Yahtzee Tries... Riven and Frogun Encore

[@rashkavar]

I love how weird the start of Riven is. You get a remarkably vague mission briefing from Atrus, warp to a world, emerge in a metal chamber that promptly seals itself. A guy comes along, babbles incomprehensibly at you, steals your Linking Book, then just collapses and is dragged off by assailants unseen. Then the assailant appears opens the door and breaks it open, then just silently leaves....and....yeah.

[@Wickpheme]

Shame these guys couldn't appreciate it.

[@rashkavar]

"You could just write it such that they were not slaves" That is almost literally the lore. So...in the lore for Myst, writing Ages (the world books) is an extremely precise art - you need to design a world without physical contradictions, such that everything adds up. Ghen, the guy who wrote the Age of Riven (or as he calls it Age Five) is not very good at it, and just copies passages from other books describing features he wants. He makes terrible hellholes that are full of contradictions resulting in worlds that literally fall apart eventually. (That's why Atrus is busy, he's literally editing the Riven book in real time to try to keep things from disintegrating because the laws of spacetime just said "nope we're broken now, there's stars in the ground!" Edit: or apparently literal holes just floating in the air. Wow, they went all in with this!) In order to subjugate people he arrives, tells them he's God, then makes changes in the world to prove that he is, indeed, the actual creator of their world and can mold it as he sees fit. The local populace are typically quite impressed by such a display and concur that he is indeed God and thus his word is law. Riven is unusually stable for one of Ghen's worlds, and Atrus has been trying to stabilize it since he was a teenager because this is his wife's homeland, and Atrus managed to trap Ghen on Riven, so they've been putting up with his crap long enough for some to realize he's either just a powerful despot...or he is God but "God's a dick so fuck him." Which is where the guard getting murdered by another guy at the start comes from. So yeah, they're only slaves in the same kind of sense that people in cults are slaves - they really do believe the person they're serving represents the divine and thus do whatever he says without question...and he exploits the shit out of that scenario.

[@Wickpheme]

Pearls before swine my friend. They could not possibly care about the plot of Riven, there isn't any blood or guns or swords.

[@thegaspatthegateway]

@@WickphemeNearly every time someone plays a Myst game, I notice they get to a part where there's a _book_ they might oughta _read_ that contains rather a lot of helpful threads and clues as to what this entire thing is just really about... ... and almost invariably, 21st Century brain rot kicks in and they go, "I can't read that, this is a stream, viewers don't have attention spans," and they proceed to utterly cripple their ability to engage the game in any meaningful way. Ensue smug, dramatically ironic snark, and of course, shoutouts to donos.

[@Wickpheme]

@@thegaspatthegateway Could not agree more. Believe it or not I have actually encountered streamers who will stop and read the books, and would you believe it, the process did not, in fact, murder me and my family. Really the best part is always the smug superiority over one of the most famously good pieces of art they've ever engaged with because it required a basic degree of literacy and is therefore weak or something.

[@clwho4652]

@@thegaspatthegateway That leads to a question that will never have an answer you like: why couldn't they have weaved that lore into the game instead of making people go out and buy a book (Riven came out before you could get this stuff on the internet)? Of all the possibilities, all of them make the developers look bad. Either they are shit at game design and didn't know how to weave the lore into the game, they just made an obtuse game and invented all the lore later because people wanted answers, or they were double dipping "buy our game, don't understand it, give us more money by buying this book". If one needs to sell a book to explain the lore than one has failed as a story teller.

[@bram4359]

@@clwho4652 To be fair, the novels sold separately is a different discussion. The problem is rather some players' unwillingness to engage with the in-game journals, letters etc. due to impatience, lack of attention span or whatever. The Myst novels are nice for people who want more background, but are not necessary at all for understanding the games' plot.

[@kood995]

Having played Riven: The Sequel To Myst very recently, it's very weird seeing so many of the puzzles reconfigured.

[@therealbluedragon]

It’s like returning home to find someone moved the furniture around.

[@kood995]

@@therealbluedragon Exactly!

[@guybrushmonkey97]

Loved the original Riven so much and this remake has been great so far

[@andrethyst905]

Riven is one of my favorite games from my childhood! Happy to see you try it!

[@arandompasserby7940]

I honestly prefer the original's pre-rendered 3D graphics with real people in it via FMV.

[@andrethyst905]

@@arandompasserby7940 I feel the same way, I love the FMV bits, but Riven is still Riven.

[@Wickpheme]

Shame they complained the whole time and treated it like a miserable slog because they have no sense of wonder whatsoever.

[@Rhodochrone]

@@Wickpheme I think the problem is precedent from other games. Approaching the dense and complicated world with the expectation that there's little logic and plot holding it all together makes it all just seem like a big chore. Like showing up in Gehn's lab and thinking "fuck this" because his science equipment and gear looks overwhelming, that only really comes from treating the entire world like an overcomplicated puzzle rather than an intricate fictional world you're tasked to infiltrate and understand. Riven asks you to figure out what's relevant to you through common sense and observation. So I completely get why Yahtz says what he says, but I think it comes from a place of misunderstanding what Riven actually is. It's not a conventional adventure game-- it's not even conventional within its own series. I don't blame him, but it's frustrating to see because I feel Riven is the sort of game he could really appreciate and I think it's a game well worth supporting.

[@DancingDragonGirl9]

the thing i remember most about Riven was how often i had to swap the discs

[@therealbluedragon]

The PS1 version was crazy for that. 5 discs!

[@backlogburning]

It is so weird watching someone play a remake of one of my absolute favorite games.

[@Wickpheme]

Yes, I'll have to watch it again, this time without the constant complaining, from someone else, or perhaps just play it myself.

[@SuperPyst]

Both Riven and Myst always gave me the feeling i was being watched

[@cowabunga2597]

I was watching you. Through the windows

[@Wickpheme]

And now we can say from experience that actually watching someone play Riven makes them act like Riven is terrible, so you were probably not being watched, having presumably enjoyed a thinking man's game.

[@jasonl8681]

In this iteration of Riven, you are being watched, in multiple places Ghen's camera's can be seen slowly turning to look at you and tracking you as you explore.

[@MochaRitz]

Man, barely even into the start of Riven and Yahtzee is already saying they're piling too much on and claiming the game is taking the piss for being a slow burn. I thought he was a thinking man.

[@johnsnow5125]

yeah turns out he's a CoD casual

[@Wickpheme]

He thought Dark Souls was deep and profound and talked about it for a decade. You were unfortunately mistaken.

[@PotatoHermit]

This is likely due to being on stream. The pressure to show something interesting on screen / be entertaining + the limited time they have with the game doesn't really lend well to slow burn games.

[@thegaspatthegateway]

@@PotatoHermitAye. What's more, because of the popularity of the format, it basically sets a standard for gamers, viewers, and developers to only engage games on that narrow, linear premise

[@Wickpheme]

@@thegaspatthegateway If he wants to farm for mindless content he might as well stick to FromSoft games then. Unsurprisingly, one of the most famous pieces of art in the medium, notorious for it's complexity and obtuseness, does not lend itself well to talking about your opinions while mashing B. Its not like you couldn't do youtubes of this game, but to do it right you'd have to be able to shut up for five minutes. Way above these guy's skill level.

[@Chronohome]

I think it's a compliment to how immersive Riven's visuals are that, whenever they discuss how something in the world doesn't make visual/physical sense, they don't say "Well, it is a video game", they say "Well, we are in a book."

[@jcace13]

I really like the rotating cast and variety of games on these streams.

[@Viciousf]

😂 Cavefish from full throttle - your playing part of my childhood while referencing others.

[@jmackmcneill]

The interaction for the teleportation room was broken in my version, I don't think I ever unlocked that room...

[@andrewhickinbottom1051]

Was JM8's rampant swearing why i didnt get any ads for this stream? If so, thanks haha

[@JULR0W]

Might be a weird question, but: is this game connected to Myst or is it entirely a new thing?

[@quasitonality3887]

1:25:30 Me: Starstruck Vagabond's out????

[@littlepobs9200]

dont wanna be mean -

[@Wickpheme]

Ya'll will never beat Riven because you have to be able to sit through the opening dialog. Sorry it isn't easy crap like Dork Sores where literally everything is the same dodge-roll timing puzzle.

[@CottonModem]

All I remember from watching a bit of Amy checking out the first Frogun was that it looked a bit tedious to play and had terrible music. I find it incredible that they seem to have reused (or rearranged) the stage completion music in this one. It sounds like it was written by someone only familiar with the concept of music through having read about it. The desert music playing for most of Yahtzee's time with the game here at least sounds music-adjacent.

[@CottonModem]

Just got to the part of the video where Yahtzee comments "music's pretty good for this level", while something truly awful is playing...

[@sirwootalot]

Holy cats you really aren't joking, this is what you have to listen to in hell

[@kabalder]

..oh.. my.. god... it's exactly as boring as I remember.