The 7th Guest for iOS

I just recently found out that the The 7th Guest has been ported to the iOS platform last week. Of course I immediately downloaded it and found out it's mostly a faithful port of the 1993 classic game that was originally made for the PC.

There are some technical quirks that are explained in this review and it's missing three puzzles (including the infamous and incredibly difficult microscope puzzle) that were in the original game but its still fun to play. The animations play way too fast on my iPhone 4 so it appears Trilobyte didn't' account for the speed differences between the A4 and 486 processors but despite these flaws I'm throughly enjoying the game again.

During my research for this blog I found out that Graeme Devine (the co-creator of The 7th Guest and former id Software developer) has left Apple recently and went back to developing games again. I hope to see some good titles from him soon.

Riven: The Sequel to Myst for iOS

I took me four months of commuting time but I recently finished Myst for the iPhone in late October. I did narrowly miss my goal of not looking up any hints as I was stuck and growing impatient near the end of the game.

Knowing that Riven would be the next logical release for Cyan, I would occasionally check gaming news sites for any updates only to find that they were "working on it". Well my wait is no longer as Cyan released Riven for iOS on the 15th of this month. I promptly purchased this after quickly reading the humorous "warning" in regards to the whopping 1GB file size:

Because of the large size it's HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you download Riven on your computer using iTunes, and then sync with your iOS device. Downloading directly to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch is theoretically possible via a wireless connection, but...uh...well...you really don't want to.

I've only played it for a few minutes but was able to enjoy some nice iOS enhancements like pinch to zoom and shake to reveal Hot Spot hints. Unlike the original release of Myst for the PC, I was never able to finish Riven for various reasons (difficulty of the puzzles being one of them), even after purchasing the official strategy guide, which I still own. I'm certain this game will take a lot longer than Myst to finish but I'll promise to be patient and savor the experience this time around.

You can learn more about the painstaking, pioneering work that went into the development of Riven (and all things Myst) at the excellent fansite, MYSTerium.