I’m working on a Riven-related project, which I’m not really at liberty to give details about just yet, suffice to say that it requires a good, accurate map of the 5 islands and the 233rd age. I googled and manually searched for such a map for a few days, to no avail. I asked several people who I expected to know (the good folks at the Guild of Cartographers), but nowhere could I find a decent map.
Then I found the amazing collection of MystRiven (an UruObsession member), including a poster-sized map of Riven:
I asked MystRiven where he got the map, and he told me that it was from a Riven strategy guide by Prima. I searched Amazon, and found it. Even better, I found it used, for $4.00 including shipping. I sent a message to all of the sellers inquiring about the status of the map/poster, and one helpful store informed me that the poster was included. Long story short – I got that map.
Remembering how infuriating it was to not be able to find a good map, I promptly scanned my map and pieced it together in Photoshop, so that anyone else who needs a good Riven map won’t have to go through what I did.
You can download 4 versions:
- The low resolution version (949×855, 1.6MB)
- The normal version (1460×1316, 3.7MB)
- The high resolution version (5840×5265, 70.7MB)
- The .psd version, so you can edit it yourself(5840×5265, 218.1MB)
Thanks so much for the links; this is awesome.
You inspired me to look for the same Riven map through buying the strategy guide…Now I have the Riven map, the Myst map (from the original Myst strategy guide as well), and the map of the cleft that comes with the Book of Ti’ana….now i just need to find nice frames for them all…..thanks for the help 🙂
What an awesome game you reminded to me… So close to perfection! I’m still obsessed of Cyan’s worlds…
I had never found this map scanned in such a high resolution. Thanks a lot for the hard work.
I ought to get myself the Prima guide just for this poster..
Perhaps these could be of some assistance:
http://tinselman.typepad.com/tinselman/2006/02/discarded.html
(http://web.archive.org/web/20060703120521/http://tinselman.com/files/all_islands_25x.jpg)
http://tinselman.typepad.com/tinselman/2008/03/grayscale-riven.html
I noticed that either each dome has a somewhat different size, or the islands are not all in the same scale. What are your findings on this matter?
Further it seemed that the Tinselman files have been removed since a long time. Have you found them elsewhere? I’m desperately looking for them…
Thanks for sharing the images by the way!
Yes, my one complaint about the map is that the domes are not to scale. I think this is just because they enlarged these to show their location more prominently (it is, after all, from a guide book).
Which Tinselman files are you talking about? I have the PrisonIsland heightmap and maybe some others saved to my computer.
Specifically I am looking for all height maps, except for the Prison Island one. I got the .ai version of that on Tinselman’s blog. (First I thought the link was dead, but that was only because I was browsing using my mobile phone..)
I am using a very small ‘non intelligent’ height map for the Temple Island, and it wil do for now, but very soon I’d like a high(er) resolution version for that.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. The map you provided in ‘insane quality’ has been very insightful and helpful already!