Having only recently purchased the Myst Collection it's weird that the oldest game has a mouse activated drop down menu, Riven has only keyboard commands but Revelation has neither!

It's absurd that the only way out is via the ESC key and then (if you're not getting a conflict having to re-open the game) saving or making settings via the front door when you're already in the kitchen.

I noticed a post from July last year about this, so sorry if I'm wasting anyones time, but is this really the way the game was built to work? or is there a fix?

I can live without a mouse/drop down but not to be able to save during play except by escaping is really nuts in a game of this quality and reputation.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Ta.

****, I'm replying to my own message out of sheer frustration and in the hope somebody out there can tel me what I'm missing!

The ESC function gets me out, but only to the point of having to relaunch the game, and being unable to save it!

What's happening is that it returns me to my exit/ESC point unsaved.

I checked My Docs, and sure enough the Journal Images are saved, but the game file is not.

I tried clicking Properties and set up to run with Windows 98, which worked with Myst, but has no benefit with Myst 1V.

In Myst there was a way to change the settings in some file formats that enabled the game to play on modern OS's. But right now I don't have a Scoobie!

All suggestions gratefully welcomed.

Ta!

Revelation has no F-key or keypress combination for saving, so pressing Esc, etc., is as good as it gets. This is really the way the game was built to work, and there's no fix. Maybe it's nuts, but you're stuck with getting to the kitchen through the front door!

Do you have Esc mapped to another function with some other program or utility?

When you start Revelation, the first thing you should see (after the Cyan and Ubisoft advertising) is a brown book with a startup menu circle of gold buttons. If not, do suggestions 3, below.

Suggestions, if you're running Win XP:

1. Just to be sure we're on the same page, here's how to save game progress with Revelation:
-- a. Log into Windows with full Administrator privileges, and close all open applications.
-- b. Start Revelation by clicking on the Desktop icon, and play a bit.
-- c. Press Esc to go back to the brown book/startup menu button circle.
-- d. Click on the SAVE GAME button (8:30 o'clock position in button circle).
-- e. Name the save, then click on the "Save current game" icon (quill pen over book, lower right-hand corner of page). You should now be back at the brown book/startup menu button circle.
-- f. Check the save by clicking on the LOAD GAME button (11:00 o'clock position in button circle). You should see your saved game in the first position on the list, with the current date.

2. Revelation wants your \Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\myst4-revelation savegames folder on C:. If that's not the case, restore your My Documents folder to its default location on C:.
-- a. Log into Windows with full Administrator privileges and close all open applications.
-- b. Double-click on the My Computer icon on the Desktop.
-- c. Right-click on My Documents under Other Places in the left column.
-- d. In the resulting drop-down menu, click on Properties.
-- e. On the My Documents Properties sheet, click on the Target tab.
-- f. Click on Restore default under Target folder location.
-- g. Click on Apply > OK.
-- h. Reboot, log into Windows with full Administrator privileges, and close all open applications.
-- i. Start Revelation by clicking on the Desktop icon, and save game progress as above.
-- j. Check the save as above.

The following *might* work when your \Documents and Settings folder isn’t on your C: drive:
-- a. Log into Windows with full Administrator privileges, and close all open applications
-- b. Open a Windows Explorer session.
-- c. Browse to the [Drive:]\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\myst4-revelation savegames folder.
-- d. If the subfolder \myst4-revelation savegames\journal doesn’t exist, create it.
----- 1. Click on the \myst4-revelation savegames folder to highlight it.
----- 2. In the top taskbar, click on File > New > Folder.
------3. Type journal in the New Folder box, and then press Enter.
----- 4. Close Windows Explorer, and start Revelation by clicking on the Desktop icon.

3. If none of the above help, re-install Revelation from a clean boot (FULL install), as detailed under Installing and Re-Installing Revelation, "8. Clean-boot Revelation Re-install, Previous Installation" in Myst IV: Clean Boot Install/Re-install With Win XP. Before re-installing, it would be a *very* good idea to carry out steps 1 through 5 under Overall Windows and Hard Disk Tune-up.

Thanks Heimdall!

I probably didn't explain the problem in enough detail. Before I do though, I read and took action on a number of the points about housekeeping and spent a couple of hours with Defrag, Spy and Adware scans and a McAfee scan.

My docs/user name/etc is where it should be in 'C' and it contains the Myst4 Revelation Saved Games folder and the JOURNAL file complete with 'snaps'. There are FOUR M4S files: Auto Save; Default; and two dated at the times I did manage to get the Brown/Red book to appear via the ESC function.

However, the problem is that when I use CTRL ESC all that happens is the game minimizes, and if clicked simply takes me back to the point I exited.

Messing around this morning I tried ALT ESC and after a couple of flickers HEY PRESTO I was then presented with the correct Brown/Red Book with all the game options.

Perhaps the CTRL ESC is, as you say, functioning wrongly. It might be a simple keyboard problem because I noticed that the @ key command is now giving me " instead (and vice versa). Maybe I got a bug from the Internet. I use Firefox but perhaps some malware needed the keyboard to reflect US settings. It's something that happened on my office machine at work too!

So ALT ESC seems to work (fingers crossed it still continues to do so)

If all else fails I will uninstall and start again.

Thanks for your assistance.

Mike G

For the solution to the Esc key problem, see Escape Key Puzzle Solved !.

Heimdall
Semper ubi sub ubi

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Heimdall G,