Riven: walkthrough

[Taika of Narfell]

Long, long intro sequence. Be patient, this is what introduces you to the story and explains what the heck you're doing here. If you don't know why you're talking to Atrus in the first place you may want to play the original Myst game. The place where you start Riven is the exact spot where you finish Myst. You have merely returned some time later.

Now, Riven is a huge landscape of 5 islands connected with different contraptions. You will get a few roller coaster rides before this trip is done - spite of the rough graphics when things are moving they're really quite awesome and took my breath away. I'm a simple kind of person in that regard.

Being what Riven is, namely a huge landscape of which you can access quite a lot before having solved a single puzzle, I won't make this walkthrough linear. I will not guide you in your explorations, the world is for you to explore and enjoy. I will simply name the puzzles (hopefully) appropriately and describe how to solve them as I figure them out - meaning, not necessarily in the order I come upon them.

Here is a list of the puzzles I've solved and links to the posts in which I explain them, I'll be updating this thread as I progress:

The Revolving Room
The Boiler on the Beach

[Taika of Narfell]

The Revolving Room

Yes, this is a puzzle. Duh!

Notice that the two openings are not directly across from each other, but no matter which you set to enter through you'll just find a barred passage ahead of you. One looking outside and one looking into a small darkened niche.

After having looked at the niche turn the room just once. Then walk away and down the stairs to your left. Below you will find a wooden gate that you can crawl under, and then enter the revolving room. Now you have access to an open passage. Go there, turn on the steam (You can check if it's working by making sure no steam is rising from the vent) turn back.

Note the handle next to the opening before you enter the revolving room. Use it. You can hear metal moving somewhere. Look to your right and turn the room twice.

Now you can go to the niche you've seen before - only now the bars are up and you can enter. Next to the doorway is a handle like the one you just used. Use it to get another sound of metal moving on rock. Look to your right and turn the room twice. Now you can get out to where you first were. Turn the room twice again and then you'll see the passage opening out is now unbarred.

[Taika of Narfell]

The Boiler on the Beach

There's a door into the strange contraption and the puzzle is to make it possible for you to go in without being boiled. We like our own personal meat raw and uncooked.

Walk around to the side of the boiler and you'll find a bunch of handles, vents and whatnot. Some of them have an effect, some don't. You can, for instance, stop the gas burners at this time. Right, so the water's no longer boiling, and you can actually go in. But that manhole in the centre is still filled with water. How to get it out?

Back to the controls. To the left there's a small switch you can manipulate without any effect. It's on a pipe. Where does the pipe come from? That's right - by way of the bridge go to the centre of the lake and adjust the flow of steam there to go to the boiler contraption. Voila, now the rest of the switches and vents work when you manipulate them. Let the water out and raise the floor in there to walking height.

Then go inside and enter the man hole and take a long, uncertain but quite correct trip in the darkness to get you to where you need to go.

It really *was* that simple.