Warning! Some comments are spoilers! You've been warned!

If the handle on the star telescope is down and you walk away and look back the handle will still be up, even though it's down when you go back.

Those maglevs are fun. Wheeeee!

When I use the elevator in the Whark idol on Jungle Island there's a glitch in the program and it doesn't show movement. Does anyone else experience this?

On Map Island, when walking around the the room with the topography maps (the squares that rise up when you select an island) the plank to the room will be seen from the side, even if it is not there when you walk straight ahead.

In Ghen's office on Boiler Island, his journal has a picture of a viewing lens to put over a linking book to make it work, but Ghen doesn't use a viewer for his linking books, Catherine does, and the picture looks like Catherine's viewer. Ooops.

Okay, information from Catherine and Ghen's journals indicates that Catherine arrived in Riven on Temple Island in the same booth that you arrive in. Ghen's lackey sees Cathering, gets hit over the head by the Moeity and they take Catherine to safety. When you the player arrives, this same lackey takes the book Atrus gave you, gets hit over the head by the Moeity, but then they drag the lackey away and leave you the player all alone. Why the difference?

Information indicates that Ghen has a number of lackeys. I guess it's just luck that the player never runs into them.

When you use the 'elevator' on Temple Island to go down, you can send it back up. Below the elevator is a drain that seems to have no purpose in the game. There is a pattern on it that might be what Riven looked like before it broke up into 5 islands, but aside from that I can't see this as having any purpose.

Frankly, I have trouble believing that anyone can figure out the Fire Marble puzzle without cheating. Even knowing the answer, I could not see the 'clues.'

Catherine's journal tells you the combination for the cover over the Star Fissure. It also mentions that the Moeity were trying to undo the stop to break the glass before Catherine stopped them. However, the stop is ridiculously easy to undo, so how come the Moeity hadn't already broken the glass?

When freeing Catherine from Prison Island, there is a filmed sequence in which Catherine says to go back and break the Star Fissure to let Atrus know that he should come, then she runs off ahead of you to get the rest of the Moeity to the Age she has created for them. However, to get off of Prison Island you have to use the linking book to Ghen's room in the 233rd Age. When you get there you find that Catherine has destroyed all the linking books except the one to Temple Island, meaning that she had to go there as well. So why did she run off ahead? (Okay, she had to run because it was just a filmed sequence, but I'm a Nitpicker and I don't deal in reality, from a story point of view we could have made the trip together.)

I really don't believe that Catherine had the time to go to Temple Island, run all the way to the Maglev to Jungle Island contact all the Moeity and transport them to Tay in the time it takes for you the player to go to Temple Island, unstop the Star Telescope and break open the Star Fissure, then rush back to meet you and Atrus.
Especially since the Moeity rebels could have been on a number of different islands spying.

Supposedly there are 10 endings to Riven. I've only experience 2 so far, but the second seems to be the one that the player is striving for, Ghen is captured, Catherine is freed.
So why does Atrus let the player fall into the Star fissure instead of letting him link out with Catherine and Atrus!?!
Aaaaaarg! I could not believe that after all I had gone through in the game that was the best ending the creators could think up! Gee, thanks, Atrus. Calling me "my friend" was a nice touch. I didn't see the metaphorical stab in the back coming!

To answer your question about why the player falls into the fissure. If you've played Myst, and read the book Myst: The book of Atrus, you would know the book that the player used to orriginally link to Myst island is one that Atrus dropped into the Star Fissure. The Star Fissure leads to where the player came from, and it is his way home. That's why you drop down.

I've tried to find all of the ending and here are the ones I've found. WARNING! SPOILERS ABOUND, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!!


Ending 1: Trap Gehn, Free Cathrine, open fissure. Atrus sends you home through the fissure and has his "Know I understand" speech.

Ending 2: Trap Gehn, open fissure. Atrus sends you home through the fissure but he fears that the acceleration of Riven's distruction will destroy all the island's inhabitants, including Catherine.

Ending 3: Open fissure. Atrus arrives and Gehn shoots him, steals linking bood, then shoots you.

Ending 4: Trap yourself in trap book in the Rebel age. Two rebels find the book, one almost touches it but is stopped at the last second. Book closes.

Ending 5: Trap yourself in trap book in Riven. One of Gehn's flunkies releases you in Gehn's office when Gehn shoots you.

Ending 6: Free Gehn from book in Riven or his office. He thanks you for freeing him and then closes the book. (oddly enough, if you release him on Riven, is office is in the background)

Ending 7: Free Gehn in the Rebel Age. He thanks you for freeing him and then he leaves to terrorise the Rebels, but not before closing the book.

Ending 8: Refusing to use the trap book when Gehn wants you to use it three times. He shoots you.

There might be more of them, but these are the only ones that I have found.

Gee, I just got this game this weekend and haven't even installed it yet. But I'll forget these spoilers anyway so that's no problem. I'd like to get Myst, but I doubt I can find it for around the $14.99 price I got Riven for at a store, along with some other games for cheap (see my Nocturne board under The Games).

Well, it's a whole year later and I've hardly played this game at all on the older computer but I haven't installed it on the new one. The game came with a $10 mailin rebate which I never did but wish I had. Oh, well.

The rebel age puzzle (the wooden eyes) was pretty hard; one of the eyes, the one in the jungle, was so hard to spot compared to the others that I didn't know it was there until I read about it elsewhere.

Is there going to be a Myst board or an Exile board? I have _such_ a nit for Exile but I don't know if I should post it here, it's kind of a spoiler.

Way back in '99, I asked Edje (the moderator) for boards about Myst & Riven, he responded that he thought the games were awful, but he would put them up, then some time passed & I had to ask him again for a Riven board before this one got put up. So you have to be persistent if you want those boards.
Another problem is that I haven't seen Edje around NitCentral for some time, so I don't know if he's still working as Moderator or not. However, I believe his email address is on the 'front page' of PC Games, so send him a message & see.

Okay, Question. How exactly did Gehn when he went to 123rd age, and Catherine and the Moiety linked to Tay, did they make a linking book back to Riven? Don't you need access to the descriptive books for that?

I think I have some answers for the first nits:

The Moiety took Catherine because she is an important figure in their religion. You aren't.

If you linked back to D'ni with Atrus and Catherine, you'd be stuck there (and in their Ages) until they finally break down the door to access the rest of D'ni. Atrus belives that the Star Fissure will bring you back to the place you came from, because it brought the Myst Linking book there.

Michael, I think someone only has to know a few passages from the descriptive books. Since Gehn wrote the book, he can write linking books back to Riven. I assume the Moiety stole some of his linking books.

About the linking books, they are supposed to be composed of selected passages from the relevant descriptive book.

If I recall correctly, the linking book can be made from the descriptive book of the world you're taking it to, ie Catherine wrote the Tay-->Riven link from parts of the Tay book.

Also, linking books only link to the exact location where they were written.

In Catherine's diary she notes that the Moiety stole blank books from Gehn to do their writing.

In what order should I press the animal stones? And how do you find out how to do that?
Thanks in advance.