Rivage – Groundhog Day in Space and Solitude

“It’s like Groundhog Day. It may seem like you’ve made no progress and are starting over, but you aren’t. Every repetition is different; the lessons are different because you are.” – David Sheff

Overview

Rivage is a sci-fi escape-room-style puzzle game set in the 25th century. It follows Miranda Vigneau after she wakes up for another day on the A.R.E.S. space station to find herself alone. Players must help her explore the ship, search for clues, and solve the mystery of her missing crewmates.

Narrative

Rivage is set centuries into the future, at a time when humanity has been forced to expand not just beyond planet Earth but beyond the whole solar system. A newly discovered planet, VESTA, appears to be a potentially viable homeworld. A crew is sent into orbit aboard the A.R.E.S. space station to study and analyse the planet. However, partway through the mission, a strange space phenomenon occurs, leaving Miranda alone, stranded, and stuck in a relentless time loop in which only her memories remain.

The narrative is told through a range of techniques; the environment itself is rife with visual storytelling elements, and dialogue from Miranda can be insightful, but the main delivery mechanism is found objects such as various texts, including emails, letters, books, even hidden writing, as well as audio logs, photos, and diagrams. Exploration is key to discovering all the details of what has occurred and helping Miranda save at least herself.

Gameplay

Rivage sees players exploring A.R.E.S. in a bid to discover what happened to the missing crew and why Miranda is stuck in a repeating time loop. The game takes place in days (or day, rather), and due to problems on the space station, energy is limited. Miranda only has a few units of energy to use, and these are required for things such as opening doors and operating certain equipment. Energy is therefore a precious resource, and players must try to use it as efficiently as possible during each time loop.

As the day restarts, everything will return to how it was originally, though Miranda is able to retain her memories. Similarly, she has a K9 device, which serves as a diegetic UI, and any information stored on this will also remain intact. The device keeps track of passwords, photos, documents, audio logs, etc. and proves to be a very useful tool.

Initially, only some sections of the space station are accessible to Miranda; through exploring and solving puzzles, she will acquire or recreate passes belonging to different crew members with varying access levels, discover passwords, and activate a train system, all of which will gradually unlock more areas. This provides smaller objectives to help motivate the player and prevents information overload by controlling the pace of the game.

Rivage boasts a myriad of puzzles for players to solve as Miranda must succeed in things such as combining details found in books, emails, and other documents to deduce passwords, repairing an old clock, rewiring circuits, and repositioning pillars to correctly direct light beams. All of the puzzles are logical and well-constructed, and fit well with the narrative and overall aesthetic. They successfully provide enough challenge to make solving them feel genuinely gratifying without being frustrating. The same can not always be said for a selection of optional puzzles that can be solved in order to find tarot cards.

The tarot card puzzles involve trickier tasks such as decoding hexadecimal clues to determine the positions of chess pieces, or solving a Cubix cube. One of them proved particularly infuriating: an audio puzzle in which players must find a way to listen to a static-ridden recording at a slower playback speed, and successfully decipher the Morse code series of dots and dashes that can be heard on it. While this has the potential to be very challenging to most people, it is particularly problematic for anyone with hearing loss or difficulties, such as with audio processing. Early screenshots of the Cubix cube puzzle suggest that symbols were added later to assist those who are colour blind, but no such accessibility considerations were taken with the audio puzzle. Finding the tarot cards provides information that can be used to unlock an alternative ending which would be totally inaccessible to someone who is deaf, for example. As the solutions are different for each playthrough, it is also not possible to simply check a guide in such a situation.

Overall, the gameplay offered by Rivage is incredibly engaging, with the various puzzles and mechanics tying into the protagonist’s story, skill sets, and experiences, even cleverly expanding on the narrative in places. Tangible results and progression after each conundrum provide the player with consistent incentive and motivation to solve the problems. In some ways, it is reminiscent of Still, There by Ghost Shark Games, a fantastic indie game which also challenges players with satisfying, mind-boggling but logical puzzles within a sci-fi setting.

Styling

Rivage uses a realistic 3D art style with mostly cool, muted colour palettes that are accentuated by pops of vibrancy and highly atmospheric lighting. The visuals are very clean, and there is a surprising amount of variety given the relatively small map. The UI is very clear, tidy, and easy to navigate whilst maintaining a definite sci-fi feel and blending well with the rest of the game.

The music has a good level of diversity, ranging from ominous to ponderous in feel. It often consists of a kind of melodic sci-fi synth droning sound with minimalistic piano playing over the top. The somewhat unadorned nature of the soundtrack helps create a sense of Miranda’s isolation and the precariousness of her situation. The sound effects are thoughtful and well implemented, increasing immersion into the space station environment. A solid cast of voice actors also brings the different characters to life, portraying their eclectic personalities and turbulent emotions.

Summary

Rivage is a brilliant example of a puzzle game and of sci-fi narratives. It will take between 10 and 15 hours to complete and is utterly gripping throughout the entirety of the experience. It offers stunning, atmospheric visuals and a suitably minimal OST that are used alongside the clever and well-paced narrative design to convey Miranda’s isolation, emotional struggles, and physical dilemma. The puzzles themselves are (for the most part) incredibly well thought out, enjoyably challenging and very gratifying. They can be completed through exploration, attention to detail, and logic, providing achievable solutions without pandering to the player.

I was instantly engrossed in Rivage, and thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I would absolutely recommend this game to fans of puzzle games, especially those who enjoy a solid narrative component, such as the riveting sci-fi tale told here.

Are you a fan of sci-fi games? You may also enjoy these reviews:
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector – FixFox – 2000:1: A Space Felony – We Went Back 

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