Let's Play Riven (2024) - part 9 - Survey island

[@Urumverax]

I know Myst games get a lot of flak for the impractical design of everything but I have to say, that is a big part of what I love about the aesthetic. Stepping into a world where people build a rotating gold elevator, a huge cavern with underwater views and an ornate shelving system to hold some wood is fun. It is a look into a society where things are built that can only exist without cost-benefit analysis.

[@MIchaelSybi]

I once came up with the idea of an elevator in the form of a fish, which goes up on 2 spiral rails. It was used in one game. I was inspired by Myst games a lot in my youth

[@Divector8]

I like that Ghen's thought process was "Sure the combination lock's solution is a few feet away, but they'll have to solve my sliding block puzzle first! I'm the only one smart enough to solve that!"

[@DavidRay_40]

It's spelled as Gehn, not Ghen.

[@Inventure751]

It's becoming rather noticeable how many things were altered to accommodate VR - like the missing chair in the survey room. I imagine getting up those curving stairs in the origjnal was too tricky for VR

[@Sparks68]

Survey Island retained only about ~50% of the 1997 original. The rest is different. Animations throughout the 1997 original were amazing given the technology of the time. They played QuickTime ".mov" movie files and injected them into the screen being displayed. One can see these segments when they occurred. Original Myst and Riven used them in many places in the game. Those required QuickTime to be installed with the game as a number of other games from the 1990's era.

[@ManafKAMIL]

This is a really great series. I wait for each episode with anticipation. I don't do that with Netflix or Prime! Thank you very much 👏👏

[@htilden42]

Of all the changes, I think the changes to Survey Island were the weakest. I do like the changes to the wahrk lagoon, showing that it was used as another place of torture and execution. It explains why Survey Island was made so grandiose as it's not just where Gehn does his surveying, but also a place meant to terrify and awe those Gehn has condemned to a particularly cruel death. For the Rivenese, who worship the wahrk, seeing hundreds of their tusks as decorations would be definitely terrifying. However, the removal of the survey barge with the pin machine kind of removes most of the surveying from Survey Island. I'm fine with the power marble puzzle being streamlined, but it doesn't feel quite as special to just be handed the solution after doing a sliding blocks puzzle, compared to actually surveying Riven and finding the exact location of each dome. This is more of a nitpick perhaps, but I don't really care for the Red Cave's split. With the Wahrk Room now behind a secret elevator, there's not much for the Golden Elevator to lead to, which ruins the pacing of the area a bit. It's very anticlimatic for me for this ornate and slightly ominous elevator to just lead to...a maglev station. It was much more visually and atmospherically impactful for it to lead down into a cavernous hallway and then into the Wahrk Room.

[@micahbush5397]

At least they fixed the elevation bug. In the previous version, the two MagLev stations were at similar heights above sea level, despite the long elevator ride down, which isn't physically possible. Now the elevator ride isn't as long, and the station leading to Jungle Island has the sea flowing into it.

[@JaneXemylixa]

Yeah you can solve this one without ever understanding that these are meant to represent the islands and the golden elevator has literally no reason to exist

[@CheddahSlammer]

I think its intentional to make it easier. If you watch newer lets plays of old Riven, people get kind of lost with how hard this puzzle is, and a lot tend to stop the game. I love the older game more because I grew up with it, however the puzzles are not suited for newer people who want the answers more freely then what is given in the older game. All the puzzles are easier in this remake but it isn't for us, its to get new people into playing the game.

[@vigilantecaregiver6106]

Just noticed this new walk through. Thank you for doing Myst videos again. Really appreciated.

[@HalaBasinah]

You voiced my thoughts perfectly. I love 90% of the changes in this remake but the Survey Island changes didn't do it for me. Like you said, I understand that there needed to be changes, but these changes weren't the best. Hope you're right that they had something else planned, because they did say they're going to continue to update the game when they can, so maybe it's not out of the question that they could do something about it in the future. Maybe. But as for changes I love: Cho reenacting the opening scene, only this time he's victorious. I actually laughed out loud. Also this version of the wahrk gives me nightmares; not sure I could even handle it in VR.

[@woodencoyote4372]

I'm glad they were able to include more of the wahrk this time, making it's role clearer in the story. In the original you could hear it bumping against the structure in Survey Island (and obviously see it with the call light) but it was less clear that the wahrk was the one who damaged the viewer for the dome. And it was good to work in an explanation for the coloured lights. On the other hand - they took out the sunners barking! I loved sneaking close enough to hear them in the original.

[@JaneXemylixa]

I think they bark sometimes, but not always

[@runswithsoda]

If you made it to an elevator in these games, it was a big exciting moment. Gehn understood the assignment.

[@coloneldookie7222]

7:55 Compared to now, yes, the old water formations weren't reality-based. However, kids these days won't understand how difficult programming (and animating) liquid was to do well. Riven tried (and succeeded, imo) to make the liquid animations look amazing. Then again, I was just a kid when the game originally released, so perspective may be limited to the age I was.

[@donwald3436]

That poor whark did nothing wrong lol.

[@Sparks68]

Go back into the back story of Riven as revealed in passing near the beginning. Riven was originally a single "island" and slowly split apart into five islands as part of its degradation -- and they're been splitting further apart.

[@swirm621]

Perfect for a lazy Saturday at home. Can't wait to binge the whole series when it's done!

[@RedKnightm]

getting to see the creatures up close was always cool in the original. ill have to try it in VR now

[@PDTopGun]

...wow, I never thought to try clicking on the gold balls that appeared on the sliding puzzle. I was a bit disappointed that the islands down below didn't seem to do anything in this version other than serve as an overall map layout, but turns out they do, and they even kept the pin relief maps from the removed floating dome. That's now 3 or 4 little interactions I missed in my own playthrough. Wonder if there's anything else?

[@gregkent8955]

You do this in the heat of July, because we can't wait for your excellent & through walk thru for those of us who can't play this on our slow computers. Thank you

[@ScooterBond1970]

You might be surprised just how slow your computer can be and still play. Mine is a very old i5 3470 (but with a really good graphics card) and I played it with only a noticeable lag in draw/load time.

[@sirlight-ljij]

By the way I'm sure there is some added content in this version, as original slides I'm sure did not cover 100% of the surfaces, there surely are some rocks you couldn't see. Not a huge amount of new content, but still definitely "some" new content

[@PeterFraser-hp3rs]

32:00 I'd probably try and make that wahrk into a pet, if I were there -- I'd be lucky to last about 5 minutes before being eaten😆

[@micahbush5397]

In the original version, the wahrk looked almost bored when responding to the red light. Now its eyes are filled with hatred. Also, did Gehn have to make the glass window so massive? He could have made it smaller, leaving more room for the wahrk tank, but instead he had a multi-ton pane of heavy glass manufactured so he could stand in the middle of the cavern before a giant window and feel powerful. (And assuming it's float glass, the process would have required a *lot* of molten tin or lead. But again, he had his slaves to do all the work, so why should he care?

[@HalaBasinah]

Yeah, the new wahrk is actually kind of terrifying. I used to think it was cute but this one gives me shivers.

[@TheInkPitOx]

Whark

[@micahbush5397]

@@TheInkPitOx It's "wahrk"; Richard Watson has said that "whark" is Gehn's misspelling and only proves that he's human and makes mistakes. (In actuality, it was a mistake on Cyan's part.) Also, in this version, Gehn's spelling was changed to "wahrk."

[@DavidRay_40]

Regarding the elevator to get to the giant cavern with the wahrk, that really took me by surprise. I recorded my LP when I played the game for the first time, so that my achievements would appear on screen. I was also surpised that when you angered the wahrk, it banged into the window, causing it to crack slightly. I don't think that happened in the original.

[@SomeKindaSpy]

That's not an elevator, that's a Wonkavator!

[@ScooterBond1970]

Not quite, it doesn't go slantways

[@veteran002]

I thought the one leaving in the maglift at the beginning was the Moiety who took the linking book.

[@trapez77]

They should have added lava in the cracks in the water with the steam coming out

[@PerryWhyte]

"You know, I've been all around this wonderful world of ours, and in all of this world, nothing else is Silly Putty."

[@HalaBasinah]

Wish they'd found a way to sneak that Easter Egg back in somehow. Unless they did and nobody's found it yet...

[@htilden42]

"Instructions for self-defense included in every package."

[@5000Igor]

The Turning of the Maglev in this game has kind of a Purpose on one other Station: If you want to show it than in the Station on Dome-Island, when you get of the other Side you can squeze between the rock and the Stationstone. There you will see from where the Magleve once was connectet to Tree-Island. Because if you look closely you might notice that on DOme Island The Station is deadended with a Metal Plate wich seams to have been installed later. I hope you are going to show this in a future Video. 😊

[@WarthogDemon]

So I remember the box the cd version of Riven came in, and one of the pictures was the underwater hallway looking down to where the elevator should be, but it's still above. I recall there being a big loop you have to travel in the game to get to that location with the elevator in the right place. Does the collapsed bridge to Crater Island make that impossible now?

[@AzurGamer81]

The Stranger: Huh, there's nothing on this side?! (Magliv gets called away) The Stranger: NO! Dang it now I'm stuck here and the call button is on the other side of the dock. Why did I have to wear my good shoes? I hate getting them wet!

[@jurjenbos228]

19:00 through the visor it looks like the Tetris puzzle isn't solved yet. Isn't that odd?

[@danielash1704]

Looking in the spy glass the magnifying glass is a literal expression of seeing the painting of the luminescent light that is a clue to a distant location

[@jimmyp.6180]

I'm saying this in no way to be insulting in any way, so i wanna say that up front. When Robin and Rand Miller made Myst they were active born again Christians. So here we have the D'ni, a people from the planet Garternay chosen specifically by The Maker (Yahvo, God) to have a covenant with him and gives them among all others (besides the Bahro) the Art. They are in Diaspora and waiting on a messianic figure, The Grower, to restore all things. Does...does this basically make the D'ni Space Jews?

[@micahbush5397]

There's definitely a strong connection between the D'ni and the biblical narrative. Their name for God, Yahvo, is strikingly similar to the biblical name of God (YHWH), and Yeesha is very close to Yeshua. The period between the Fall of D'ni and Atrus gathering the D'ni to restore the city was about 70 years long, just like the Babylonian Exile, and both D'ni and Releeshahn could be seen as parallels for the Promised Land. So yeah, the story of the D'ni was at least partially based on the story of the Israelites.

[@donwald3436]

@@jimmyp.6180 No it means your sky daddy is also fiction.

[@jimmyp.6180]

@@donwald3436 Notice I asked a question about the motivation of the creators of the series that was neutral and you decided to turn it into an insult.

[@sealofapproval5598]

So Cho is awake/alive now after being blow-darted... what happens if you go back to the beginning cage that you started the game in, will he still be there guarding it? Can you interact with him? Or will he just be conveniently gone each time you go there?

[@ORT451]

he's always gone whenever you go back, the camera feed of him isn't real time, it's pre-rendered.

[@sealofapproval5598]

@@ORT451 Wait so the camera feed is live for everything else except for his scene? What makes that scene of the cage so special? I feel like Cyan had a slight oversight here. I also feel like this could be easily misconstrued as a potential puzzle where there is none.

[@danielash1704]

I think the idea of memory spheres is a good idea to consider picking up a few vision of a previous time it was recorded in 😅that has the broken objects of the time ❤

[@danielash1704]

Maybe kite that has a book open to the point of view is an idea that you could telaport creatures in to the book age a trap book or something like that 😅😅😅

[@danielash1704]

The whole thing about the processes of searching for clues is try everything 😅❤

[@danielash1704]

Nice to have a drone of a bird that takes pictures and returns 😂

[@NikaNakaidze]

Yeah sven i remember u said it was hot in ur room good old times

[@danielash1704]

Maybe crack the glass to fill a pool below to look at then magnify it with the magnifier

[@alanoneuser]

guild of tetris players ftw

[@NikaNakaidze]

Yes we can see ourself

[@NikaNakaidze]

I think we left cam in different direction it was faced to dagger

[@danielash1704]

Time would be nice to manipulating the ages the arugulatis warks warning you be like really careful 😅might bust the glass

[@NikaNakaidze]

Who was that white bearded cg dude

[@gerdahessel2268]

27:18 There is a dead Whark lying next to the light.

[@gerdahessel2268]

No, it's a broken statue! Maybe it destroyed the light.

[@micahbush5397]

You can see the "rungs" sticking out to one side that can also be seen on the other wahrk totems on the surface; it's the top of the broken pole.

[@NikaNakaidze]

July is today too sven and its cool love summer and game recording would not be bad idea in summer

[@NikaNakaidze]

Where r we why we r not visible in cage and where is cage bars

[@NikaNakaidze]

Yeah me too like blue landing lights

[@NikaNakaidze]

Those blue landing lights r marbles

[@NikaNakaidze]

Haha sven they left hint 5 meters away

[@NikaNakaidze]

He is expacting food i guess

[@NikaNakaidze]

Hey its cg catherine

[@NikaNakaidze]

Haha what do we want

[@NikaNakaidze]

Sven which island u like more

[@NikaNakaidze]

Yes sven it was wrong how can someone boil water to make shapes like islands

[@NikaNakaidze]

Its golden toilet not elevator sven 😂

[@NikaNakaidze]

Oh that toilet comes up here in remake too not only in original

[@NikaNakaidze]

That glass crack was mistake its thick glass how he cracked it

[@NikaNakaidze]

Bye buddy

[@NikaNakaidze]

In original some kind of toilet was coming from water to get access underground cave

[@NikaNakaidze]

Hi sven

[@NikaNakaidze]

Its male so we r male character