Riven
The Islands of Riven: A Tourist’s Handbook
a
Riven Walkthrough, by Steve Metzler
Contents
Introduction
Tips
‘Super Dome’ Island
Island of the Wooden Eyes
Boiler House Island
Meanwhile, Back at the Dome
‘Finally, a Map!’ Island
Island of the Wooden Eyes Revisited
Prisoner of the Moeity
Finding Your Marbles
Gehn
Catherine
The Star Fissure
Copyright and Contact Details
Introduction
Riven, the sequel to Myst, is much larger
than its predecessor. This walkthrough takes you on one of the shorter
paths through the game, but you may wish to stray from this path occasionally,
in order that you might take in all of the sights and sounds that Riven
has to offer.
I did quite enjoy solving the puzzles in this game. Some of them
are very challenging. Which is presumably why you’re reading this in the
first place. Well, I shan’t delay you any longer. Here we go!
Tips
Before you do anything else, get onto the Broderbund support site, download
and apply the 1.01
Update. This patch fixes problems with FMV clips that play twice. It
also fixes a problem later on that would prevent you finishing the game!
… and …
Warning: don’t mess with the cone-shaped device until
the very end of the game, or you’ll be sorry!
‘Super Dome’ Island
You begin the quest to rescue Atrus’ beloved Constantine as Atrus packs
you off to Riven using his hypnotic little book. Immediately, you find
yourself transported into a tiny prison cell. There is no apparent way
out. A loquacious native eventually appears. He wrests the Prison Book,
the one you’re supposed to use to trap ‘Gehn’ with, away from you through
the bars of the cell. He is then struck down (by a dart?) and dragged away.
His assailant sets you free.
Directly in front of you is a strange cone-shaped
device. Walk forward and have a look. Note the pipe going into the rockface.
It powers the device. Turn around, go back past the prison cell, and up
the steps next to the cliff. When you reach the top of the steps (where
a narrow bridge spans the sea ahead of you) turn left twice. Go through
the doorway into the pentagonal room, and have a look through the portcullis
that blocks the other doorway. There’s a walkway there that spans the chasm
next to the cone-shaped device. The object of your first puzzle is to open
that portcullis so you can cross the walkway. Easier said than done! You
might want to try to work this one out yourself first, because it’s quite
an ingenious puzzle. You can figure quite a few things out by looking through
the pinholes in the concave portions of the walls as the room is rotated.
If you get stuck, the solution is as follows:
Exit the room and turn around. Press the button located on the wall
to the right 4 times. The room rotates one position clockwise each time.
It’s pentagonal in shape, so it will rotate to 5 possible positions, aligning
the 2 doors to different positions each time. Now you have to find another
way in! Turn around, and go left down the other side of the cliff steps.
When you arrive at the bottom, turn to the left twice and you will encounter
a locked gate. At first, it appears that you require a key, but you can
crawl under the gate by clicking when the hand cursor is toward the bottom
of the screen.
Enter the pentagonal room and head through the opposite doorway. Go
to the pipes and look up to see the steam escaping from the top of the
vertical pipe. Throw the switch, and the steam is now diverted to the cone-shaped
device (note the symbol for it on the plate above the switch). Turn
around and head back for the doorway. Push the button on the right hand
wall twice, then flip the switch on the left hand side of the doorway to
the up position. You’ll see the portcullis in the opposite doorway rise.
Head through the newly opened portcullis (a bronze
door set into the cave wall still blocks your path) and turn to the left.
Press the button on the wall twice, then turn to the left and flip the
switch on the left-hand side of the doorway to the up position. This action
causes the portcullis which blocks the door to the chasm walkway (which
you can’t see at the moment) to open. Now we just have to get back there!
Head through the opposite doorway, to wind up where you began this exercise.
Then turn around, press the button on the wall twice, and head through
the now open portcullis to find yourself on the walkway across the chasm.
Whew!
Cross the walkway and enter the golden dome. Continue following the
walkway through the dome until you emerge outside again. As you continue
along the path, on your left you see a steam switch
at the end of a small promontory. Throw this switch. It powers a section
of bridge you will need to lower in order to get back to the dome later
on! Turn around and continue along the pathway in the direction you were
originally headed. Just before you enter a tunnel, there is a sort of lift
you can stand on. If you turn to the right, there’s a button on the wall,
but it doesn’t work yet. Continue on through the tunnel and throw the steam
switch located on a small balcony at the end. Then
turn around and go all the way back through the dome. Just before you exit
the dome, you can try throwing the switch on the wall next to the entrance.
It raises and lowers the chasm walkway. The steam switch on the small
balcony powers it. Go back through the pentagonal room and cross the
walkway over the sea that is directly in front of you. Proceed into the
tunnel. Halfway through the tunnel is a door set into the wall to the left.
Enter, and look through the porthole to the right.
Throw the switch on the wall, and you see a door opening somewhere. Exit
this room, and continue on down the tunnel. Open the door at the end of
the tunnel and proceed into the temple. Exit via the door to the right
(which you saw being opened while looking through the porthole).
Push the button on the gizmo to the right of the metal steps. A rail car
pulls up as a result. Get into the car, sit in the driver’s seat, and hit
the rotary switch to turn the car around. Then throw the knife switch to
move the car forward. Enjoy the rollercoaster style journey to the next
island.
Island of the Wooden Eyes
Exit the car and head to the right. You’ll see a small orb that resembles
an eye carved from wood protruding from a rockface. Touching the orb causes
it to rotate, revealing a symbol on the reverse side. Make a note of this
symbol (hey, it’s a walkthrough, but you have to do some work yourself.
Don’t worry. There’ll be a re-cap later on in case you miss something)!
Also note the animal sound that is made when the
orb rotates. Turn around and go into the cave. Head up the steps. After
going up a few steps, turn around and note the animal
shape formed by the mouth of the cave, the eye of the animal being the
wooden orb you just found. Turn around again, keep going up, then proceed
downwards after you exit the cave.
Below, you see two creatures sunning themselves on a rock in a small
alcove. You should only move forward when their heads are down, or they
will flee! If you get close enough before scaring them away, one of them
makes a strange sounding bellow (sounds like … ‘Gehn’).
The significance of this sound will become more apparent later on. Step
off the walkway onto the beach. Turn right and go all the way to the end
of the alcove. Then turn left and head towards the rock in the water. Another
wooden eye! Again, note the note the symbol and
sound. The large rock itself is the animal’s shape. Return to the walkway,
and continue in the direction you were proceeding before you stepped onto
the beach. The steps head upwards into a cave. Go through the cave to emerge
at a lake in the middle of a crater. Head down the ladder, and touch the
wooden eye in the basin to reveal another symbol.
Remember the sound this creature makes. Turn the valve on the side of the
basin, and it fills up with a bit of water that takes the shape of the
creature. There’s another ladder leading down to the lake. You may explore
further if you wish, but the walkway dead-ends at the lake and there is
nothing more you can do here at the moment. So, turn around and head back
up the ladder. Go back through the cave, along the walkway by the beach,
and this time head up the steps and go all the way to the top of the hill.
Cross the wooden bridge, and you wind up on a stone path (actually, a trough!)
in an area with a lot of tree stumps. Head for the wooden door set between
two trees directly in front of you. Go through the door, and down the steps.
Just after passing through the first tree, turn to the left. Leave the
path and go down the small steps amongst the luminescent mushrooms.
Advance forward a few times to find another wooden eye. This one doesn’t
have an animal shape associated with it, but it does have a sound!
Note the symbol. Then return to the path and
continue in the direction you were headed before you made this detour.
Enter a second tree, and follow the Y to the right, down another set
of steps. At the end of the path, just before you reach a totem-like statue,
are a pair of lamps. When you are standing right between the lamps, pressing
the small button atop the lamp on the right opens the mouth of the statue.
Proceed into the statue until you cannot advance further and you are automatically
turned around. Flip the lever on your right to the upward position. The
door of the statue closes, and you are conveyed upwards to a series of
metal catwalks. Exit the tree, then make the first right. In front of you
is a spinning metal dome. To stop it spinning, look through the eyepiece
of the device at the end of the catwalk. You have to press the button just
before the yellow symbol appears in the eyepiece. Make a note of the symbol
for later reference (Note: if you didn’t manage to note the symbol
on the first go, you can start the dome spinning again by pressing the
button on top of the device)! Once you have stopped the dome spinning,
go to it via the catwalk. Have a look at the device in the centre of the
dome. You see a book through the glass, but you don’t have the code to
open the device yet. Turn around, then head up the metal steps to the left.
Enter the chamber at the top, and sit in the chair between the two levers.
Hit the left hand lever. The top of the chamber opens and the chair rises.
You are now at the very top of this island. Look down to see the lake which
you visited earlier. Hit the lever on the right to close the aperture
in the platform below. You are going there shortly. Hit the left hand lever
again to lower the chair, and then exit the chamber. Go all the way back
past the dome, and into the tree lift again. Move the lever downwards to
operate the lift. Next, hit the lever on the left to open the door of the
statue’s mouth again. Go back outside, and when you enter the tree with
the dome atop it, follow the Y to the right. Go up the steps and through
the wooden gate onto a wooden catwalk. Turn to the right, and proceed through
a cave all the way down to the lake.
Follow the wooden walkway around the edge of the lake, and head up the
ladder. At the top of the ladder is a dwelling. Follow the walkway around
the left-hand side of the dwelling, and go up another ladder. At the end
of the next walkway is a metal submarine perched
on the edge of a cliff. Hit the lever on your left to lower the sub into
the lake. Now we have to make our way back to the sub. Are we having fun
yet? So, go back down to the lake, up through the cave, onto the stone
trough pathway, across the wooden bridge, down the steps to the walkway
along the beach, into the cave, and down the two ladders to reach the sub!
You might want to save the game here, then play around with the sub for
a while. Try docking at a few stations. Anyway, here’s the shortest way
to accomplish things here (from the sub’s original position):
Once inside the sub, hit the rotary switch to turn the sub around. Then
hit the lever on your right to advance, and then once again. Exit the sub
here, and proceed up the metals rungs set into the side of the cliff. When
you emerge into the room at the top, note the position of the 5 switches
in front of you. They control the positions of the ladders at the various
sub docking stations. Flip the 3 switches that are pointing downward to
the upward position. Now all 5 ladders are in the water and you can dock
anywhere you please. Go back down to the sub. Hit the rotary switch to
turn the sub around. Then hit the lever to the right to advance forward.
Now you are at a junction. Move the slider switch over to the left to select
the left hand track. Move forward again, and exit the sub when it halts.
We’re going to school! As you enter the classroom,
turn to your left and get close to the execution ‘toy’. Each time you pull
the ring on the toy, one of the hanging figures drops down a random number
of notches (until the big fish at the bottom eventually gets him. Ouch)!
The corresponding number in the Rivenese system appears in a window at
the bottom of the toy. Operate the toy until you have learned to count
from 1 to 10, making note of the symbols. At
this juncture, it would be a good idea to match the symbols you found on
those wooden eyes to the numbers you have just learned. Finished with classroom
activities for today, and satisfied that you have indeed learned something
useful, head back out to the sub.
Hit the rotary switch to turn the sub around. Then move forward. At
the next junction, make sure the slider switch is still to the left to
select the left hand track, and advance again. Exit the sub, and make your
way to the centre of the strange platform (but only if you did
this first). Pull the triangular handle to lower the harness, then
climb on the harness and take a ride to the top. Have a look at the prisoner
in the cell there. Don’t bother to open the cell yet, as you don’t have
enough information to progress further once you have done so. For now,
follow the metal catwalk downwards. Lower the ladder
at the end of the catwalk, and climb down to the wooden walkway that skirts
the lake. Then turn around and head back through the cave to the top of
the hill. Bear to the left when you reach the stone trough path, and head
past the stump with an axe stuck in it. Have a good look across the water
to the two islands connected by a footbridge. You’ll be heading for that
shortly. Go down into the hole at the end of the trough, and hit the lever
on your left. Enjoy the trip through the water, which is held at bay by
a tunnel of magical golden bands.
Boiler House Island
You arrive, after having been unceremoniously dumped from your conveyance,
on a platform overlooking a lake set in a crater. Head down the ladder
to the beach, then proceed to the centre of the lake via the catwalk. Move
the valve you find there towards you to the next
(middle) position, then head for the boiler house. Note the blue flames
at the base of the boiler. You’ll have to turn them off before you can
go inside:
Head up the steps to the boiler, turn left, go to the back of the boiler,
and turn right to face the boiler. Turning the valve on the right extinguishes
the flames. Then turn the wheel on the left to drain the boiler. Turn to
the left, and move that valve to divert power to the grate which is inside
the boiler. Then turn to the right once more, and push up the lever to
elevate the grate. Now you may enter the boiler via the front door.
Once inside the boiler, head down the central ladder and through a dark
tunnel. Continue up the ladder to emerge at the end of a pipe overlooking
the sea. Climb down from the pipe, and follow the path over the crest of
the hill to the top of the crater. Continue downwards to the balcony which
overlooks the lake. Open the trap door set in the floor of the balcony
to give yourself access back to the lake. Head down the ladder to the beach,
go around the boiler house, and out onto the catwalk to the centre of the
lake again. Turn the valve upwards to the position
it originally occupied. Head back up to the balcony, open the double doors,
and enter. Proceed to the end of the catwalk. There is a strange device
here that looks something like an inverted colander.
Look upwards, and you will see a rapidly rotating fan.
You’ll need to turn off this fan in order to gain access to the ventilation
shaft. Turn around, and head back towards the double doors. Close them
from the inside to reveal two hidden passages. Nasty trick, that! Take
the left hand passage and go down the steps. Open the door at the bottom
of the steps to reveal another spinning dome. Move forward through the
open door, then turn around immediately and close the door from the inside
to reveal another hidden passage! Head down this passage, and you see the
device that will enable you to stop this dome spinning. Look through the
eyepiece of the device, and try to depress the button just before the symbol
turns yellow. Memorise this symbol for later on. Now, exit the hidden passage
and walk up to the dome. Then look upwards. Note the large hole
in the ceiling here. This is another important piece of information.
Head back up the stairs, and continue straight through when you reach
the top. You wind up on another walkway along the edge of the crater. About
halfway down the walkway as you approach a building in the distance, there
is a lever off to the right with a cable running through it. Throwing this
lever turns off the ventilation fan. Now, head back
to the end of the catwalk where the colander and
fan are located. Time to catch some frogs! Open the colander (it’s a frog
trap, actually) via the handle at the top. Then take a pellet from the
cup on the right, and place it in the depression in the centre of the open
trap. Don’t close the trap! Move the large lever on the left of the trap
to lower it. Wait a while until you hear the trap spring shut, then press
the lever again to raise the trap. Opening the trap reveals a brightly
coloured frog. Ribbit! The sound made by the frog before it escapes is
one you heard earlier. When you are finished
catching frogs, look upwards to see the now idle fan. Click on it to start
climbing up the ventilation shaft. At the other end of the shaft, move
the grating and climb down into the laboratory. Lots of interesting trivia
to view here.
Nothing is really important in the lab with the exception of the book
(Gehn’s journal) immediately in front of you. Open it and have a good read.
Of special note is the combination which has been placed on the central
devices inside those domes you have been opening:
Remember how you learned the Rivenese number system in the school?
Their number system is a base 5 system. We know that 5 = a rotated ‘1’,
and 10 = a rotated ‘2’, so what might 15 look like? 20? Well, they look
like this. So, now you should have enough information
to translate the sequence of 5 numbers written
down in Gehn’s journal into our own number system.
For example: the number ’19’ would be constructed by combining the symbols
for ’15’ and ‘4’. Not particularly useful right now, but take note of it
for later on (Warning: the sequence is different for every run of
the game, so you’ll have to figure this out on your own. Tricky devils)!
Exit the lab via the front door (the back door leads down to another rail
car station) and head to the right. Lo and behold! A way back to the ‘Super
Dome’ on the island where you began this adventure. Cross the long expanse
of footbridge and flip the lever on the right towards the end to lower
the final section of the bridge. This action will only be possible if you
threw the steam switch down below earlier on. If
you neglected to do so … well, it’s a long way back — but such is the
life of an intrepid adventurer!
Meanwhile, Back at the Dome
You’re back on the island where you began this little adventure. This
time, however, you have a chance to tidy up some of those loose ends that
we left dangling earlier on! Proceed onto the metal catwalk inside the
dome, and make the first left to go outside again. A gap in the walkway!
Turn around, and press the button on the wall. The lift,
which was inoperable from below, rises to bridge the gap. Cross over the
lift and head around the bend in the walkway. To your left, note the spinning
dome below. at the end of the walkway, hit the lever on the right to raise
the bronze door. You can begin to see how all
these places are related now! It’s the pentagonal room again. Don’t bother
to rotate it again just now. Instead, turn around and go back to the dome.
Enter the dome, head to the left, and rotate the wheel at the end of this
section of the catwalk to finally hook up all the bits of the catwalk!
Now, follow the catwalk to the bottom of the dome and go outside. Follow
the path until you come to the place (just before the tunnel) where the
lift was. It has been replaced by another lift. Turn to the right, and
press the button on the wall to take the lift down. Turn around, and follow
the stairs up to the device in front of the spinning dome. Look through
the eyepiece. Once again, depress the button just prior to the symbol turning
yellow, and make a note of the symbol. Turn around, go back up the lift,
along the walkway into the dome, and up to the top level of the catwalk
inside the dome. Make the first right, and hit the lever on the inside
wall to raise the walkway across the chasm. This action will save you some
time later on. Now, turn around, head back out the second doorway to the
right, and over the water across the long footbridge to the previous island.
Enter the lab through the front door, turn around and press the button
on the gizmo next to the door to summon a rail car. Exit via the back door
of the lab to find the waiting rail car at the bottom of the stairs. New
destination ho!
‘Finally, a Map!’ Island
When you reach the new island, exit the rail car, head through the doorway,
and up the steps outside. You arrive at the edge of a strange lake (don’t
worry. No real elephants were used in the making of this adventure)! Enter
the building in the centre of the lake (head through the crack in the wall,
and upwards in a lift). Walk forward onto the platform that overlooks …
a map of the five islands of Riven! You haven’t visited the small one on
the upper right-hand side yet. Each time you depress a button on the panel
in front of you, the water on top of the corresponding island changes shape
to match the contour of that island. Before you proceed any further, make
sure you know which of the actual islands you visited corresponds to each
of the rough angular shapes on the panel. Looking straight ahead, and then
to the right, ought to do the trick (look for features that you recognise
on each of the distant islands)! Then, for each of the islands in turn:
- Press the button for the island.
- Turn around, and head into the mushroom-shaped structure located in
the middle of the water (on your way there, you can see to your left the
spinning dome on this island. Make a mental note of where it is located
on the island. You’ll need this information shortly). - Under a magnifying glass, you’ll see the corresponding island shape
of the button you pressed outside. - On each of the islands you have previously visited, try to remember
where the spinning dome was. Press that area on the island shape under
the magnifying glass. A 3D relief map of the area will pop up. You may
rotate your view of it by using the handle on the magnifying glass. Try
to locate a representation of a spinning dome in the area you have selected.
You may have to try several areas on each island if you’re not sure where
the dome was located! - Make note of: which area on each island you located the dome in, and
where exactly it is on the 5 x 5 grid for the area. I have made a drawing
here for each island if you get stuck:
‘Super Dome’ Island
Island of Wooden Eyes
Boiler House Island
‘Finally, a Map!’ Island
The Fifth Island
Now, head around the catwalk until you find the device that will allow
you to stop the dome here from spinning. This time, you can’t get a clear
sighting of the symbol that turns yellow! Well, you’ll have to do without
this information. Okay, now back down to the rail car. Get into the car,
just turn it around (don’t move it forward), and get out the other side!
Open the door, and head towards the end of the hall. Hit the lever on your
left to summons a very strange lift. Take it down to the floor below. Exit
the lift, go through a doorway, and onto a path. Follow the path straight
ahead through another doorway, up some steps, and sit on the throne (pun
intended)! Press the button on the lever to your right to rotate the throne
into position. Then hit the lever on your right. A viewing device flips
down. Look into it. Now you have to match spinning dome symbols to colours.
The symbols on the six positions of the wheel correspond to spinning dome
symbols. We only know three of them at this stage. Here’s
the coloured lights they match up with (Note: colours not yet
associated with dome symbols are listed at the bottom of the file).
Exit this view, and hit the lever on the right again to retract the
viewing device. Hit the lever on the left this time, and another viewing
device drops into place. If you press the hexagonal button on the left
hand side of this device (you may have to try this a few times), you’ll
eventually see a woman appear in the room being viewed. This can only be
Catherine, held captive somewhere! Now, hit the hexagonal button on the
right. As you press the tabs on the outside of the viewing device, your
view will cycle through various vantage points of the lake on the Island
of the Wooden Eyes. Keep going until you see an animal
shape. Take note of this shape, because it’s the missing fifth animal shape
which you couldn’t see when you were on the Island of the Wooden Eyes earlier!
You’re finished here, so retract the viewing device, and hit the button
to rotate the throne back to its original position. Head back down the
path and make the first right into a rail car station. Use the rail car
to return to the Island of Wooden Eyes.
Island of the Wooden Eyes Revisited
Exit the rail car, and head through the door into the lift. Yes, you’ve
been here before! Take the lift up one level, then hit the lever on the
left to open the statue’s mouth. Go up the steps, and take the right hand
fork of the Y in the tree. Head up the stairs, open the wooden gate, and
make a right onto the wooden catwalk. Follow the path down to the lake,
and climb up the ladder which you lowered earlier.
Free the prisoner by pushing the button on the wall to the right of the
cell. Hey, where did he go? Opening the circular grating on the floor of
the cell and clicking on the water produces a hidden switch. This switch
causes a secret door set into the wall of the cell to retract. Enter the
new opening, head into the dark tunnel, and proceed through 6 completely
black frames until you emerge from the darkness again. The tunnel dead-ends
at a body of water. Protruding from the left-hand wall of the tunnel is
a stick. Pull it to turn on a light (Note: if you have not installed
the 1.01 Upgrade, simultaneously banging on the Alt key while clicking
on the stick will get you over this one)! Turn around, and proceed back
the way you came, turning on lights (that have magically appeared!) along
the way. When you pass through a doorway, turn around and open the newly
discovered door to your right. Proceed through it into a large circular
chamber.
You should now have enough information to solve this puzzle. You have
to push down 5 of the stones in the correct order. Well, remember the wooden
eyes? Each one (with a single exception) had a Rivenese number and an animal
shape associated with it. Here’s the solution.
When you have pressed the stones in the correct order, a niche in the
wall opens. It contains a linking book. To where? Open it and touch the
pretty picture to find out!
Prisoner of the Moeity
When you arrive at this strange place, turn around and head into the
cave. As you approach the idol in front of you, two of the locals sneak
up behind you and zap you with one of their noxious little darts. You wake
up momentarily as you’re being transported across the lake in a boat. The
next time you wake, it’s in a cell. Walk up to the wooden door of the cell
and take a look outside. Then go have a look out the back window. As you
return to the centre of the room having looked out the back window, you
should be visited by a confidante of Catherine’s. She presents you with
Catherine’s journal, and the Prison Book which
Atrus gave you to trap Gehn with. It was taken from you at the very beginning
of the game. You may save the game here and try using the Prison book —
if you desire a sneak preview of the credits! This is the first possible
game ending, and quite an undesirable one. But it gives you a good idea
of the book’s purpose. Hey, wouldn’t it be great to be able to save off
your day before you went to work or school in the morning, in case …
but I digress.
Have a good read of Catherine’s journal. It contains a note that repeats
what Atrus told you at the outset, just so you remember what you’re supposed
to be doing! If you’re not asleep yet, a good distance through the journal
are some handy tips for operating the cone-shaped device. Write down the
5 number combination (Warning: the combination
is different for every run of the game, so you’ll have to figure this out
on your own!) for opening the portal underneath the device, and note the
reference to a ‘stop’ on the left hand side of the device. Some time after
you have finished reading the journal, the girl returns. This time, she
presents you with a useful linking book … the one back to the circular
chamber. Go for it!
Finding Your Marbles
Okay, the end is rapidly approaching! One last big puzzle. Head back
to the very top of this island, where the tree stumps are located. Head
past the stump with the axe in it, and ride the car through the strange
tunnel back to Boiler House Island. Go around the boiler house, and up
the ladder to the balcony above. Head through the double doors, then close
the doors and go through the right-hand passage, along the walkway past
Gehn’s laboratory, and over the long footbridge back to the ‘Super Dome’.
Enter the dome, then make the first left and go back outside again (be
sure the chasm walkway bridge has been raised, first!). Head through the
pentagonal room, then turn around and press the button twice so that the
room is rotated to allow access to the chasm walkway. Go through the room
and up the now elevated chasm walkway to the very top of the ‘Super Dome’.
Have a good look at the grid in the centre of the walkway (the 5 Riven
island shapes again!), and note the 6 coloured marbles lined up next to
the grid. Well, we can deduce something straight away from this! The last
marble is the colour violet, and we haven’t seen that colour before. So,
it must be the colour of the broken light, and thus, the colour corresponding
to Boiler House Island! The solution to this puzzle concerns placing the
coloured marbles on the grid so they occupy the exact positions of the
spinning domes on the 5 islands. We know all 5 positions, and 3 colours
with certainty, so a bit of guesswork is required. Each time you have placed
the marbles, turn around, walk forward one frame, then turn around again
and pull the lever located on the wall to the right. After the device has
locked into position, press the white button located above the lever. If
you hear a deep rumble, you’ve hit paydirt! If not, raise the lever and
try placing the marbles differently. You’re trying to fill the 2 remaining
positions with 3 marbles to choose from, so it would be a good idea to
keep a record of what you’re doing! Have a decent go at it (it’s a fun
puzzle!), but here’s the solution if you get
stuck.
Now that you’ve solved the marble puzzle, the spinning domes have power!
You may have tried opening the domes previously, using the combination
from Gehn’s journal. If you did this, you would have noticed that the books
inside were unusable. Well, they aren’t unusable any longer! Find your
way back to the spinning dome on this island, and move the 5 slider pieces
to the positions you figured out from Gehn’s
journal. The interior part of the dome opens. Touch the book, watch
the nice FMV sequence, then touch the picture … and we’re off to see
The Wizard!
Gehn
Imprisoned again! And none of those linking books which you can reach
through the bars have power. Press the button on the square panel to summons
Gehn. After listening to a long monologue, touch the Prison Book when Gehn
offers it to you. Congratulations! Atrus’ plan worked and you’ve managed
to trap Gehn (far too easily, I thought)! You take his place outside the
bars. Turn to the right and head down the manhole in the floor. It’s Gehn’s
room. On the table next to the bed is a small silver
globe. Touching it causes a sequence of sounds to be played. You should
save the game here, because you will invariably need to play the sequence
a few times later on in order to solve a puzzle. Exit Gehn’s room, and
hit the lever on the spherical boiler. This device powers the books! Now,
find the switch on the window sill that retracts the bars of the cage.
Find the linking book with one square on it, and use it.
Catherine
Exit the dome by pressing the button on the floor. Then cross the walkway,
enter the building, and stand in the cage. See the three switches on the
wall? you have to strike these to reproduce the sequence of sounds you
just heard from the silver globe device in Gehn’s
room (Warning: The sequence is different for each run of the game,
so I can’t help you much here … but, I think it’s always some
combination of exactly 5 strikes)! Then hit the lever to roll back the
cage. If all goes well, you’ve just rescued Catherine! She tells you to
signal Atrus by using the cone-shaped device on the fissure. Well, you
have all the information you need. What are you waiting for? Catherine
used the dome, so you’ll have to stop it spinning again before you can
follow. Travel back to Gehn’s place, then use the ‘Super Dome’ Island linking
book to return there (again, you will have to undo some things which Catherine
changed when she went ahead of you).
The Star Fissure
I trust by now you can make it to the cone-shaped device on your own.
Thanks. First thing to do here is look at the lower left leg of the rig
the device is sitting in. There’s a stop pin there (which Catherine hinted
at in her journal)! Flip it upwards. Then use
the combination which you also found in Catherine’s
journal to open the portal underneath the device (Note: a ‘2’ in
the combination would represent the second button from the left on the
portal). Flip the lever on the right downwards, then keep hitting the button
until the device shatters the glass that protects The Star Fissure. If
you’ve done everything correctly up to this point, then you have managed
to save the day! Atrus and Catherine are re-united (if you tried to open
the portal and lower the device earlier without rescuing Catherine first
… oh dear! Hope you have a saved game somewhere before that)! As Riven
destroys itself, you dive into The Star Fissure and follow that book!
This walkthrough is Copyright © 1997
by Steve Metzler (e-mail: ).
All rights reserved. Not to be distributed without the author’s permission.