Once, there was a place called the Riven Journals. They existed at http://journals.riven.com. The website existed as an insight to an upcoming game to be released by Cyan (now Cyan Worlds), creators of the MYST series. The game to be released was Riven: The Sequel to Myst. The fanbase was edgy for information on a sequel to Myst, so Cyan set up the Riven Journals as a teaser to satsify the fans.
The Riven Journals was designed to provide an insight into Cyan's next masterpiece- not giving away any hints about the story or the outcome at the end of the game, yet still tell information about it. Such information found on the journals was a deeper insight into Riven, and although it was not necessary to play the game and enjoy it thoroughly, it enhanced the experience. The magority of the information that was contained within it, while more accurate versions of some facts have been released, was never published elsewhere. It was a site for those who had played Myst and wanted to enjoy the sequel as best as they could, and learn about the engrossing story that only the tip of the iceberg had been shown thus far.
Puzzles were set up on the Riven Journals, one at a time. Each puzzle consisted of a few pages of information or a story, then a puzzle to be solved. Once the puzzle was solved, the reward was more information on Riven and, if you were one of the first to solve the puzzle, recognition for being one of the first by having your name added to a book. Every so often, a new puzzle was added until there was a total of 5 puzzles to be solved. The site also hosted a mailing list for announcements on the updates of the Riven Journals and the development of Riven.
A few months after Riven had been released, the Riven Journals were taken, thought to be obsolete now that the actual game had been released. Copies may or may not have been kept at either Cyan or Broderbund (The producer at the time of the making of the Riven Journals), who knows. If they were, they were lost to the sands of time, as neither have a copy of them now. All that was left were a few solutions people had hosted on their sites, lacking the initial puzzles and stories, and the Internet Archives, which contained more holes in it than filled gaps. There seemed to be nothing at all left.
In early December, 2001, restoration of the Riven Journals began. Work was, however, very sloppy at that time. Copies were incorrectly saved off the internet archives and were edited in the wrong places to try and breath life back into them. By the end of December, the restoration process had been put on hold. The originals poorly saved off the Internet Archives and the even more deteriorated "corrected" versions were put in a deep corner on a Hard Drive and were soon forgotten about.
On Saturday, 21st of September 2002, the folder was dug up again and restoration was started once again on the Riven Journals. Work was put into the project not in half an hour every few days after school, but all day long, 9am to midnight most nights. The poorly edited files were deleted, a fresh start was to be made, this time properly done. Files were checked again with the Internet Archives, but it was found that the copies on the archives and the copies saved in December had variances in places. Some files were on the Internet Archives that were not there earlier, Some of the files on the Archives had been deleted. All files that could be refreshed and saved correctly were. Those that hadn't been correctly saved but weren't able to be refreshed from the archives were slowly edited to the state to match what they should have been like had they been saved correctly.
On Monday, 22nd of September 2002, after only 3 days of work, the Riven Journals had been restored to a state which was able to be viewable. One of the puzzles is playable, yet there are still elements missing from it. Another java applet is also in working condition, displaying what is thought to be static over a linking book window. Some pages have all their images, Some have a few missing, Some have all missing, Some pages don't even exist. Because of the Disjointedness of the files, A file browser was added in to browse the files. In any folder, change the name of the file/webpage being viewed to "filelist.html" and a browsable list will appear, documenting all files in that folder and all folders in that folder. This way, if a missing page is found, it can be bypassed and the trail can be picked up again further down the track.
There are still many holes in the Riven Journals, moreso in some areas than others. You can help get the Riven Journals more complete. This whole restoration process was done by one individual, and that person surprisingly never saw the Riven Journals. They first got their internet connection in the June-July of 1999, the Riven Journals long vanished. Even if it is just that you yourself know some of what was on the other pages, mock-up copies could be forged so that the Journals, while not in their original form for their entireity, are more complete. All help is gladly appreciated by the RJR team and will also be by others who browse the site. Contact detail Below.
Questions? Comments? Found something wrong somewhere or have something we don't? Send an email to riumplus@hotmail.com.
All images and text, except the originals from the Riven Journals, are Copyight © Michael Anderson, 2002.
All Myst, Riven and D'ni images, music and text © Cyan Worlds, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Myst ®, Riven ® and D'ni ® Cyan Worlds, Inc. No part may be copied or reproduced without express, written permission of Cyan Worlds, Inc.
All persons still reading this have too much time on their hands to be reading legal stuff. :P
