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> Your reaction to Riven when approached in “gamer” mode will depend on whether you think this kind of intensive intellectual challenge is fun or not, as well a

> Your reaction to Riven when approached in “gamer” mode will depend on whether you think this kind of intensive intellectual challenge is fun or not, as well as whether you have the excess intellectual and temporal bandwidth in your current life to go all-in on such a major undertaking. There's a period of time between the nineties and mid 2000s when ubiquitous and fast internet access wasn't easily accessible, and so games like Myst and Riven had the space and time to be digested and savoured. Now it seems this just isn't feasible anymore. There are of course games in the same category, e.g. Outer Wilds and The Witness, but these have much more concessions to the internet age

Hugsun 2y ago
I never played myst or riven. I loved The Witness and the Talos Principle. What concessions were made to the internet age?
- bowsamic 2y ago
  I haven't played the latter, but The Witness avoids, as one example, a common problem in games like Riven or many other old adventure games. That is, The Witness understands that huge challenge is completely fine, so long as it's isolated to a specific virtual space, such as a given panel and room. Instead many old games give a strong sense that a solution may be found anywhere in the game so far, or anywhere on any random bitmapped area from a set of 10+ screens. I think the "concession" The Witness makes is to focus itself in order to ask the player to focus. I don't think it's possible to ask the player, like Riven does, to be comfortable living in the world for extended periods. Riven does so by unfocussing and spreading itself out over everything: anything might be interactable, anything might be a clue and important. Today, people want progress, and if they are stuck, they want to know exactly where. The sense of anxiety created by totally open confusion is not acceptable. For me, personally, that's the moment I open a walkthrough: for example, the moment I feel like I missed something important and I have no idea where.
  - voganmother42 2y ago
    Totally open confusion is how I would describe Outer Wilds, long periods where I was lost and making no progress, and it was absolutely one of the most amazing games I’ve ever played.
    - bowsamic 2y ago
      Well first I think that Outer Wilds still does a great job at nudging the player in a direction and making them feel like they are doing important stuff, though sometimes this fails. Ironically I saw how much Jon Blow got lost and hated Outer Wilds. I think an aspect of making the player feel like they're doing something important and not just wasting their time is that for Outer Wilds the game world itself is so interesting and unique that it feels fine to be lost in it. Riven is a series of paintings, Outer Wilds is a beautiful and serene real time fully simulated solar system. I think that is a concession the poster was referring to: Outer Wilds has to have a wow factor in order to make it okay to be lost and confused. If Outer Wilds was a series of static images, people would not persevere.
    - tialaramex 2y ago
      One huge benefit Outer Wilds has is that its fans are like "No! Don't watch this spoiler - Play the game" which is definitely the correct advice. If you're not sure, play the game. I actually only played a few hours of Outer Wilds and decided to watch others (and particularly Thor) finish it instead because I'm bad at flying the ship and I found it too frustrating to die unsure whether I was bad at it or what I was attempting is impossible. But I know I'm weird, I think the Penn & Teller things where they explain the trick are the best, clearly Penn himself doesn't agree because you won't see too much of that in their newer work. My favourite bit of Portal 2 was playing with commentary on just before "The Part Where He Kills You" where there's a frantic portal fling and in testing they realised it's not fun if the player accidentally flings the wrong portal. Like, sure, if you actually did that you die, but so what? So - if you hit the wrong button you get the correct portal anyway, as a special exception to the game's rules. So yeah, I'm weird, I like to understand how it works. Outer Wilds (less so the DLC) has a lot of opportunity for you to completely misunderstand and I think it's actually overall nice that the game doesn't finish by insisting on correcting you. You can keep believing whatever it is, and maybe you eventually realise you were wrong or maybe not. Life's like that. SPOILERS - Stop reading if you haven't played Outer Wilds and think you might It's very possible to "win" Outer Wilds not understanding why the visitors died. Maybe you never visit the asteroid, maybe you don't understand what's happening there and never go inside, maybe you see what happened but never understand it. This is especially likely if you haven't noticed that they're clearly right in the middle of everything, they actually have just discovered the Sun Station doesn't work at the time! If you understood why they died, it's even more possible to not see why Hearthians were spared. Video game protagonists are used to miracles that save them, but your whole species is here and yet other species were annihilated in seconds. Was it so long ago? Well, yes and no. It was a long time ago, but your ancestors were amphibians and like radiation the death is abated by water's density so that's why you're here. It's also really possible to not "get" how the "Quantum" rules work. To "win" you don't need to actually go meet the last "living" alien although ideally you will, and so you don't need to grok the rules well enough to go there. So you can get to the "end" of the game without ever really knowing why the weird rocks move or that there's a coherent explanation for how and why they do that. Ooh, edited to add the biggest I forgot - it's easy to not realise this game takes place at the End Of The Universe. The stars are dying! Unrealistically quickly, but that's what's happening. You aren't seeing more supernovas just as a hint (although it is a hint) or because of where this happens, but because everywhere the stars are dying.
- mattlondon 2y ago
  Talos Principle! What a gem - loved the setting and story. Still think of it from time to time. Amazing - play it if you have not already.
  - MattRix 2y ago
    If you haven’t played The Talos Principle 2 (which came out around 6 months ago), I highly recommend it. They put a ton of effort into it, and it shows.
- moomin 2y ago
  A really obviously one in The Talos Principle: nearly all the puzzles have names. That makes them readily googleable.
VladimirGolovin 2y ago
To me, both Outer Wilds and The Witness were absolutlely savourable, and I made a point of never looking up anything on the Internet while playing these games. That would rob me of the feelings these games were designed to impart.
- tantalor 2y ago
  You might like Animal Well
  - Minor49er 2y ago
    Seconding this. It's a very satisfying puzzle-based Metroidvania. You might not like ostriches when you're done with it though
  - gaudystead 2y ago
    The hidden puzzles go DEEP on Animal Well.
  - graynk 2y ago
    and Tunic!
    - fennecfoxy 2y ago
      Tunic is so good. Although I'm yet to complete it, I've gotten like 90% of the way I think after runs of 20-50%. Maybe I'll finally complete it this year because I adore the aesthetic, vibe and that little fox. Definitely the game opens up and becomes more deep/mysterious than I thought it would get, super cool.
  - CitrusFruits 2y ago
    I heard it's like Halo 2 meets Halo 3.
  - MattRix 2y ago
    Yes! Animal Well is great, it probably most reminds me of Fez.
bowsamic 2y ago
I totally agree. The thing about Myst and Riven is that they really are full of the kinds of things that players will naturally try to circumvent by looking up solutions: non-obvious interactable objects, branching paths, easy to accidentally backtrack. Basically, full of ways to feel like you are wasting your time. The concessions that Outer Wilds and The Witness make are naturally related to this. Particularly with the latter, Jon Blow stated how much they changed the game to make it clear that the panels were the only thing that needed to be interacted with, and the game makes it very clear from the beginning that each panel can be approached independently. It's only with the game's environmental puzzles that this starts to devolve, but they are not necessary by any means. Outer Wilds also does a great job of making you feel like you are getting something significant from each time loop. But I must agree with you, the ship has sailed with this kind of game. You can of course go back and enjoy it but you do so with the knowledge that you can be doing other things that feel as meaningful but without the feeling of frustration. Another similar example are MMOs. When I was a kid, my dad and I were really into Star Wars Galaxies. Well, people made emulation projects to go back and play it, but it's just not the same for various reasons. I feel the same way with World of Warcraft. It is almost more stark than Riven, because you not only miss the word of mouth and lack of easy "cheating" aspects, but you also feel the distinct lack of open socialising in modern online gameplay. A good example of the opposite would be old Nintendo games. Super Mario Bros 3 is still one of the best 2D Mario games of all time, and in no sense when playing it do you feel compelled towards a modern experience.
- doctorhandshake 2y ago
  I had a similar experience when I bought an iOS remake of legend of Zelda three… Within an hour I found myself circling the border of the accessible area of the game looking for the door or NPC interaction I was missing. Absolutely Not fun. I chalked it up to gameplay of a bygone era and gave the rest a miss.
the__alchemist 2y ago
Excellent comparison. I would consider those both Riven-Tier games in terms of awe and wonder. There are a few factors affecting emotional appeal, including phase in life, age, how much you're used to games, and your main point but... I will say I had nearly as much of a good time with those two games as with Riven. For all three, I had this sinking feeling while playing "I will rarely find works as lovely as these in my life".
- Brendinooo 2y ago
  Has anyone here played Quern? That was the first time I felt I was playing something Riven-like…well, since playing Riven.
  - pferde 2y ago
    I've never played Riven nor Myst, because I just can't find a version or remake that wouldn't suck technically, but I just loved Quern, and one or two similar games I found since. One that stood out to me is "Odyssey - The Story of Science", which is a Myst-like with focus on teaching basics of math and physics through its puzzles.
    - Matumio 2y ago
      I've played Quern for several hours but couldn't bring myself to care as much about the puzzles or, more importantly, walking around the world. It was not too bad, but my memory of Riven is so much stronger. Maybe I should replay it instead, just to walk through this beautiful world again, even without solving all the puzzles (the puzzles are IMO not why you play it). Riven evoked this constant feeling of wonder with the sounds and short cut-scenes adding a lot to the atmosphere. There was this place where you walk down towards the water with a beast sitting there in the sun, and that scene almost has a smell to it. Or maybe my memory is colouring it all rosy now.
    - weaksauce 2y ago
      > because I just can't find a version or remake that wouldn't suck technically the recent myst remake is probably the pinnacle of them... that said the original is well worth playing still and i've played it through a few times now.
dartos 2y ago
Have you heard of stardew valley? It’s a very slow burn game and is extremely popular. I’d say that dragons dogma is in the same vein as Riven and does fairly well.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
There's definitely games in this category and I do still think they work even in a digital age. It's a relatively niche microgenre though, and I think in a sense that is why it works. Immortality and The Signifier are both solid games where most of the enjoyment is interpreting the world. They aren't hypercard-esque puzzle games like Myst and Riven, but what they share in common is that the enjoyment of the game is figuring out the somewhat ambiguous world major beats occur in the negative space of what you are explicitly shown and told. The former has sort of Lynchian undertones that slowly emerge over the course of the game, and the latter benefits from at least a cursory understanding of Freud and/or semiotics.
spaceribs 2y ago
Any Daniel Mullins game, Noita and Animal Well are excellent high depth and intellectually stimulating puzzle games. I highly suggest them all if you're looking for a puzzle box to rip apart.
- Hammershaft 2y ago
  I love the environmental simulation and deep secrets in Noita but it's not quite like Riven. Riven had me filling out pages and pages of a journal with notes and drawings. Many of these notes and drawings were my observations ended up being extraneous details about the visual design and lore of the world, because in Riven it can be very difficult to parse what is and is not relevant to progressing in the game. It's a very unique experience, I love a lot of puzzle games with secrets and meta layers, and I love Outer Wild's knowledge based metroidvania design, but no other game has had me scouring and mulling on every detail of this virtual world like Riven.
andrepd 2y ago
There's another thing about hyper-prevalent internet: there are wikis and guides documenting every detail, every nook and cranny, detailing every optimally min-maxed strategy. Exploration is dead.
- treflop 2y ago
  Exploration was dead back then too. You could just pick up a book about the game that told you everything.
  - opan 2y ago
    People still have to explore to fill out those wikis. They're not always complete or correct, either.
Waterluvian 2y ago
I played Outer Wilds one week at my cottage when we had no internet and it did nothing but rain. It was an incredible experience. Not having Internet really makes my experience better with games. I wish I had the discipline to just not reach for a Wiki.
nimbius 2y ago
[flagged]
- egypturnash 2y ago
  And yet they sold a bazillion copies. Presumably there was something in these games that appealed to people who were not for you. I know it can be hard to understand, but there's a lot of people in the world, and they like a lot of different kinds of things!
- toddmorey 2y ago
  It was one of the first PC titles ever to enjoy that sort of traction with non-gamers. I know a couple of people who actually bought a home PC just to play it on. Whatever your opinions of the game, it definitely played an important role in opening up gaming to a wider audience. Myst is an important artifact in the history of gaming. Now... were I not more restrained, I'd hope here that you step on the sourest of your grapes.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Counterpoint : I don’t have a neckbeard and Myst and Riven are the best games I’ve ever played. Period.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Counterpoint: I don’t have a neckbeard and Myst and Riven are the best single player games I’ve ever played. Period.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

Hugsun 2y ago

I never played myst or riven. I loved The Witness and the Talos Principle. What concessions were made to the internet age?

bowsamic 2y ago
I haven't played the latter, but The Witness avoids, as one example, a common problem in games like Riven or many other old adventure games. That is, The Witness understands that huge challenge is completely fine, so long as it's isolated to a specific virtual space, such as a given panel and room. Instead many old games give a strong sense that a solution may be found anywhere in the game so far, or anywhere on any random bitmapped area from a set of 10+ screens. I think the "concession" The Witness makes is to focus itself in order to ask the player to focus. I don't think it's possible to ask the player, like Riven does, to be comfortable living in the world for extended periods. Riven does so by unfocussing and spreading itself out over everything: anything might be interactable, anything might be a clue and important. Today, people want progress, and if they are stuck, they want to know exactly where. The sense of anxiety created by totally open confusion is not acceptable. For me, personally, that's the moment I open a walkthrough: for example, the moment I feel like I missed something important and I have no idea where.
- voganmother42 2y ago
  Totally open confusion is how I would describe Outer Wilds, long periods where I was lost and making no progress, and it was absolutely one of the most amazing games I’ve ever played.
  - bowsamic 2y ago
    Well first I think that Outer Wilds still does a great job at nudging the player in a direction and making them feel like they are doing important stuff, though sometimes this fails. Ironically I saw how much Jon Blow got lost and hated Outer Wilds. I think an aspect of making the player feel like they're doing something important and not just wasting their time is that for Outer Wilds the game world itself is so interesting and unique that it feels fine to be lost in it. Riven is a series of paintings, Outer Wilds is a beautiful and serene real time fully simulated solar system. I think that is a concession the poster was referring to: Outer Wilds has to have a wow factor in order to make it okay to be lost and confused. If Outer Wilds was a series of static images, people would not persevere.
  - tialaramex 2y ago
    One huge benefit Outer Wilds has is that its fans are like "No! Don't watch this spoiler - Play the game" which is definitely the correct advice. If you're not sure, play the game. I actually only played a few hours of Outer Wilds and decided to watch others (and particularly Thor) finish it instead because I'm bad at flying the ship and I found it too frustrating to die unsure whether I was bad at it or what I was attempting is impossible. But I know I'm weird, I think the Penn & Teller things where they explain the trick are the best, clearly Penn himself doesn't agree because you won't see too much of that in their newer work. My favourite bit of Portal 2 was playing with commentary on just before "The Part Where He Kills You" where there's a frantic portal fling and in testing they realised it's not fun if the player accidentally flings the wrong portal. Like, sure, if you actually did that you die, but so what? So - if you hit the wrong button you get the correct portal anyway, as a special exception to the game's rules. So yeah, I'm weird, I like to understand how it works. Outer Wilds (less so the DLC) has a lot of opportunity for you to completely misunderstand and I think it's actually overall nice that the game doesn't finish by insisting on correcting you. You can keep believing whatever it is, and maybe you eventually realise you were wrong or maybe not. Life's like that. SPOILERS - Stop reading if you haven't played Outer Wilds and think you might It's very possible to "win" Outer Wilds not understanding why the visitors died. Maybe you never visit the asteroid, maybe you don't understand what's happening there and never go inside, maybe you see what happened but never understand it. This is especially likely if you haven't noticed that they're clearly right in the middle of everything, they actually have just discovered the Sun Station doesn't work at the time! If you understood why they died, it's even more possible to not see why Hearthians were spared. Video game protagonists are used to miracles that save them, but your whole species is here and yet other species were annihilated in seconds. Was it so long ago? Well, yes and no. It was a long time ago, but your ancestors were amphibians and like radiation the death is abated by water's density so that's why you're here. It's also really possible to not "get" how the "Quantum" rules work. To "win" you don't need to actually go meet the last "living" alien although ideally you will, and so you don't need to grok the rules well enough to go there. So you can get to the "end" of the game without ever really knowing why the weird rocks move or that there's a coherent explanation for how and why they do that. Ooh, edited to add the biggest I forgot - it's easy to not realise this game takes place at the End Of The Universe. The stars are dying! Unrealistically quickly, but that's what's happening. You aren't seeing more supernovas just as a hint (although it is a hint) or because of where this happens, but because everywhere the stars are dying.
mattlondon 2y ago
Talos Principle! What a gem - loved the setting and story. Still think of it from time to time. Amazing - play it if you have not already.
- MattRix 2y ago
  If you haven’t played The Talos Principle 2 (which came out around 6 months ago), I highly recommend it. They put a ton of effort into it, and it shows.
moomin 2y ago
A really obviously one in The Talos Principle: nearly all the puzzles have names. That makes them readily googleable.

VladimirGolovin 2y ago

To me, both Outer Wilds and The Witness were absolutlely savourable, and I made a point of never looking up anything on the Internet while playing these games. That would rob me of the feelings these games were designed to impart.

tantalor 2y ago
You might like Animal Well
- Minor49er 2y ago
  Seconding this. It's a very satisfying puzzle-based Metroidvania. You might not like ostriches when you're done with it though
- gaudystead 2y ago
  The hidden puzzles go DEEP on Animal Well.
- graynk 2y ago
  and Tunic!
  - fennecfoxy 2y ago
    Tunic is so good. Although I'm yet to complete it, I've gotten like 90% of the way I think after runs of 20-50%. Maybe I'll finally complete it this year because I adore the aesthetic, vibe and that little fox. Definitely the game opens up and becomes more deep/mysterious than I thought it would get, super cool.
- CitrusFruits 2y ago
  I heard it's like Halo 2 meets Halo 3.
- MattRix 2y ago
  Yes! Animal Well is great, it probably most reminds me of Fez.

bowsamic 2y ago

I totally agree. The thing about Myst and Riven is that they really are full of the kinds of things that players will naturally try to circumvent by looking up solutions: non-obvious interactable objects, branching paths, easy to accidentally backtrack. Basically, full of ways to feel like you are wasting your time. The concessions that Outer Wilds and The Witness make are naturally related to this. Particularly with the latter, Jon Blow stated how much they changed the game to make it clear that the panels were the only thing that needed to be interacted with, and the game makes it very clear from the beginning that each panel can be approached independently. It's only with the game's environmental puzzles that this starts to devolve, but they are not necessary by any means. Outer Wilds also does a great job of making you feel like you are getting something significant from each time loop. But I must agree with you, the ship has sailed with this kind of game. You can of course go back and enjoy it but you do so with the knowledge that you can be doing other things that feel as meaningful but without the feeling of frustration. Another similar example are MMOs. When I was a kid, my dad and I were really into Star Wars Galaxies. Well, people made emulation projects to go back and play it, but it's just not the same for various reasons. I feel the same way with World of Warcraft. It is almost more stark than Riven, because you not only miss the word of mouth and lack of easy "cheating" aspects, but you also feel the distinct lack of open socialising in modern online gameplay. A good example of the opposite would be old Nintendo games. Super Mario Bros 3 is still one of the best 2D Mario games of all time, and in no sense when playing it do you feel compelled towards a modern experience.

doctorhandshake 2y ago
I had a similar experience when I bought an iOS remake of legend of Zelda three… Within an hour I found myself circling the border of the accessible area of the game looking for the door or NPC interaction I was missing. Absolutely Not fun. I chalked it up to gameplay of a bygone era and gave the rest a miss.

the__alchemist 2y ago

Excellent comparison. I would consider those both Riven-Tier games in terms of awe and wonder. There are a few factors affecting emotional appeal, including phase in life, age, how much you're used to games, and your main point but... I will say I had nearly as much of a good time with those two games as with Riven. For all three, I had this sinking feeling while playing "I will rarely find works as lovely as these in my life".

Brendinooo 2y ago
Has anyone here played Quern? That was the first time I felt I was playing something Riven-like…well, since playing Riven.
- pferde 2y ago
  I've never played Riven nor Myst, because I just can't find a version or remake that wouldn't suck technically, but I just loved Quern, and one or two similar games I found since. One that stood out to me is "Odyssey - The Story of Science", which is a Myst-like with focus on teaching basics of math and physics through its puzzles.
  - Matumio 2y ago
    I've played Quern for several hours but couldn't bring myself to care as much about the puzzles or, more importantly, walking around the world. It was not too bad, but my memory of Riven is so much stronger. Maybe I should replay it instead, just to walk through this beautiful world again, even without solving all the puzzles (the puzzles are IMO not why you play it). Riven evoked this constant feeling of wonder with the sounds and short cut-scenes adding a lot to the atmosphere. There was this place where you walk down towards the water with a beast sitting there in the sun, and that scene almost has a smell to it. Or maybe my memory is colouring it all rosy now.
  - weaksauce 2y ago
    > because I just can't find a version or remake that wouldn't suck technically the recent myst remake is probably the pinnacle of them... that said the original is well worth playing still and i've played it through a few times now.

dartos 2y ago

Have you heard of stardew valley? It’s a very slow burn game and is extremely popular. I’d say that dragons dogma is in the same vein as Riven and does fairly well.

marginalia_nu 2y ago

There's definitely games in this category and I do still think they work even in a digital age. It's a relatively niche microgenre though, and I think in a sense that is why it works. Immortality and The Signifier are both solid games where most of the enjoyment is interpreting the world. They aren't hypercard-esque puzzle games like Myst and Riven, but what they share in common is that the enjoyment of the game is figuring out the somewhat ambiguous world major beats occur in the negative space of what you are explicitly shown and told. The former has sort of Lynchian undertones that slowly emerge over the course of the game, and the latter benefits from at least a cursory understanding of Freud and/or semiotics.

spaceribs 2y ago

Any Daniel Mullins game, Noita and Animal Well are excellent high depth and intellectually stimulating puzzle games. I highly suggest them all if you're looking for a puzzle box to rip apart.

Hammershaft 2y ago
I love the environmental simulation and deep secrets in Noita but it's not quite like Riven. Riven had me filling out pages and pages of a journal with notes and drawings. Many of these notes and drawings were my observations ended up being extraneous details about the visual design and lore of the world, because in Riven it can be very difficult to parse what is and is not relevant to progressing in the game. It's a very unique experience, I love a lot of puzzle games with secrets and meta layers, and I love Outer Wild's knowledge based metroidvania design, but no other game has had me scouring and mulling on every detail of this virtual world like Riven.

andrepd 2y ago

There's another thing about hyper-prevalent internet: there are wikis and guides documenting every detail, every nook and cranny, detailing every optimally min-maxed strategy. Exploration is dead.

treflop 2y ago
Exploration was dead back then too. You could just pick up a book about the game that told you everything.
- opan 2y ago
  People still have to explore to fill out those wikis. They're not always complete or correct, either.

Waterluvian 2y ago

I played Outer Wilds one week at my cottage when we had no internet and it did nothing but rain. It was an incredible experience. Not having Internet really makes my experience better with games. I wish I had the discipline to just not reach for a Wiki.

nimbius 2y ago

[flagged]

egypturnash 2y ago
And yet they sold a bazillion copies. Presumably there was something in these games that appealed to people who were not for you. I know it can be hard to understand, but there's a lot of people in the world, and they like a lot of different kinds of things!
toddmorey 2y ago
It was one of the first PC titles ever to enjoy that sort of traction with non-gamers. I know a couple of people who actually bought a home PC just to play it on. Whatever your opinions of the game, it definitely played an important role in opening up gaming to a wider audience. Myst is an important artifact in the history of gaming. Now... were I not more restrained, I'd hope here that you step on the sourest of your grapes.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Counterpoint : I don’t have a neckbeard and Myst and Riven are the best games I’ve ever played. Period.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Counterpoint: I don’t have a neckbeard and Myst and Riven are the best single player games I’ve ever played. Period.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]