This is one of those stories that starts with “Once upon a time” and ends with “happily ever after”. And no, there are no dragons and princes and princesses in it. Not even a witch.
Once upon a time, way, way back in the 1990s, I used to play a game called Riven (along with its predecessor Myst). It has always remained a fondly-remembered favourite, but as technology evolved (in other words, the development of the Intel-based Macs killed off the Classic environment), I had more or less given up hope of playing it again.
Oh, all right, I’m being a little dramatic. I could have played it on Windows. But I didn’t want to. So there.
Till I recently discovered Riven X. In the words of the developers, Riven X is the “rebirth of the best episode of the Myst saga”. A bunch of people got together to create a new engine to make Riven playable on Intel Macs.
Riven X still uses your old Riven five-CD or single-DVD game discs. Download the app (under 2 MB) and install it in the Applications folder. When you run it, it will prompt you to install (or buy Riven). If the install disc is in the drive, it will detect it and start the installation. The rest is easy — each time I want to want to pit my wits against the puzzles of the D’Ni landscape, all I have to do is fire up Riven X.
Oh, and the best part is, none of that annoying CD-swapping. See… happily ever after!
~PD