RIVEN was released by Cyan to critical acclaim and great commercial success 15 years ago. It is time to make a new version of it for its large faithful audience - and at the same time introduce it to a new generation of gamers.


Download video (QuickTime - 190mb)

Following cult classic Myst, Riven was a landmark in visual design. And even to this day it remains one of the most beautiful game ever produced. With only one characteristic showing its age: its slideshow non-realtime nature. Something games stopped doing many years ago. That is why it must be rebuilt in full glorious real time 3D. Releasing it in similar 2D format on newer platforms (iOS, etc) mostly works for a small, aging, audience. And as enjoyable as it is, it has limited sales impact. Obviously reaching the all-time high sales of '97 won't be possible; but turning a solid profit is very much within reach. Giving Riven a whole new treatment would give it breadth and introduce it to a whole new audience.

Not merely beautiful, Riven is a wonderful adventure game, one that easily stand aside current games. These last years atmospheric adventure games are making a return, showing that there is a thriving underserved audience. But more than a game Riven is a world; an immersive epic world begging to be explored. And that is easier today than it has ever been. Developped in the mid 90s at high cost its lavish environments where patiently rendered on expensive cinematic-grade hardware. And nowadays that kind of highly detailed imagery can run in real time 3D on any decent computer. And it can be developped much faster at a fraction of the cost.

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Technical look

To power such a game looking at the various commercially available game engines Unreal comes as a clear winner for many reasons: feature set, ease of use, documentation.. even cost. But most of all it has a proven track record for large game worlds (unlike Unity). The other heavyweight, Crysis, falls short in a few keys areas (notably ease of use).


As a proof of concept over the last few months I have developped a prototype version of it (with the help of fellow Riven lover and skilled tinkerer Andy Legate). A recreation of parts of Riven, done to assess technical and budget constraints. You can see most of it in the video and the screenshots here.
These scenes were not meant to be artistical masterpieces (I'm not a seasonned 3D artist). They were created to do a technical assessment of such a project and be representative of production pieces in terms of: polygon count, texture density, and shader complexity. In a word: performance vs quality. Using the Unreal engine this runs on a recent computer at a pretty high level of detail, worthy of the original material, and at a decent framerate (averaging over 60).
Everything in these scenes was recreated from scratch. This research shows that, while Riven is a large and detailed game, there is enough reference material that it doesn't take that long to recreate it; even from scratch. Obviously a better option would be to be able to re-use the original assets. But even baring that, recreating from scratch is a feasible option.

One that could lead to a wonderful game, at a decent cost, and that is sure to meet a whiling audience.

I've had the pleasure of working with the Myst fans for over ten years, and in the game industry for nearly as long; I know there is a real opportunity here just begging to be exploited.

I want to help you turn this into a commercial reality.

Think of it...

~ Gregory Champoux