We finally solve the much talked about but so far unseen fire marble puzzle, and power up the book domes, so that next time, we can finally pay a visit to Gehn.
What I particularly love about the firemarble puzzle is that it's the rare adventure game puzzle that you really can't even imagine trying to brute-force. Seriously, unless you use information gathered in the game, there are 58,752,420,690,993,751 possible configurations of firemarbles. Having played this all the way back in '97 (or, maybe, '98), it always bugs me when I see what are effectively combination locks in adventure games that only have like 24 settings.
@Travis Newsome Your number (625x624x623x622x621x620) is the number of configurations of six distinguishable marbles (i.e. already taking colors into account). If the marbles were the same color, the order their positions are chosen wouldn't matter, so you'd need to divide by 6!. In general, the number of patterns with n of the marbles will be C(625,n)*C(6,n)*n!; and, you get the total number of configurations by summing this over all possible values of n from 0 to 6. To break this down about, the first term is the number of ways of choosing n positions on the grid, the second term is the number of ways of choosing n of the marbles, and the third term is the number of ways of assigning the different marbles to grid positions. Put this all together and you get the 58,752,420,690,993,751 I originally posted.
But it is Gehn's fault that the book linked to an unstable version of Riven. A descriptive book links to an Age that matches the text in the book, and if the text contains contradictions, that might be unstable. I don't think that Atrus could've fixed Riven completely, at least not without the book ending up linking to a different Age.
Probably because RGB are light/display primary colors but RYB are physical primary colors. In order to have the full display of color on monitors, you would need to use RGB/CMYK (additive/subtractive) light rather than *color* Some people have also speculated that it’s his least favorite color so they’ve decided with his self perceived god status- he would just write a whole ass color out of existence.
Another theory would be that green and blue come together to form Cyan- just conjecture on my part... but sometimes game designers like adding company logos as easter-eggs (think of the Valve games).
That the missing color is blue also makes sense in that these are rainbow colors, and if you want to reduce the seven-color rainbow most of us are familiar with to five, removing both indigo and blue makes it lopsided. Removing yellow and blue is symmetrical (going by the seven-color system, the "blue" marble is actually indigo).
Ok, i put the marbles in the way you did and it worked. I hate that I did all that work figuring out where to put them on the grid and then thinking I had the colours right, and then to finally get to the grid (I didn't actually know what any of the stuff I had been working out or writing down wad for until I found the grid, i never knew it existed till I found it accidentally by leaving the bridge up) and then just to get here and see that to my eyes the cooled balls look nothing like the colours of the lights I saw. It sucks tbh.but thankyou so much, you helped a colourblind puzzler out big style. I loved these games when I was a kid but never got close to finishing them back in the day, and it was only last week I decided to have a go again after many many years. And was very proud how much better I did at them now im older, but disappointed that I needed help to see if i had the right colours on the crystals in myst,and these lights and corresponding balls here in riven. I'll be playing 3 and 4 after, and I can't remember if there are any colour puzzles, i really hope not, I hate using walkthroughs, just cuz we never had them in my day (the 90s) just hint pgone lines that were way to expensive to use. Monkey island one and especially 2 took a looooong time to finish back then. Hmmm wonder how is gate at them these days? Anyway thanks again. I wish they still made myst type games, they may be old fashioned now, but i think they are perfectly suited for maybe VR and mobile gaming especially these days.
You're partially right. Gehn's writing is pretty bad, but the books he created were also bad. After all, Catherine stole one of Gehn's books in order to write Tay, and she still needed a way to power it (of course, she wrote the "book-window" material into Tay so she wouldn't need to use the domes more than once, but she still needed something to correct the books even with her own writing). Without the domes, the books didn't work. They're not meant to correct the Ages' instability.
Hello! I recently started playing Riven again. I haven't played it since it came out, so it's been a long time and I was having trouble getting through it. So I began searching the internet for hints, and I came across your channel. I wanted to tell you how much I am enjoying your walkthrough. I think it is one of the best walkthroughs out there. I like how you explain interesting facts and background information. You have such a great voice too. I love it especially when you read the journals. Such a great job. I have been enjoying your channel so much! I know this is an older show on your channel, but I think it stands the test of time! Thank you for making it. I hope you are doing well and I look forward to continuing playing Riven with your help. Thanks again. Sincerely, Patrick
I always thought the yellow fire marble was used to refer directly to the golden dome that you're standing in since it sort of looks like a giant fire marble from a distance and that you leave it to the side to refer to the fact that it's the source for the power to originate from.
I love Dome Island aesthetically, and the large golden dome itself is an intimidating marvel to behold. But I cannot shake the feeling that using such a large place to house such a small puzzle, is a bit funny. I mean ever since we see it the first time one wonders what is up there in the crack, and it turns out to "just" be a long hallway with a marble puzzle, haha.
Here is how I solved the fire marble color dilemma. If you look in Gehn's Journal, the color symbols are in this order: r o y g b v. The symbol for yellow is the symbol used on all of the rotating eyeballs throughout Jungle Island, so I figured that symbol was not used to identify an island. We already have the symbols for the other four Islands, therefore prison Island must be blue.
This depends on whether you are using an additive model (like with paint), in which case the primaries are red, yellow and blue, or a subtractive model (like a TV or monitor), in which case the primaries are red, green and blue.
My reasoning for excluding the yellow marble was because the symbol for yellow looks like an eye, and yellow eyes seemed to instead be associated with the Moiety; i.e. the balls for the Animal puzzle.
You dont need to guess. If you go to the camera thing where you see Catherine, just use the lever to bring the other camera down. Now each button had an ' eye ' on it, each one corresoonds to the symbol you need to click the button on to open each dome with. So it has the sideways half open eye at the bottom, click it and a light comes on, whatever colour the light is, is the colour for the done that opens when you click the button on the same symbol, then to see the other colours you just click on the ring pull looking bits on the outer edge kind of like an old style rotary telephone. Go through all six symbols, and you get five different colours for five of them, and add far as I know, nothing for one of them. That's how I figured out what colours go to what domes. I haven't watched any previous vids you've done so I don't know if you already did this or not. But I got five coloured lights. My problem, and the reason I'm here, is the same problem I have with the crustal colour coded in the first may which I just completed for the first time last week, and is that I'm colourblind, an extreme deutan,which basically means I mix up shades that are similar if they are close in brightness etc, so the second from the top ball looks the same colour as the third from the bottom ball to me, that and it was really hard to distinguish the lights under the water at the camera because a couple are really bright. In fact in order I thought I saw blue green yellow orange and red, but I'm not sure if I'm right. In fact I'm hoping the solution for this puzzle is the same for everyone and doesn't change randomly from person to person or game to game like the five dni number code does in ghens diary. I hate being colourblind and really wish theyd choose more distinguishable colours. If there had been a dark pink and a light people is be even more screwed.
I reasoned the color marbles in a similar way. I "reduced" the colors needed by noting that blue and yellow could make green, so blue was the missing color.
+Ryan Egesdahl Yeah, it's actually pretty easy. I don't really know why other LPs or guides (that use the "guess" method) didn't catch on it. I mean, it's right there in your face. Even more so on an old CRT monitor where the colors are slightly more "accentuated".
I don't know if you ever noticed this or just didn't show it, but the guard that was spotted at the beginning of the game and was seen unconscious at the bottom of the cliff at the beginning of the game is no longer there.
If I were Gehn, I would have left out orange instead of yellow, since orange is a tertiary colour whether you use additive or subtractive colour mixing.
While watching this I looked down at my desk, and there was an opened notebook with quotes on each page. The quote on the page I saw? "The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page." Very ironic, I think.
That's something else that puzzled me--Atrus blames Gehn for Riven's instability, but technically he didn't actually create it to be unstable, the linking book (because of Gehn's "economy of words") merely led to a version of Riven that was decaying. Yes, Gehn tyrannized the people of Riven, but the intrinsic decay of the age isn't really his fault--books go wherever the words on them say. If Atrus hadn't found Catherine, I'm sure Gehn could have handed Riven to Atrus to fix completely.
@Dilandau3000 You've got that backward. The RGB model used for television and computing is additive (you add light to darkness), while paint and dye is subtractive (you absorb light in contrast with (usually) white paper).
Green is not a primary color, except in light. Yellow, blue and red are primary, orange, green and purple are secondary as you make those out of the primary. So that deduction is based on light. 🤔
It's been a long time since I played this game (yes swapping cd's) and as far as I remember I looked at the lights under water were you harassed the big fish. Why else would there be those lights? I think I used that to do the dome-puzzle as I called it, all puzzles seem to have missing pieces. So I wonder, was i just lucky or did you really not see that? (I don't remember what other function the lights have had or why they were there, I'll have to find out in the next episodes... haha.)
@greenknight5700 The RGB model actually approximates the way human vision works, with receptors for red, green, and blue wavelengths of light. A good subtractive (paint and dye) model will use the complements of those colors, which are cyan, magenta, and yellow (although cyan dye generally looks like light blue, in contrast to the green-blue cyan you get in the RGB model). Black is often added to make dark colors look better (not to mention saving ink).
I was wondering. Gehn has Linking Books for all of the five islands at his study in the 233rd Age, but when he ventures onto Riven for whatever reason, like when we caught him using the hologram in the temple moments ago, how does he link back to 233, since the Linking Books in the domes are powered by the large dome, which is a puzzle WE solve?
@Kazuo1G To your first question: yes, you can. When that happens though, the books become unpowered, and you have to lower it again and push the button again. To your second question: I don't know for sure, but I think just the outer part rotates. Then again, this may possibly be wrong.
I actually used the lights you see in the wahrk tank room. when you bring down the second dial/viewer (that has the "eyes" from the fire marble domes) and then the matching light switches on. the ones you thought may of called different wahrks at one time. Yellow light and "eye" symbol wasn't actually on any of the domes, there for you assume that the remaining light is purple and matches the final island. But that's how I did it
What do you mean you can't die in a Myst game? I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll hint it: Saavedro's Hammer, Cho/Gehn's Rifle, and Sirrius Crossbow.
'the hum of the machinery" sounds a lot like the background wind noise. i thought nothing was happening. i guess i should play with headphones. still, they should've made it more dramatic given that it is the climax of everything coming together in terms of game play.
I hear that the reason why the domes were built was because Gehn was too pompous to recognize that his own writing was at fault for making books that either didn't work or linked to ages in a slow but steady rate of decay. Catherine wrote that "he didn't fix the problem at the source," and needs the domes to brute-force the problem. Atrus wrote that "my father's economy of words" cause the problems. So Gehn's materials weren't at fault--he just couldn't write for beans.
hm how much can you "fix" an Age without making it into a completely different one that looks almost the same? and can you make an Age that almost looks like the Age you come from? and if you do, will you meet up with people that looks and acts almost the same? if so, wouldnt that mean you even could to some degree make it seem like you either are going back in time,of forth, when going to that Age?(like a time machine) and therefor being able to meet people you have lost, or even meet yourself?
I had actually found this solution for the puzzle, but I thought it didn't work so I had to look up the solution. When i did, i saw that my solution was actually correct, and the only mistake I made was not pushing the white button at 6:05 Now I don't know if I have to consider this puzzle to have solved completely by myself, or not.... :-)
I honestly envy your crystal clear voice, wording and logic. Compared to you I'm many star fissures away from all three of these aspects :P Although I'm typing this comment 2 years and 7 months too late I still want to tell you to keep up the good work. I'm loving your LPs.
Wait. I think I get it now. Tell me if I'm right. You find the ones on map, dome, village, and crater. Leaving the distant island as a toss up between the two other domes(noted from the color imager which showed 6 dome symbols) and they were blue or yellow. So thats the guess for those colors. But wouldn't you guess also for yellow/purple?
This puzzle is nowhere near as easy as he makes it look. Even with the foreknowledge of what to do, it still took me about a dozen tries to get the right colors in the right spot. Mainly because I had trouble figuring which island was which shape on the map, and properly graphing their locations.
Great walkthrough, and I know this is an old video, and I am sure someone asked it already, but how did you know the color for the Book Assembly/Crater Island fire marble dome? I thought that one was broken in Gehn's survey room, so going into this puzzle you would only know Green, Red, and Orange for certain. I am assuming that because you know the symbol for it you could then check it against Blue and Yellow and realize that it isn't one of those, so then that leaves it with Purple? I am only asking since I don't think you explained how you knew it was Purple so quickly.
+GradiusicCyber He knew the marble colour for the Crater Island marble because he matched the symbol on the gold dome on that island with the symbol on the underwater viewer thing. Once you go through all of the colours, there will be a broken light....... so at that point you don't know what the colour is.... but you do know what that island's symbol is. So when you do the fire marbles...... it's just a matter of choosing the only colour of marble that you didn't see on the underwater viewer. I hope that explains it. P.S. You can always come back or make notes. So by the time you get to the Fire Marble puzzle you are fully prepared for it.
Thank you so very much for posting!!!!!! :D:D I didn't know you had to push the button after setting out the marbles I've been looking for a solution for so long!!!
man the dome puzzle frustrated me so much! I knew it was a map and witch domes corresponded with witch colors, but I couldn't figure out how to get a precise location on some of them. also I tried your password on the same dome but it didnt work. am I doing something wrong? is there some trick to it?
Wait. How did you get the color purple? I don't remember seeing that on the color imager. I figured the blank color one(the one that got damaged or whatever) was the one you needed to guess(between blue/yellow)?
Wouldn't it be easyer if you only powered one dome at a time? instead of powering upp all domes and wasteing power. Or didn't Ghen think that was possible.
Hey i am stuck on the part where i have to enter the access code i found in Gehn's laboratory in one of the domes but the code doesn't seem to work, and the generator used to power the domes is active, plus i triple checked to make sure the access code was accurate. I need help. =( My numbers are: 3, 11, 14, 18, 19
Just the outer shell moves, but because it's pitch black inside the structure with only the pedestal visible, it's hard to see if any rotation internally is being implemented, but probably for the best, don't want the player to experience motion sickness.
+Hernaldo Gonzalez The code is written in Gehn's Journal in his office on the Island with the giant Kettle and the frog catcher device. It's written in D'ni numbers, so if you don't know them by heart, you'd have to learn them using the toy in the school on the village island, reachable by submarine.
Is there any way to actually know the numbers above 10, though? I didn't come across that anywhere in the game. I presume the first Myst might explain that. Or is it just based on the 90 degree logic?
You mention RGB and RYB, but you did not mention CYM. Of course, it is actually CYMK, but most video screens use the CYM color scheme, and have since film was first invented.
The K (for "key") is there so that the printer (whether a desktop printer or a professional one) doesn't have to mix the three primary colours every time it needs black, which is fairly often when printing anything with text.
+homosapienssapiens19 Most video screens? How come? I have this thing where i check each of the screens i've purchased with a loupe. I've only seen RGB modules. I've done this on all the CRTs i've had.
btw I really like your Lets play. :D keep em coming! and if you keep this up, I cant see why I cant donate some, even though I never have to anyone still on youtube for their work...hm why havent I...oh! and your name is Sven? are you from Sweden? in that case, why am I writing in english to you? xd Om du är från Sverige, mm schyst tillfällighet ^^ och om du vill så får du gärna i så fall, om du har tid, svara mig på svenska istället för på engelska :) Älskar böckerna btw! ^^
if you pause the video at 7:03 if you look very closely you will see a figure within the rotating rock wall. It is in fact Gehn which indicates how obsessed he was at seeing himself everywhere. just one of the many easter eggs you will find in this game.
I found that from the perspective of platau island, the colored walrk totems align with the direction of the island. Blue being the prisons, but because I this rip off game off of STEAM since, my 2nd disc was missing, the solution wont register.
![[PC] Myst (1993) - Full Playthrough](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9iM64lBQqWY/mqdefault.jpg)
What I particularly love about the firemarble puzzle is that it's the rare adventure game puzzle that you really can't even imagine trying to brute-force. Seriously, unless you use information gathered in the game, there are 58,752,420,690,993,751 possible configurations of firemarbles. Having played this all the way back in '97 (or, maybe, '98), it always bugs me when I see what are effectively combination locks in adventure games that only have like 24 settings.
@Travis Newsome Your number (625x624x623x622x621x620) is the number of configurations of six distinguishable marbles (i.e. already taking colors into account). If the marbles were the same color, the order their positions are chosen wouldn't matter, so you'd need to divide by 6!.
In general, the number of patterns with n of the marbles will be C(625,n)*C(6,n)*n!; and, you get the total number of configurations by summing this over all possible values of n from 0 to 6.
To break this down about, the first term is the number of ways of choosing n positions on the grid, the second term is the number of ways of choosing n of the marbles, and the third term is the number of ways of assigning the different marbles to grid positions. Put this all together and you get the 58,752,420,690,993,751 I originally posted.
Your logic on the blue marble is brilliant. I never saw the solution in terms of the primary color system.
Loren Helgeson yea. it is. Jeswus this game is brilliant.
That's a brilliant method for finding the color. Very nice detective work there.
But it is Gehn's fault that the book linked to an unstable version of Riven. A descriptive book links to an Age that matches the text in the book, and if the text contains contradictions, that might be unstable. I don't think that Atrus could've fixed Riven completely, at least not without the book ending up linking to a different Age.
9 years later, have you found out if the primary-color solution is what Cyan had in mind? Nerds like me want to know!
Probably because RGB are light/display primary colors but RYB are physical primary colors. In order to have the full display of color on monitors, you would need to use RGB/CMYK (additive/subtractive) light rather than *color*
Some people have also speculated that it’s his least favorite color so they’ve decided with his self perceived god status- he would just write a whole ass color out of existence.
Another theory would be that green and blue come together to form Cyan- just conjecture on my part... but sometimes game designers like adding company logos as easter-eggs (think of the Valve games).
That the missing color is blue also makes sense in that these are rainbow colors, and if you want to reduce the seven-color rainbow most of us are familiar with to five, removing both indigo and blue makes it lopsided. Removing yellow and blue is symmetrical (going by the seven-color system, the "blue" marble is actually indigo).
Ok, i put the marbles in the way you did and it worked. I hate that I did all that work figuring out where to put them on the grid and then thinking I had the colours right, and then to finally get to the grid (I didn't actually know what any of the stuff I had been working out or writing down wad for until I found the grid, i never knew it existed till I found it accidentally by leaving the bridge up) and then just to get here and see that to my eyes the cooled balls look nothing like the colours of the lights I saw. It sucks tbh.but thankyou so much, you helped a colourblind puzzler out big style. I loved these games when I was a kid but never got close to finishing them back in the day, and it was only last week I decided to have a go again after many many years. And was very proud how much better I did at them now im older, but disappointed that I needed help to see if i had the right colours on the crystals in myst,and these lights and corresponding balls here in riven. I'll be playing 3 and 4 after, and I can't remember if there are any colour puzzles, i really hope not, I hate using walkthroughs, just cuz we never had them in my day (the 90s) just hint pgone lines that were way to expensive to use. Monkey island one and especially 2 took a looooong time to finish back then. Hmmm wonder how is gate at them these days? Anyway thanks again. I wish they still made myst type games, they may be old fashioned now, but i think they are perfectly suited for maybe VR and mobile gaming especially these days.
You're partially right. Gehn's writing is pretty bad, but the books he created were also bad. After all, Catherine stole one of Gehn's books in order to write Tay, and she still needed a way to power it (of course, she wrote the "book-window" material into Tay so she wouldn't need to use the domes more than once, but she still needed something to correct the books even with her own writing).
Without the domes, the books didn't work. They're not meant to correct the Ages' instability.
Actually, I'm Dutch, but thanks for watching. :)
Hello! I recently started playing Riven again. I haven't played it since it came out, so it's been a long time and I was having trouble getting through it. So I began searching the internet for hints, and I came across your channel. I wanted to tell you how much I am enjoying your walkthrough. I think it is one of the best walkthroughs out there. I like how you explain interesting facts and background information. You have such a great voice too. I love it especially when you read the journals. Such a great job. I have been enjoying your channel so much! I know this is an older show on your channel, but I think it stands the test of time! Thank you for making it. I hope you are doing well and I look forward to continuing playing Riven with your help. Thanks again. Sincerely, Patrick
Riven has a charm that makes it better than most other adventure games
I always thought the yellow fire marble was used to refer directly to the golden dome that you're standing in since it sort of looks like a giant fire marble from a distance and that you leave it to the side to refer to the fact that it's the source for the power to originate from.
I love Dome Island aesthetically, and the large golden dome itself is an intimidating marvel to behold. But I cannot shake the feeling that using such a large place to house such a small puzzle, is a bit funny. I mean ever since we see it the first time one wonders what is up there in the crack, and it turns out to "just" be a long hallway with a marble puzzle, haha.
5 books all leading to the same age!?
He was making sure, wasn't he?
I was so done by the time I got to the marble puzzle I googled a photo of it.
Here is how I solved the fire marble color dilemma. If you look in Gehn's Journal, the color symbols are in this order: r o y g b v. The symbol for yellow is the symbol used on all of the rotating eyeballs throughout Jungle Island, so I figured that symbol was not used to identify an island. We already have the symbols for the other four Islands, therefore prison Island must be blue.
This depends on whether you are using an additive model (like with paint), in which case the primaries are red, yellow and blue, or a subtractive model (like a TV or monitor), in which case the primaries are red, green and blue.
10 years later, and still no official word from the Riven devs about how that Blue was intended to be found out?
My reasoning for excluding the yellow marble was because the symbol for yellow looks like an eye, and yellow eyes seemed to instead be associated with the Moiety; i.e. the balls for the Animal puzzle.
You dont need to guess. If you go to the camera thing where you see Catherine, just use the lever to bring the other camera down. Now each button had an ' eye ' on it, each one corresoonds to the symbol you need to click the button on to open each dome with. So it has the sideways half open eye at the bottom, click it and a light comes on, whatever colour the light is, is the colour for the done that opens when you click the button on the same symbol, then to see the other colours you just click on the ring pull looking bits on the outer edge kind of like an old style rotary telephone. Go through all six symbols, and you get five different colours for five of them, and add far as I know, nothing for one of them. That's how I figured out what colours go to what domes. I haven't watched any previous vids you've done so I don't know if you already did this or not. But I got five coloured lights. My problem, and the reason I'm here, is the same problem I have with the crustal colour coded in the first may which I just completed for the first time last week, and is that I'm colourblind, an extreme deutan,which basically means I mix up shades that are similar if they are close in brightness etc, so the second from the top ball looks the same colour as the third from the bottom ball to me, that and it was really hard to distinguish the lights under the water at the camera because a couple are really bright. In fact in order I thought I saw blue green yellow orange and red, but I'm not sure if I'm right. In fact I'm hoping the solution for this puzzle is the same for everyone and doesn't change randomly from person to person or game to game like the five dni number code does in ghens diary. I hate being colourblind and really wish theyd choose more distinguishable colours. If there had been a dark pink and a light people is be even more screwed.
I reasoned the color marbles in a similar way. I "reduced" the colors needed by noting that blue and yellow could make green, so blue was the missing color.
+Ryan Egesdahl Yeah, it's actually pretty easy. I don't really know why other LPs or guides (that use the "guess" method) didn't catch on it. I mean, it's right there in your face. Even more so on an old CRT monitor where the colors are slightly more "accentuated".
I don't know if you ever noticed this or just didn't show it, but the guard that was spotted at the beginning of the game and was seen unconscious at the bottom of the cliff at the beginning of the game is no longer there.
Maybe a few years too late, but your reasoning on the primary colors is genius. I wonder if anyone else thought of it the way you did?
If I were Gehn, I would have left out orange instead of yellow, since orange is a tertiary colour whether you use additive or subtractive colour mixing.
I lub this man still 12 years later lol his voice has stayed the same
While watching this I looked down at my desk, and there was an opened notebook with quotes on each page. The quote on the page I saw?
"The world is a book,
and those who do not travel,
read only a page."
Very ironic, I think.
That's something else that puzzled me--Atrus blames Gehn for Riven's instability, but technically he didn't actually create it to be unstable, the linking book (because of Gehn's "economy of words") merely led to a version of Riven that was decaying. Yes, Gehn tyrannized the people of Riven, but the intrinsic decay of the age isn't really his fault--books go wherever the words on them say.
If Atrus hadn't found Catherine, I'm sure Gehn could have handed Riven to Atrus to fix completely.
@Dilandau3000 You've got that backward. The RGB model used for television and computing is additive (you add light to darkness), while paint and dye is subtractive (you absorb light in contrast with (usually) white paper).
Green is not a primary color, except in light. Yellow, blue and red are primary, orange, green and purple are secondary as you make those out of the primary. So that deduction is based on light. 🤔
It's been a long time since I played this game (yes swapping cd's) and as far as I remember I looked at the lights under water were you harassed the big fish. Why else would there be those lights? I think I used that to do the dome-puzzle as I called it, all puzzles seem to have missing pieces. So I wonder, was i just lucky or did you really not see that? (I don't remember what other function the lights have had or why they were there, I'll have to find out in the next episodes... haha.)
@greenknight5700 The RGB model actually approximates the way human vision works, with receptors for red, green, and blue wavelengths of light.
A good subtractive (paint and dye) model will use the complements of those colors, which are cyan, magenta, and yellow (although cyan dye generally looks like light blue, in contrast to the green-blue cyan you get in the RGB model). Black is often added to make dark colors look better (not to mention saving ink).
@BeautifulFreakProd If the books don't work after you turn the machine on, then you didn't put the marbles in the right spot. Check them again. :)
I was wondering. Gehn has Linking Books for all of the five islands at his study in the 233rd Age, but when he ventures onto Riven for whatever reason, like when we caught him using the hologram in the temple moments ago, how does he link back to 233, since the Linking Books in the domes are powered by the large dome, which is a puzzle WE solve?
@Kazuo1G To your first question: yes, you can. When that happens though, the books become unpowered, and you have to lower it again and push the button again. To your second question: I don't know for sure, but I think just the outer part rotates. Then again, this may possibly be wrong.
I actually used the lights you see in the wahrk tank room. when you bring down the second dial/viewer (that has the "eyes" from the fire marble domes) and then the matching light switches on. the ones you thought may of called different wahrks at one time. Yellow light and "eye" symbol wasn't actually on any of the domes, there for you assume that the remaining light is purple and matches the final island. But that's how I did it
What do you mean you can't die in a Myst game? I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll hint it: Saavedro's Hammer, Cho/Gehn's Rifle, and Sirrius Crossbow.
I never understood why ghens linking books need power to work. I mean all other linking books seem to have lion batteries or something lol
The Moiety should have opened one of the domes, smashed the glass panel open, and powered the linking book with Catherine's device.
Am I the only one that ducks when seeing the dome open to allow access to the Book?
Onychoprion27 Nostalgia will flow through you if this message helps you remember Riven and your urge to duck.
'the hum of the machinery" sounds a lot like the background wind noise. i thought nothing was happening. i guess i should play with headphones. still, they should've made it more dramatic given that it is the climax of everything coming together in terms of game play.
I hear that the reason why the domes were built was because Gehn was too pompous to recognize that his own writing was at fault for making books that either didn't work or linked to ages in a slow but steady rate of decay.
Catherine wrote that "he didn't fix the problem at the source," and needs the domes to brute-force the problem. Atrus wrote that "my father's economy of words" cause the problems. So Gehn's materials weren't at fault--he just couldn't write for beans.
hm how much can you "fix" an Age without making it into a completely different one that looks almost the same? and can you make an Age that almost looks like the Age you come from? and if you do, will you meet up with people that looks and acts almost the same? if so, wouldnt that mean you even could to some degree make it seem like you either are going back in time,of forth, when going to that Age?(like a time machine) and therefor being able to meet people you have lost, or even meet yourself?
I had actually found this solution for the puzzle, but I thought it didn't work so I had to look up the solution. When i did, i saw that my solution was actually correct, and the only mistake I made was not pushing the white button at 6:05 Now I don't know if I have to consider this puzzle to have solved completely by myself, or not.... :-)
Did the same. But yellow actually IS a primary color, because it can*t be mixed.
I did exactly that on a mobile device. Without a mouse pointer, it's impossible to know you have to press that white button.
I honestly envy your crystal clear voice, wording and logic. Compared to you I'm many star fissures away from all three of these aspects :P
Although I'm typing this comment 2 years and 7 months too late I still want to tell you to keep up the good work. I'm loving your LPs.
@ZZDaikun yes, all 5 domes lead to the same book, the 223rd (i think) age.
Wait. I think I get it now. Tell me if I'm right. You find the ones on map, dome, village, and crater. Leaving the distant island as a toss up between the two other domes(noted from the color imager which showed 6 dome symbols) and they were blue or yellow. So thats the guess for those colors. But wouldn't you guess also for yellow/purple?
This puzzle is nowhere near as easy as he makes it look. Even with the foreknowledge of what to do, it still took me about a dozen tries to get the right colors in the right spot.
Mainly because I had trouble figuring which island was which shape on the map, and properly graphing their locations.
Great walkthrough, and I know this is an old video, and I am sure someone asked it already, but how did you know the color for the Book Assembly/Crater Island fire marble dome? I thought that one was broken in Gehn's survey room, so going into this puzzle you would only know Green, Red, and Orange for certain. I am assuming that because you know the symbol for it you could then check it against Blue and Yellow and realize that it isn't one of those, so then that leaves it with Purple? I am only asking since I don't think you explained how you knew it was Purple so quickly.
+GradiusicCyber He knew the marble colour for the Crater Island marble because he matched the symbol on the gold dome on that island with the symbol on the underwater viewer thing. Once you go through all of the colours, there will be a broken light....... so at that point you don't know what the colour is.... but you do know what that island's symbol is. So when you do the fire marbles...... it's just a matter of choosing the only colour of marble that you didn't see on the underwater viewer.
I hope that explains it.
P.S. You can always come back or make notes. So by the time you get to the Fire Marble puzzle you are fully prepared for it.
Thank you so very much for posting!!!!!! :D:D I didn't know you had to push the button after setting out the marbles I've been looking for a solution for so long!!!
I can never figure out how do u know which island is which
You know you can press the spacebar to skip scenes like the rotating room.
How did you guess the color of boiler (or gehn office) island?
man the dome puzzle frustrated me so much! I knew it was a map and witch domes corresponded with witch colors, but I couldn't figure out how to get a precise location on some of them. also I tried your password on the same dome but it didnt work. am I doing something wrong? is there some trick to it?
The dome codes are randomly generated for each game. You can't use mine, you have to get it from Gehn's journal.
Wait. How did you get the color purple? I don't remember seeing that on the color imager. I figured the blank color one(the one that got damaged or whatever) was the one you needed to guess(between blue/yellow)?
Curse you Fire Marbles, You made me rage so much!
I can see only 3 marbles in my game.. Did i miss something to do or the version i installed on my device is damaged!!!!!!!! I can't believe It
Wouldn't it be easyer if you only powered one dome at a time? instead of powering upp all domes and wasteing power. Or didn't Ghen think that was possible.
I got it because blue was the other light that wasnt broken
wait the books can create world or it's just link to an existant?
Telescope cover does not open after I enter 55134. It has power. any help appreciated
The combination is different every time you play the game. You have to get it from Catherine's journal.
Hey i am stuck on the part where i have to enter the access code i found in Gehn's laboratory in one of the domes but the code doesn't seem to work, and the generator used to power the domes is active, plus i triple checked to make sure the access code was accurate. I need help. =( My numbers are: 3, 11, 14, 18, 19
Can you help me out with the number slider?
Another Question: Do the domes, as a whole, actually rotate, or is it just an outer shell?
Just the outer shell moves, but because it's pitch black inside the structure with only the pedestal visible, it's hard to see if any rotation internally is being implemented, but probably for the best, don't want the player to experience motion sickness.
how you know how solve the puzzle in the 9:16? I read the tree books I have, and I not found it.
+Hernaldo Gonzalez The code is written in Gehn's Journal in his office on the Island with the giant Kettle and the frog catcher device. It's written in D'ni numbers, so if you don't know them by heart, you'd have to learn them using the toy in the school on the village island, reachable by submarine.
Is there any way to actually know the numbers above 10, though? I didn't come across that anywhere in the game. I presume the first Myst might explain that. Or is it just based on the 90 degree logic?
Question: Once you push the starter switch, can you actually pull the lever up again? :D
You can do that but it means turning off the mechanism and resetting the marbles to their original positions.
You mention RGB and RYB, but you did not mention CYM. Of course, it is actually CYMK, but most video screens use the CYM color scheme, and have since film was first invented.
CYM (Cyan-Yellow-Magenta) is essentially Blue-Yellow-Red, so it's moot.
The K (for "key") is there so that the printer (whether a desktop printer or a professional one) doesn't have to mix the three primary colours every time it needs black, which is fairly often when printing anything with text.
+homosapienssapiens19 Most video screens? How come? I have this thing where i check each of the screens i've purchased with a loupe. I've only seen RGB modules. I've done this on all the CRTs i've had.
ok. but how did you know where to put color marbles?
Leverquin That's what he found out in part 17: Merrily Mapping.
Start the Reactor!!
btw I really like your Lets play. :D keep em coming! and if you keep this up, I cant see why I cant donate some, even though I never have to anyone still on youtube for their work...hm why havent I...oh! and your name is Sven? are you from Sweden? in that case, why am I writing in english to you? xd Om du är från Sverige, mm schyst tillfällighet ^^ och om du vill så får du gärna i så fall, om du har tid, svara mig på svenska istället för på engelska :) Älskar böckerna btw! ^^
I hated this puzzle because i'm colorblind
if you pause the video at 7:03 if you look very closely you will see a figure within the rotating rock wall. It is in fact Gehn which indicates how obsessed he was at seeing himself everywhere. just one of the many easter eggs you will find in this game.
I found that from the perspective of platau island, the colored walrk totems align with the direction of the island. Blue being the prisons, but because I this rip off game off of STEAM since, my 2nd disc was missing, the solution wont register.
Color film, that is
god I hated that room