Riven Journals
From MYSTlore
| Riven Journals | |
|---|---|
| URL | http://journals.riumplus.com/ |
| Rel.to shortcut | rivenjournals |
| Official? | Yes |
| IC or OOC? | IC |
| Type of site | Puzzle |
| Language(s) | English |
| Created by | Organic |
| Launched | 1997 |
The Riven Journals was a semi-official teaser web site originally located at http://journals.riven.com/ prior to and during the original release of Riven. It was created/managed by Organic, the same web design firm that created/managed the original http://www.riven.com website. While considered rudimentary by today's standards of web interaction, in 1997 it was considered to be very groundbreaking and revolutionary, pushing then-current web browsers (Internet Explorer 3 and Netscape Navigator 2) to their limits.
The site also hosted a mailing list for announcements on the updates of the Riven Journals and the development of Riven.
Contents |
[edit] Puzzles
The site was filled with puzzles/stories and was designed to provide an insight into the world of D'ni, specifically Riven, but without giving away any hints about the story or ending of the game. Some of the content was inaccurate, had been replaced. There were however many stories inconsistent to the established storyline and understanding of the D'niverse and most of them are considered non-canon.
Every so often, a new journal was added until there was a total of 5 journals to be solved. The first four Journals consisted of a few pages of information or a story, then a puzzle to be solved, with the fifth journal being a puzzle in itself. The puzzles were applications written in Java. Once the puzzle was solved, the reward was more information on Riven, in the form of an unreleased screenshot. The first group of people to solve a puzzle had their names added to the site in the "Honorary Guildmembers" page.
An easter egg section was also hidden and only available once all 5 journals had been solved, showing previously-unreleased screenshots, concept art, design documents, group photographs and views of the original Riven.com website.
[edit] Journal 1
The first journal contained Gehn's notes about some incomprehensible properties of the Ink. The puzzle consisted of a 3 by 34 tile square; it was completed by typing letters in the correct order (thus forming a phrase), each letter putting a tile in its respective place. The prize was a screenshot of one of the Scarab viewers on Temple Island.
[edit] Journal 2
The second journal contained Gehn's notes about the sunners, detailing their feeding habits and the Rivenese people's views and opinions on the animal. The puzzle consisted of finding the correct evolutionary phase that the Sunner had evolved from. The prize was a screenshot of a sunner swimming in water.
[edit] Journal 3
The third journal contained Gehn's notes about the shifting Tectonic plates of Riven. It details the methods used to build the Maglev transport vehicle to overcome the constantly-shifting islands, which made building bridges impossible. The puzzle consisted of correctly balancing the magnetic coils used to levitate the Maglev. The prize was a screenshot of a Maglev.
[edit] Journal 4
The fourth journal contained the D'ni children's story about Klvino, a Ronay who built a spaceship to travel between worlds instead of using linking to travel between worlds. This story has been retconned and is now considered inaccurate. The puzzle consisted of correctly guessing, in order, the five locations of where his body was buried, to open a D'ni timepiece. The prize was a screenshot of Gehn's pocketwatch, which displays both Surface and D'ni time.
[edit] Journal 5
The fifth and final journal was a puzzle within itself - to open the book first required finding the correct book configuration, then required solving a puzzle similar to the fireplace puzzle on Myst Island. Once the book was open, another puzzle required mimicing patterns that were seen on previous journals. The prize was three other screenshots of Gehn's hologram/temple room on Temple Island.
[edit] Legacy
The Riven Journals were taken down a while after Riven had been released, since it was deemed they had no reason to exist. Copies may have been kept for a short period of time, but as of December 2001 neither Cyan Worlds, Organic, Brøderbund/Red Orb, Mattel/Game Studios nor Ubisoft had retained an official copy. However fan pages with walkthroughs, a few reviews, and an incomplete copy saved by the Internet Archives had remained.
[edit] Restoration
Fan RIUM+ managed to find archives online of the Journals, backups and other remnants and put on an unofficial webpage. A staff member of Organic found his webpage and decided to help; he sent him a copy of the original server contents, which were however outdated and incompatible with current servers. RIUM+ had to convert and update the server code, he reconstructed and rewrote broken pages to have better compatibility with modern browsers, and now hosts a fully feature-complete and playable copy of the site, which contains all puzzles and easter eggs.
