Originally posted by tygor_tora:

Is Riven harder than Myst, or is it just me?

Yep. That's what almost everyone who's played it says.

Considerably more complex and not always intuitive....

Originally posted by Ghidrah1:

They're all clever puzzle games, I highly suggest, (if you aren't already doing it is keep a notepad close so you can add points of interest in your travels. Quite often the answers to a puzzle come where you don't expect

I've actually been using my phone to take pictures of visual clues I find, and when I was playing Myst, I wrote down sound-based clues. Like someone else pointed out, though, Riven's puzzles just seem a lot less intuitive and more trial-and-error. Like the first one with the gold room, for example - I didn't find anything indicating that you need to spin the room four times, do a particular thing, then two or three more times, do another thing, then three more times, or however many it was. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places, and the clues for that aren't on the first island, but I was super lost with this game.

Being clever can also mean being convoluted, example looking through the portal into said room shows you that there're multiple egresses, 4 turns equal 4 new paths.

Know that if you get stuck there's a bunch of players that'll provide you with a clever hint, (unless you come out and ask for the answer).

I remember running around for 1 hour clueless, because I missed that there was a door which was blocked by an opened door...

Myst was already not easy, but, Riven is a bit too hard for my liking. Combine that with the navigation through static screens.

Might wait for the Riven remake until I give it a go again.

Like all the Myst games many of the important clues are hidden in the lush object filled backgrounds. All the more reason for one to slow down, take their time and smell the roses while they're exploring.

I learned that getting frustrated more often than not shut my brain down making things worse so I learned to close it and walked away. Often a day later while doing something totally unrelated an answer to a game puzzle popped into my head. Other times once cooled down, a cold eye review of the info often made the hidden conspicuous.

Trash isn't trash till the job's done, so everything has value till disproved by successfully reaching the end of the story. There's so much info to sift through and correlate that unless you're eidetic you need organized and copious notes.

I kept pages of notes that got revised 4 - 5 times to ensure I took the shortest fastest route from points A to B then wrote guides for them.

Originally posted by Ghidrah1:

I learned that getting frustrated more often than not shut my brain down making things worse so I learned to close it and walked away. Often a day later while doing something totally unrelated an answer to a game puzzle popped into my head. Other times once cooled down, a cold eye review of the info often made the hidden conspicuous.

I can absolutely confirm that. Happens to me quite frequently. 😁

I made notes on the other Myst games (and screenshots in Steam, which is very helpful). Nonetheless, my first approach to Riven was pretty frustrating. So far, I found Myst 3 Exile to be my favorite. Nice puzzles, which took some time to figure them out, but, apart from, once again, overlooking one thing or two, I was able to manage everything. Riven is more of a uncomfortable, raw beast. Might give it another go one day, but, it's a tad intimidating, to be honest.

I'm sure that it will benefit a lot more than Myst from real 3D in the remake which is in the works (or so I read).

I lurve them all and Exile does have a lot of great places in it. If you do go back to Riven and don't want to use a guide to find your way there's a couple players that come here often that could provide a clever clue to help move you forward

Originally posted by chakkman:

I remember running around for 1 hour clueless, because I missed that there was a door which was blocked by an opened door...

Myst was already not easy, but, Riven is a bit too hard for my liking. Combine that with the navigation through static screens.

Might wait for the Riven remake until I give it a go again.

im reminded of the path by teh big lake that you can barely see when entering a new tunnel lol that drove me bonkers

I really wish I still had my riven notebook from back then

I have a Myst folder with notes for each of the 6 games. I used to go through all of them at least once a yr, It's been about 2 yrs since I last played any of them, dimes to dollars, when I do the old folder will be close to the keyboard.

I've played all the Myst games and still have all the original boxed versions from way back when, as well as the copious notes I took. With very little online help back in the late 90's and early 2000's, some of the puzzles were most perplexing. I haven't replayed Myst for one reason - the organ puzzle! It took me forever to find a solution since I am not musically gifted. The mangree puzzle in Myst IV took me days to figure out.

Riven was the first game I ever played on a computer back in the late 90's and even with all the wonderful modern games in our present era, it is still my favorite. I started replaying it today and it is still such a joy. I am so delighted to hear that there will be a remake! (Now if only they could hire Charles Dance who played Tywin Lannister in GoT to play Ghen, my world would be complete). I really look forward to the improved version of Riven!

If you haven't read "The Myst Reader" - the compendium of all three books written by Rand and Robyn Miller, I highly recommend it. It details so much about the history of the D'ni!

I didn't have an overly difficult time with the Mangree puzzle, I did a couple 3 things.
I named them, I drew out the nest area, then I played each of the sounds so I could ID where each Mang was sitting in which nest at the beginning, by trial and error brained out which Mang was the thrower.

Originally posted by Ghidrah1:

I didn't have an overly difficult time with the Mangree puzzle, I did a couple 3 things.
I named them, I drew out the nest area, then I played each of the sounds so I could ID where each Mang was sitting in which nest at the beginning, by trial and error brained out which Mang was the thrower.

Well done! I needed you by my side then, when I was struggling over those puzzles. :)