To me the "Riven symbol" you can see from the Moiety scope on Prison Island looks like a fish, specifically some kind of tropical reef fish like a butterflyfish. It's a side view with the head is facing down, the circle is its eye, the round vaguely heart-shaped curves are its dorsal and ventral fins, and the rounded semicircle at the top is its tail fin. Of course, that's just me seeing what might not be there.
Not only that - you can see a school of these fish in the water as you walk on the docks toward the village
While I don't think it's a holy number, I have always liked the number five myself (look at my username) and thought it more important than most people give it credit for.
Now I remember why I binge watch, I can't wait for the next episode!!!!!
Happily totem hopping while a hungry whark swims by. La di da!
At 32:16 when I first came to this broken walkway in my playthrough and saw that my thalassophobia went through the roof and for a moment I wondered if I was playing a horror game or not. I had some serious anxiety in this area after that ;(
"I don't see any Belters" - Someone has been watching The Expanse.^^
I found the side path on Prison Island on my first visit and explored around it, but I completely missed the telescope the first time. Like you, after I understood how the animal puzzle worked, I figured out the symbol through process of elimination, but I wanted to do it the "right" way, and I figured it had to be something on Prison Island due to how things lined up. It took me a bit, but I finally noticed the knives stuck in the root. Second time I managed to miss a new puzzle blatantly telegraphed by those.
We would love a "cyan games tier list" video from you... explaining why you like each one of the games... the flaws, the peculiarities, etc... ranking them...
A fully dynamic lighting system for a game might be a little while still. Obviously ray tracing can do it, but the technology still needs some more iterations to start reaching general maturity. But I guess the remakes are only made occasionally as well, so who knows, maybe if there is a next remake they'll have dynamic lighting. With luck they can use the technology to make everything look even better while they're at it.
Interesting with all the things you notice you didn't notice the gap in the fence, the one totem I had a hard time with was the one hidden in the village
OMFG I love the reference to The Expanse series by James SA Corey! I'm reading through Abaddon's Gate in the middle of watching this LP!
For some reason I really like the fact thet Gehn's marble polisher gear transmission goes through a flywheel. You need to spin it up and then couple it with the rest of the mechanism (and also input a bit of energy every now and then to keep it going). It's... nifty. and makes sense
I also completely missed the prison island path on my first playthrough (in VR). I noticed the ladder outside the prison at the end of the game, then I realized there must be something there, went back and found it.
Finished Riven last night on a 15" mid-tier laptop with a graphics processor (versus using the main processor and RAM) and HD screen. Required several hours a day over three days. Phenomenal graphics and immersion. Using touchpad and WASD keys versus mouse and arrow keys on a full size keyboard became easier with time. General goal and story arc remains the same as the 1997 original (bought it when originally released). That helps, but the details of most puzzles and their problems to solve are definitely different. Those experienced with 1997 Riven aren't going to breeze through it. Eventually resorted to some notes on a small pad of paper as flipping to screen captures in game became cumbersome. Several different features of each island must be correlated and it's easier to do that on paper. That said, screenshots of key journal pages does make life easier. A bit of running around at the end to find some info needed not gathered earlier . . . similar to what you did in this video. Excellent video series on the 2024 Riven -- finally released 27 years after the original which I can still play on a Win10 PC, albeit with a few "patches" and hacks to install and make it work. The original 16-bit installer won't run even though the game is 32-bit. Just installed and started Firmament. Another excellent video and commentary.
1:01 I think the problem is between his chair and his desk, or lectern, or whatever surface he writes on.
13:27 While he could have used the wood from the Great Tree to make books, I personally believed Gehn cut down the Great Tree purely out of spite, given the tree's significance to the people of Riven and his own callousness after being trapped here.
In any case, we can be sure he used the felling of the Great Tree as a "Let that be a lesson to you all!" moment.
I've not seen anyone else mention this, but if you look at the small domes through the eye peice, there is a line painted on them to mark the correct symbol
I must have spent a good hour looking around the prison island for the clue, but completely missed it my first time through. Clever Cyan.
Liked the Expanse reference! That was a great show.
I full screen these videos, so I can't see the play bar, but there's just... a cadence you use, a breath you take, I don't know- but I always know immediately when you're about to say "in the next video" and tab out of full screen
The music for this game is really nice.
I discovered the telescope, but I thought it was just a lense piece pointed at the mechanism that had the white stripe at it, and somehow was connected to the "window" above and acted like a telescope altogether. It wasn't until I accidentally zoomed in when the telescope was not down that I realized it was a telescope itself and that I needed my glass to see what it was. Lol
The Expanse joke is awesome
I also completely missed the backside of the Prison in my playthrough as well. I figured the final symbol was the fish symbol, just from I assumed that the symbols were mostly the same as the original game, and was able to deduce what its number was through process of elimination.
When you walked past that opening on the big tree island I wondered why you didn't go that way. I then thought 'well if he didn't go that way I suppose it's not a way to go even if it does look like it.'
Man I played that in VR and as the big fish dived under me....
12:15 - Why is there about 2° of tilt relative to the horizon during the entire time you're up in this area? At 20:19 it's apparent that there's no tilt anymore when you're at ground level.
6:41 I managed to beat the game without finding the totem on prison island. I never thought to try that path. I guessed the code later based on the original solution to the puzzle.
Imagine how strange and distressing this would be for someone from the early 1800s. You've never heard of electricity, or a maglev train, and you've probably only heard of elevators and never seen or ridden one. No wonder the protagonist has no dialogue, I think they're speechless!
I think the Moiety not being an adventure game protagonist, may have other means to reach the Prison Island too. Like swimming or rowing over there with a boat.
Considering all the structures Gehn has built, and all the fuel that he would have needed for smelting and forging metal, I'm guessing that most of the trees on Riven were lost to lumber and charcoal production rather than making paper. The villagers, by contrast, seem to mostly use sticks and poles that could have been coppiced.
Funny enough, I went straight through the gap when I first arrived. Didn't even bother to go to the front door as it was clear I would need the code first.
Catherine showing up scared me!
Goes off to the dome island and the locks on the ages Atrius was blocking in his age books
I never found out the imager room when I played myst.
32:17 You're gonna need a bigger boat...
I was thrown off the fact that there were 6 totems with animals instead of 5. Since the entire age is all about the number 5, I didn’t even look for the sixth one. So I guessed as well.
Okay my favorite island is already way more morbid than I remember it being. Did I simply completely miss the manacles on my CDs or are those new?
This island is still pretty though!
I was never afraid of the wahrk until now....
I more liked to link with linking books which was in original then to just go underground
What happens if you summon the maglev while on the side the stair can't get to? Does the car spin around before it upens up on your side?
There are much more notorious game villians than Gehn, but he's the worst for me. He genuinely creeps me out.
It's always been a little strange to me that Catherine recognizes the Stranger immediately, even though she's never met them before. I wonder if Gehn tried to interrogate her about them soon after they linked in?
Judging by how she tells you to find the Moiety, I'd guess one of their people came to inform her about our arrival.
How does catherine know who the stranger is? How does she know they aren't an agent of gehn's.
Someone from the Moiety must have come to tell her about our arrival. (And anyway, we probably don't look Rivenese.)
I expected the animal to be a whale
I think Catherine overall is good but the mouth/teeth are still funky.
I've never heard it called Boiler Island before! X
Catherine's accent sounds oddly Australian in the remake.
They cut the big tree, to make the ladders, to climb the tree. Perfectly logical, or not? :P
This part was very frustrating to me in vr
I was actually pretty disappointed by the change to this part. Myst is about the books! I want books!
Spectrum analiser the magnafire is useful for other things like projections and reviewing a specific number or location of a number
Gehn building the stuff in the starry expanse: "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make."
This big fish broke the bridge
Wow so big ass fish this island is so beautiful like it was in original
I wonder how old is this tree
Wow its so giant tree and look its secret passage
To bad actress which was in catherines role is dead 😢
Sven i think its root
Hi sven
Eww cg catherine real catherine was cool
Still better than Myst IV Catherine.
@@micahbush5397 was there catherine in myst 4
@@NikaNakaidze Only her voice, but she still managed to be the worst Catherine.