Saying “point-and-click” isn’t as sexy as it was in the 90sthe golden age of a genre that has given the history of video games unforgettable masterpieces such as the series The Monkey Island, Broken Sword And Simon the Sorcerer. With the advent of 3D the genre has managed to land some more important final blows (see the entries Grim Fandango And Syberia) before its star began to eclipse almost inexorably.
Between these two eras, in the second half of the 1990s, there was a transition period in which software houses attempted hybrid solutionswhich we could define as a cross between 2D and 3D: the polygonal revolution was about to arrive and the desire to overcome pixel art was strong, but the technology and the developers’ know-how were still immature.
Cyan Worlds It was one of the software houses that attempted intermediate paths, through the adoption of pre-rendered backgrounds as a background for their graphic adventures; this innovative technique, combined with the mix of filmed sequences with real actors and graphic representation, contributed to giving the studio’s works a very particular and strongly identifying aesthetic style. Other breaking points were the adoption of the first person view – which allowed for a level of immersion never seen before – and a non-immediate approach to narrative: it was up to the player to reconstruct the context of the events and the history of the game world based on the clues collected in the adventure.
All these innovations materialized in two titles that made the history of graphic adventures: Mystery (1993) and its sequel Riven (1997). The fame of the two games is legendary, and the first of the two has been re-released several times over the following decades, in various editions more or less enriched and technically improved, up to the latest remake in 2021 adapted for VR viewers. A similar treatment was missing for Rivenwhich has now finally arrived.
Handle with care
Riven was completely rebuilt in 3D using Unreal Engine. Instead of compulsively clicking with the mouse to move from one screen to another, we can now move freely in polygonal environments rendered in real time, using the mouse and keyboard or gamepad. Similarly, the view is always in first person but can be adjusted at will: we can look around and direct our gaze wherever we want. This has led to more or less important changes to the structure of the environments and puzzles of the game.
Cyan World has Expanded the world of Rivenwhich is wider of the original offers some completely new sectionswithout upsetting the structure of the world – an archipelago of five islands, which it is up to us to figure out how to reach and explore. Likewise, several puzzles have been rethought in light of the three-dimensionality of the environments, and new ones have been added. To avoid misunderstandings, I will immediately say that I have not played the original title, so I will not dwell on the additions and subtractions between this remake and the ’97 title. What I would like to focus on here is trying to present this title, and the game design philosophy behind it, to today’s audience.
Riven it is in fact a game out of time: not only because of its narrative which, without going into details, mixes fantasy, science fiction and temporal and interdimensional travel; it is out of time because Cyan World has remained very faithful to the philosophy of the original title, which makes this strange artifact appear as an oddity within today’s videogame landscape. It is in fact a title that leaves the player alone, catapulting him into a world whose rules and history are up to him to understand.
Boiler Island
The narrative incipit, moreover, is in average resolution and directly connected to the prequel Mystery. Not having played it does not preclude the possibility of understanding the plot of Riven, but it will certainly increase the initial disorientation that will be almost total. Interactions with other characters are reduced to a minimum, and once you start the game you will have no idea who the person who speaks to you in the initial sequence is, nor will you know how to decipher what happens immediately after: you will be sucked into a book and catapulted into an enigmatic and silent world. Prisoners, a book that you have with you and that you should use for some fundamental purpose (but that you probably will not understand) will be taken away from you and just as mysteriously you will be freed.
From here on you are completely left to your own devices: you will take your first steps in a strange world, where it clearly seems that some catastrophe has occurred since there is no living soul, but the natural environments of the island are not wild at all. The world of Riven is full of vestiges, steampunk machinery whose meaning you will not initially understand – much less how it works – alternating with primitive villages with indecipherable inscriptions and totems with mysterious symbols. In all this you will not have a precise idea of where to go and what to do. All you have to do is grope your way around, look around, make a mental map of the places and, very slowly, rack your brains trying to join the dots.
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The device does not move
In Riven, as mentioned, no one explains or suggests how to proceed: you will have to get there on your own, reasoning about what you see or hear and trying to find logical connections between interactable elements. This is an old school game, meaning it is highly recommended that you arm yourself with pen and paper and take notes.. The puzzles that dot the game world are sometimes purely mechanical, other times logical, often alphanumeric. The clues to collect to solve them are rarely located in a single place, in fact you will often have to go back and forth between the various islands to solve the most difficult puzzles.
Arm yourself with intuition and holy patience
Occasionally you will find documents that will shed some light on the fate of this mysterious ruined world, helping you better understand your goals and providing essential clues as to how to proceed. Some elements of the game resolution, moreover, are random. and they change from game to game. This means that even if you decide that you absolutely need to consult a guide to proceed in the adventure, you will still have to thoroughly explore the game environments in search of those precious fragments of information that no walkthrough will ever be able to reveal to you. If you are interested in delving into the differences between the remake and the original, the developers themselves have touched on the subject in this video.
Riven offers extraordinary views
From this it should be clear to you that Riven cannot be approached with a casual intent: it is a game that demands your maximum concentration, that will squeeze your mental resources and force you to use all your gray matter to get to the bottom of it. Also for this reason its longevity is completely impossible to quantify: veterans of the original game should not think they have an easy game, because as previously mentioned there are brand new puzzles that will give you a hard time. For total neophytes some difficulty peaks could force forced breaks, and it should be taken into account that a part of the players who will approach the title will never finish it.
A game for whom?
Is this uncompromising game design philosophy a good or bad thing? This is a very difficult question to answer. The extreme faithfulness to the spirit of the original game is a reason to praise, but at the same time it shows the limits of a concept of videogame that belongs to another era. If we take a modern title that can be compared to this one, namely The Witnessthere we find design solutions that, without making anything too explicit, guide the player’s intuition towards solving the puzzles with visual or logical clues, and opting for a gradual difficulty curve that allows the player to become familiar with the rules of the game in a progressive way.
Each island will put you to the test
Riven is much more brutal, and therefore also more repulsive, proudly entrenched in a Gaming concept for real nerdsin the purest and least flattering sense of the term. It is not an insurmountable difficulty, obviously, but it is a title in which you have to take into account the possibility of being stuck for days (weeks?) without being able to understand how to proceed. This, on the other hand, is part of the charm of the graphic adventures of the time, for which sharing information between players was an integral part of the fun, an element that has inexorably dried up with the online guides.
In addition to this, the modernizations introduced by Cyan World cannot help but occasionally make the weight of the title’s almost 30 years of age felt. The backtracking is massive – and while there is a sort of “fast travel,” unlocking it is yet another headache, and it’s not really that “fast” – and you’ll often feel genuine frustration at not having written down a detail that will force you to travel back a long way. Also, if you don’t carefully inspect certain environments, you might miss key elements that are essential to progressing. Finally, while the game does add an in-game screenshot feature for quick reference, trust me when I say that this won’t completely replace the need for pen and paper.
It’s impossible to recommend Riven a priori.. This is one of those take-it-or-leave-it games that you have to try for a few minutes and see if it’s for you or not. Those who choose to embark on this challenging journey will be able to enjoy one of the most immersive and alienating gaming experiences of 2024.
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