4 ms·

Hearing about Myst and CD-ROMs reminds me of my trouble with the sequel, Riven: Riven came on multiple CDs. When you moved from area to area you had to swap t

Hearing about Myst and CD-ROMs reminds me of my trouble with the sequel, Riven: Riven came on multiple CDs. When you moved from area to area you had to swap the discs in your PC. I got part way through the game and it said "Please insert disc 5". I couldn't see any disc 5 and wondered if this was some kind of clever, 4th wall breaking puzzle. Well, turns out the jewel case would open up an extra door and the 5th disc was there. It wasn't supposed to be a puzzle, it was just unexpected...

coldpie 7y ago
The shift from Myst to Riven and the following sequels is really interesting. Myst really clicked with me, while I was never able to get into the later titles, Riven included. I know the dev team had major changes between every title, so I suppose it's not surprising that they don't gel together very well. I wonder if anyone's done a deep dive comparing the first two titles' gameplay philosophies and technical and development differences. Certainly the 5 CD release was itself a stumbling block. It penalized exploring the island freely, which has some bad gameplay effects. When you're stuck on a puzzle in a Disc 2 area, should you keep exploring that area, or is it possible the clue you need is on some other disc? Which one? Are you willing to put up with the hassle? It wouldn't be so bad if each area was obviously self-contained, as they were in Myst, but in Riven they tried to change from a collection of puzzle boxes into a real world where the "puzzles" were diegetic. So there aren't really discrete "areas" anymore, or even puzzle themes restricted to an area. The clue you need may well be anywhere, which in combination with the disc swapping, makes finding clues into a huge chore instead of a delightful exploration. And the biggest shame is it was built on very crappy technology (Quicktime) that even back in the day was held together with spit and string. For the better part of two decades, it was basically unplayable on any modern PC without major effort. So I haven't gone back to replay it since the original 5-disc release in the 90s. They did a re-release a year or two ago, which I guess is probably worth a shot, but my memories of Riven are just so soured by my experience. Meanwhile Myst holds a special place as a fun, quick little puzzle game.
- Rounin 7y ago
  I remember working around Riven's disk swapping problem by mounting all of the disks at once in five virtual CD-ROMs. To prevent audio and video crashes, the entire game had to run on one single CPU core. Finally, there was a part when some buttons had to be clicked, but the game only occasionally captured the mouse presses. So I made a button mashing script to work around that. Nowadays, though, the game runs fine in ScummVM. It's amazing how many games they've saved over the years. Myst III runs in a similar project called ResidualVM.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I wasn’t aware you could play Myst and Riven today in a VM! Would you happen to have a link you’d recommend?
    - Operyl 7y ago
      https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Myst_series https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Myst_series https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=User_Manual/Quick_Start#2.2_Installing_ScummVM https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=User_Manual/Quick_S...
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        Also, I believe if your copies of Myst or Riven are up-to-date from Steam or GOG (or the recent collector's edition that was the referenced Kickstarter upthread), they'll use the ScummVM engine under the hood rather than the original engine today.
  - sjm-lbm 7y ago
    Cyan (the original devs) actually helped get ScummVM/ResdiualVM updated to support their games via a Kickstarter a couple of years ago. FWIW, if tech issues stopped you from playing Riven in the 90s, I really can't suggest giving it another try enough. If you get the ScummVM version, it's very likely going to work better on modern hardware (and, for that matter, doesn't require any discs). It's similar to Myst, but a much more artistically ambitious project.
paulcole 7y ago
Looks like you made a nearly identical comment 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16801801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16801801 Assuming you must've gotten it after release because as far as my memory serves, the original Riven came in little brown sleeves clearly labeled 1 to 5. I don't think your jewel case issue was an easter egg/trick. Just an attempt to fit 5 discs into 2 jewel cases.
- laurieg 7y ago
  Good memory on that old comment! Mine looked like this: https://imgur.com/LDkdx1k https://imgur.com/LDkdx1k Perhaps it wasn't the original release. Perhaps it was a regional difference. I agree, I don't think the case was intentionally made to deceive.

coldpie 7y ago

The shift from Myst to Riven and the following sequels is really interesting. Myst really clicked with me, while I was never able to get into the later titles, Riven included. I know the dev team had major changes between every title, so I suppose it's not surprising that they don't gel together very well. I wonder if anyone's done a deep dive comparing the first two titles' gameplay philosophies and technical and development differences. Certainly the 5 CD release was itself a stumbling block. It penalized exploring the island freely, which has some bad gameplay effects. When you're stuck on a puzzle in a Disc 2 area, should you keep exploring that area, or is it possible the clue you need is on some other disc? Which one? Are you willing to put up with the hassle? It wouldn't be so bad if each area was obviously self-contained, as they were in Myst, but in Riven they tried to change from a collection of puzzle boxes into a real world where the "puzzles" were diegetic. So there aren't really discrete "areas" anymore, or even puzzle themes restricted to an area. The clue you need may well be anywhere, which in combination with the disc swapping, makes finding clues into a huge chore instead of a delightful exploration. And the biggest shame is it was built on very crappy technology (Quicktime) that even back in the day was held together with spit and string. For the better part of two decades, it was basically unplayable on any modern PC without major effort. So I haven't gone back to replay it since the original 5-disc release in the 90s. They did a re-release a year or two ago, which I guess is probably worth a shot, but my memories of Riven are just so soured by my experience. Meanwhile Myst holds a special place as a fun, quick little puzzle game.

Rounin 7y ago
I remember working around Riven's disk swapping problem by mounting all of the disks at once in five virtual CD-ROMs. To prevent audio and video crashes, the entire game had to run on one single CPU core. Finally, there was a part when some buttons had to be clicked, but the game only occasionally captured the mouse presses. So I made a button mashing script to work around that. Nowadays, though, the game runs fine in ScummVM. It's amazing how many games they've saved over the years. Myst III runs in a similar project called ResidualVM.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I wasn’t aware you could play Myst and Riven today in a VM! Would you happen to have a link you’d recommend?
  - Operyl 7y ago
    https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Myst_series https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Myst_series https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=User_Manual/Quick_Start#2.2_Installing_ScummVM https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=User_Manual/Quick_S...
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Also, I believe if your copies of Myst or Riven are up-to-date from Steam or GOG (or the recent collector's edition that was the referenced Kickstarter upthread), they'll use the ScummVM engine under the hood rather than the original engine today.
- sjm-lbm 7y ago
  Cyan (the original devs) actually helped get ScummVM/ResdiualVM updated to support their games via a Kickstarter a couple of years ago. FWIW, if tech issues stopped you from playing Riven in the 90s, I really can't suggest giving it another try enough. If you get the ScummVM version, it's very likely going to work better on modern hardware (and, for that matter, doesn't require any discs). It's similar to Myst, but a much more artistically ambitious project.

paulcole 7y ago

Looks like you made a nearly identical comment 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16801801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16801801 Assuming you must've gotten it after release because as far as my memory serves, the original Riven came in little brown sleeves clearly labeled 1 to 5. I don't think your jewel case issue was an easter egg/trick. Just an attempt to fit 5 discs into 2 jewel cases.

laurieg 7y ago
Good memory on that old comment! Mine looked like this: https://imgur.com/LDkdx1k https://imgur.com/LDkdx1k Perhaps it wasn't the original release. Perhaps it was a regional difference. I agree, I don't think the case was intentionally made to deceive.