They were relatively short and it was a neat device to learn the story. I did complete it, but it was a long time ago and I remember giving up on puzzles and looking up a lot of hints.Īlso the font for the books in Riven were terrible. I liked Myst, but Riven is where I gave up on the series. There's also an alphabetical writing system present in game, but it's used with a constructed in-game language (not just a cipher for English text), so players aren't expected to understand it. The game uses 5 as an 'arc number' - Riven is the 'fifth age', the main game area consists of five islands, many objects and locations in the game are five-sided, and the game was originally distributed on five CDs - so it's only natural for the number system to operate on base-5 as well. (The subdigits are all designed in a way that makes this unambiguous.) For example, 0 is an empty square and 1 is a vertical line, so 5 is written as a horizontal line, and 6 is a cross. It's written as base-25, but each digit is composed of two base-5 subdigits superimposed on each other at right angles in a square frame. The numeral system is really interesting in its own regard, too. It's implied that it's used to execute/sacrifice prisoners by feeding them to the carnivorous Wahrk that live in the lake - the 'actions' you're referring to are discrete steps of lowering the prisoner to be eaten! The toy you're referring to is a model of the wahrk gallows you encounter in the Jungle Island lake. If you've done your homework, you'll know that they've named their new world 'The 233rd Age'. However, when referring to the Age (the game's term for different worlds) that they've gone to, they use these numerals. Towards the end of the game, you find a journal from one of the characters, which is written in English. And you'd better do this, because you're going to see a lot of important numbers in the game, and this is the only way they are written.

If you're playing correctly, you've got some scratch paper handy (I used a drawing app) and you can write down each symbol and what number it corresponds to. From that you can deduce that the symbols are numbers, and the toy is for teaching what number each of the symbols represents. If you interact with it, the symbol on the base changes, and the toy performs some sort of action (I think dropping a weight) some number of times. In that room you'll find a mechanical wooden-and-string toy on a table. Learning the game's number system was a fascinating exercise that I don't think I've ever had in any other game.īasically, in your explorations you eventually happen upon a small empty one-room building, which (if you look at the arrangement of desks) you can deduce is some sort of schoolhouse. I actually didn't play Riven until about 5 years ago, when it came out on iOS (I played Myst on CD as a kid).

Riven walkthrough guide