History VideoGame / Riven

* ShoddyKnockoffProduct: In universe, Gehn's descriptive books to ages are compromised by poor grasp of "The Art", enabling links to unstable worlds that eventually collapse. His books also require external power sources, a testament to how badly written his books are. This is assuming a book even works in the first place, which happened often.\\

Catharine writes the book for the age of Tay by making corrections to one of Gehn's "dead" books but the book still needs to be powered, so she specified a particular power crystal in the age description so that she could eliminate the need to use Gehn's Fire Marble Domes after the first link-in.

Catharine writes the book for the age of Tay by making corrections to one of Gehn's "dead" but the book still needs to be powered, so she specified a particular power crystal in the age description so that she could eliminate the need to use Gehn's Fire Marble Domes after the first link-in.

* ShoddyKnockoffProduct: In universe, Gehn's descriptive books to ages are compromised by his poor grasp of "The Art" opening links to unstable worlds that eventually collapse. His books also require external power sources due as a testament to how badly written his books. This is assuming a book even works in the first place which happened often.

** Book Assembly Island throws a curve ball by relying upon the player noticing the only doors that don't close automatically like most doors. Given that this game doesn't have full 3D exploration to let you notice the passages behind the open doors, this may be surprisingly easy to overlook because no other doors, besides one more, have this feature.

*** Book Assembly Island throws you a curve ball by relying upon the player noticing the only doors that don't close automatically like most doors. Given that this game doesn't have full 3D exploration to let you notice the passages behind the open doors, this may be surprisingly easy to overlook.

** You also need to listen to various animals throughout the game and remember what noises they make. Two sea-dwelling animals are particularly annoying because if you approach them too quickly, they run without making the noise you need to hear. In order to hear them properly, you have to wait until their animation finishes before moving forward.
*** In this case, this can be mostly avoided. You need five specific animal noises to figure out a code based on stones resembling animals. But when finding five stones that give away the noises you are looking for, you can also see shapes that resemble the animals. That leaves you with only finding the one remaining animal.

* AirVentPassageway: The Stranger uses such a way to access one of Gehn's offices and it appears to be quite a ways off the ground implying some acrobatics.

A fan-made UpdatedRerelease is in the works to recreate the game in a fully 3D engine. It's called [[http://www.starryexpanse.com/ The Starry Expanse Project]]. Unlike many large-scale fan works, this one has the blessing of the original creators, so it has a better than average chance of eventually being released.

** You can do the same as above, capturing Gehn but ignoring Cathrine's rescue. How does it feel to condemn Atrus to [[spoiler:the futile task of keeping Riven stable, with his wife trapped in Riven?]]

* CardboardPrison: [[spoiler: Both played straight and averted. After Catherine is fooled by Sirrus and Achenar into linking to Riven, she is imprisoned just as Gehn because, barring the intervention of Atrus, there's no linking book to leave the age. However, by the time the events of the game are set in motion, both Catherine and Gehn have successfully written another functional age to seek refuge into from the impending collapse of Riven, even tho they are still trapped as much as before because the destruction of Riven would mean the loss of any descriptive book created there, and at that point Atrus would never be able to reach them again.]]

*** The above method is however averted for the code to free Catherine, as the game only generates the code when you're backstage on Age 233 (and Gehn is already trapped).

* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: A given, considering the original came on multiple [=CDs=], which the player had to swap mid-game whenever travelling to a different island. Or, in one case, the other half of the same island. This is obviously averted in the DVD-ROM, UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} and [[{{Website/GOGDotCom}} GoG.com]] releases. Another trick is to copy the contents of the 5 CD's into the Riven installation directory (if your version is this edition), and alter the configuration file to tell the game to read the files there.

* SavingTheWorldWithArt: Or rather ''the'' Art. The world of Riven is unstable and Atrus staves off its collapse by frantically writing small changes into its book in hope of stabilizing it. [[spoiler: Subverted when Riven falls apart anyway, but he keeps it intact long enough for its people to escape.]]

* SchmuckBait: ''Riven'' presents some interesting [[ZigZaggedTrope twists]] on the trope. There are at least two major pieces of SchmuckBait in the game, and by the time you've found them, you should have figured out why they're dangerous. And yet, in order to win the game, you must use them anyway.

-->[[spoiler: '''Gehn:''' Are you dying? You have my sympathies. *screen goes completely black*]]

*** Having your first meeting with Gehn without possessing the prison book, then recovering it, only to trap yourself in it on Riven. Similar to the ending above, but with new dialog.
-->[[spoiler: "'''Gehn:''' I see you found the book. [[SarcasmMode Thank you for returning it to me]]. It seems ''however'' circumstances have changed. *Gehn shoots you*."]]

* QuicksandBox: The other games are divided into discrete, self-contained ages which can be completed independently of each other. ''Riven'' is almost completely comprised of a single, gigantic age, and it can be frustratingly easy to lose track of everything you have or haven't done yet.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: [[spoiler: After smashing the plate of glass in the iron plating covering the Star Fissure, the vacuum pressure of space manages to bend and suck in all of the metal surrounding it…but leaves the player and all other characters around the Fissure standing upright with only some wind blowing their clothes around.]] May be FridgeBrilliance if you remember how sloppy Gehn is at authoring descriptive books that create a door to an age.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: There are a few opportunities to be a dick, but you are [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment punished for one instance.]]

* ArtifactTitle: Myst is only mentioned on its game box, in the subtitle "The Sequel to Myst". This subtitle does not appear in the game itself.

** If you lower the Star Fissure telescope to breach Riven's reality, before capturing Gehn, but after regaining the prison book, you can signal Atrus early. [[SarcasmMode Congratulations]], you got Gehn's attention, causing him appear and [[spoiler:[[OffingTheOffspring shoot Atrus dead.]] He takes his linking book and you [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment get shot too.]]]]

*** In this case, this can be mostly avoided. You need five specific animal noises to figure out a code based on stones resembling animals. But when finding for of five stones that gave away the noises you are looking for you can also see shapes, that resemble the animals. That eleaves you with only finding the one remaining animal.

** On piece of evidence that Gehn wrote a link to an unstable age is a continuity error on Survey Island. The golden elevator installed here travels a considerable distance up/down, but on each floor, you are always about 10 - meters above sea level. This anomaly alone may be a large portion of the instability on Riven. (Maybe the heat-hating bacteria in the waters of Riven have something to do with this.)

* CardboardPrison: [[spoiler: Both played straight and averted. After Catherine is fooled by Sirrus and Achenar into linking to Riven, she is imprisoned just as Gehn because, barring the intervention of Atrus, there's no linking book to leave the age. However, by the time the events of the game are set in motion, both Catherine and Gehn have successfully written another functional age to seek refuge into from the impending collapse of Riven, even tho they are still trapped as much as before because the destruction of Riven would mean the loss of any descriptive book created there, and at point Atrus would never be able to reach them again.]]

* AllThereInTheManual - A lot of the backstory and character motivation is explained in the prequel novel ''The Book of Atrus'', which is never fully explained in the game. The novel also acts a prequel to ''Myst'', in that it ends with [[spoiler: Atrus jumping into the Star Fissure with the Myst book and linking himself to safety -- the last entry in his journal ends with the very same monologue that opens ''Myst''.]]

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:The backstory in ''Myst: The Book of Atrus'' has Gehn truly grieving the loss of his wife.]]

** SceneryGorn: It's an incredibly beautiful and detailed game, depicting a world that is literally falling apart and stripped of almost all of its natural resources, leaving nothing but a bunch of jagged rocks.