I've recorded a new version of this playthrough that fixes some issues I have with this one. You can watch it here:    • [PC] Rama (1996) - Full Playthrough, ...  
Or, you can just watch this one. That's fine too.

Rama
Platform: PC
Content information: Some blood.
Recorded on Windows 7 using SquirtTheCat's modern compatibility fix.
http://www.squirtthecat.com/games/ram...
Adventure game playlist:    • Adventure game playthroughs  

Prologue: 0:18
Rama: 3:08
Death reel: 3:09:56
Arthur C. Clarke Interviews: 3:16:25
"RamaWatch" Interviews: 3:40:09

Rama is an adventure game by Sierra written and designed by Gentry Lee with help from Arthur C. Clarke. Its universe is based on the sci-fi novel Rendezvous with Rama, which was written by Clarke, but the plot and characters are more based off its sequel, Rama II, which was written by both Lee and Clarke.

Rama is an extremely complex and detailed adventure game. While Sierra certainly has experience developing lots of adventure games, and even adventure games of the FPPA subgenre (such as Lighthouse: The Dark Being), Rama feels so much more in-depth than any of their other games. This is probably a result of the fact that Rama takes place in an already established setting created by two veteran sci-fi writers. The world feels extremely well-thought-out, and exploring Rama is a really interesting experience.

I want to recommend this game to all adventure game fans, but it has one flaw: It crashes very frequently. I'm not sure if this is an issue with the game itself or an issue with compatibility, but these seem to be the same type of crashes I received when I was playing Lighthouse, and they occur regardless of whether I tried to play it on Dosbox, VMware, or using SquirtTheCat's modern fix. If you do try to give this game a go, make sure you save frequently.

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Random notable fact: Rama actually beat Riven to the punch by almost a year with having puzzles based on learning non-decimal numbering systems. Pretty interesting stuff. Speaking of those puzzles, since it might be confusing in the video, I'll explain how I solve them here.

Basically, the strategy I use for the long numbers is to simply calculate them one digit at a time. Let's say the number is 35172 and the number is in base-8 (Octospider numbers). I'd calculate it the following way: (3 * 8^4) + (5 * 8^3) + (1 * 8^2) + (7 * 8^1) + (2 * 8^0). Basically, the idea is that for each additional digit, the exponent that you multiply by goes up by one, starting at 8^0 for the rightmost digit (which calculates out to 1, if you paid attention in algebra! so (2 * 8^0) = 2.)

A similar strategy works for taking a decimal number and converting it to non-decimal. For example, let's say we have the number 672 and want to convert it to base-8. We start by finding the highest base-8 digit that the number is divisible by. In this case, it's the fourth digit (8^3, or 512). So, we divide 672 by 8^3 to get out first digit (1), and we get a remainder of 160. Now we divide 160 by the next exponent (8^2, or 64) to get our second digit (2) and get a new remainder of 32. Finally, we divide by 8^1 (aka, just 8) and get a clean division of 4 with no remainder, which means the third digit is 4 and the final digit is 0. So, 672 would be written as 1240 in base-8.