No, you click through each screen here. Sounds like this isn't the game you're looking for. It's a great version of Riven and seems to work really well. It's a shame the graphics weren't higher res but I guess that would require remaking the entire game from scratch. As it is, this is one of my favourite puzzle adventure games and this is a great way to play it.
You would think they'd still have all of the original assets stored somewhere, and could just re-render at a higher resolution. Especially with the advances in computing power since the 90s, they could re-render the entire game fairly easily.
Even in this day and age, re-rendering the entire game would be a major undertaking. It's not just the images, all the animations would also have to be re-rendered. Bear in mind, Riven features around five thousand images and over three hours of video. Also, it would be a HUGE app. At a resolution of 640 x 480 the game originally came on 5 CD-ROMs. Having said that, it is a shame that the iOS version looks so poor by todays standards.
It's usually not that simple, and often assets are simply lost or deliberately destroyed during development or afterwards (though this is less common these days, when teams know they could be asked to throw together a new DLC at the drop of a hat months after release). Look at BG:EE, for example - the developers couldn't re-render the existing graphics to take advantage of higher resolutions because the original art files were simply no longer anywhere to be found. You're deleting the game because it didn't make it convenient enough for you to cheat? That's a bit extreme, surely; most adventure games don't have hint systems built in.
I have to after playing realMyst I was very disappointed in this. I really prefer realMyst's full 3D environment instead of Riven's, not sure how to word it, collection of photos.
I'm sorry to say, I have also deleted the game. I was a big fan of Riven back in the day, but this version looks bad on the iPad, especially the full-screen video sections of the game. Also, the original version had a ripple effect on the water that gave it a bit of life and helped disguise the fact that it is just a bunch of still images. It's a shame that such a beautifully designed game is ruined by this poor presentation.
Of course that's not the only reason. 2nd. it's a slow slideshow on my Ipad3. Myst was 1000x better movement is cluncky. some images are really blurry. Moving items are really slow. If I play the PC version, the screens are way better too
Oh so realmyst for iPad has free movement? I find that much better than clicking through photos, maybe they'll make a realriven
The fact is, it just isn't suitable for a mobile game. It's too big file-size wise and too small resolution wise. The game was created at 640 x 480 (which was the normal size for a game in those days) and it still took up 5 CDs. That's around 3.5 GB. If you look at the original game screen size in comparison to the iPad retina display, you can see why it looks poor. On top of that the images and movies will have been seriously compressed further to get it down to 2GB.
Yes,I agree... But it does look quite a bit better than the iphone version in 2x (obviously). Personally, I don't mind that it's not "real" HD. It's Riven, on the bigger touch screen... And I never completed the game back in the 90's when I played it on the PC. So I'm psyched to have this iPad version. I don't really remember the PC build, so I think that might help too... I don't remember how quick screens changed, or things moved, or the little things like moving water and whatever else people have brought up here in the thread... So im sure all of that plays a part in how much I am and will continue to enjoy this version.... I really do need to get a copy of the PC version before writing up a review though... I am a bit curious to see how truley different they really are in regards to smoothness, visual quality, and all that... Hope I can find a version that'll play in Windows XP.
Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel I won't join the discussion about the Quality of the Port. All I have to say is that Riven, same as Myst has lost nothing of it`s Magic after all those Years and it`s pretty cool to finally see it showing up on our Tablets.
So, I decided to give Riven another go last night and ended up playing for hours and thoroughly enjoying it. It's just the full-screen video sections where you travel from one island to another that are very poor quality - the rest of the game is not too bad once you accept that it doesn't have the super-crisp graphics we are accustomed to today. It is still a very good game after all these years, and I look forward to playing again over the weekend.
I'm kind of a geek for these games (even read the books, the first which gives the backstory tot he creation of Riven), but I've yet to put any of these on my iPad for some reason. I think I'll need to rectify that. Watching Sanuku's video filled me with all kinds of warm memories. Maybe one day we'll get a remastered version of these games, but for now I'm happy to just have them on ios.