From Cyan, the indie studio that brought you Myst, comes a new sci-fi adventure.
As you walk beside the lake on a cloudy night, a curious, organic artifact falls from the starry sky and inexplicably, without asking permission, transports you across the universe. You’ve been abducted from your cozy...
From Cyan, the indie studio that brought you Myst, comes a new sci-fi adventure.
As you walk beside the lake on a cloudy night, a curious, organic artifact falls from the starry sky and inexplicably, without asking permission, transports you across the universe. You’ve been abducted from your cozy existence and added into an alien landscape with pieces of Earth from unexpected times and places.
The strange worlds of Obduction reveal their secrets only as you explore, discover, coax, and consider their clues. As you bask in the otherworldly beauty and explore the enigmatic landscapes, remember that the choices you make will have substantial consequences. This is your story now.
Make it home.
Obduction ® Copyright 2016 Cyan, Inc. All rights reserved. Obduction ® and Cyan are registered trademarks of Cyan, Inc.
3 1/2. A really beautiful construct and interesting to play. Until you hit the ridiculous concrete maze thingie. From that point on, everything you've accomplished (I connected only two trees at that point) in the game is just a waste. The maze may be solvable - I did switch out a piece and find a path from tower thing where you look down at the maze to the device directly across (which seemed to open something else unattainable) - but wresting with the idiotic switching back and forth became appallingly tedious and far too time consuming compared to the rest of the game. And as the game seems to have some linear play plan that I missed, there was nothing else I could do once I reached the maze until I completed whatever was supposed to be the objective of the maze. The maze killed the fun. Happy to say I got this on sale here on GOG. If I'd paid full price, I'd want my money back.
If you enjoyed Myst or its sequels, you'll most likely enjoy Obduction. It brings back that same sense of open exploration and wonder, of piecing together what's happening from observation and notes, and manipulating and reactivating beautifully complex pieces of machinery to open up new areas. Despite having no direct links to the world of Myst, it shares a lot of the same themes, such as the aforementioned machinery, different ages that are linked together, well-designed puzzles, and gorgeous environments. The puzzles are perfect- not so hard that you need a guide, but not so easy that you won't get stuck at least once or twice. It really does feel like playing a Myst game in the best possible way.
There are some differences- instead of the unique architectural style of the Myst games, the environments have a more post-apocalyptic, sci-fi look, consisting of alien technology or jury-rigged machines built from clever combinations of scrap. Though you're still wandering a mostly-empty world, it finally feels like this is more for reasons of plot than because of limitations in the game engine, and you'll even encounter some characters in person a handful of times. The entire tone is also warmer and more human than the cold, ancient feel of the D'ni ruins and ages of Myst.
The only flaws I noticed were a few obvious references to Cyan and Myst (one or two would have been okay, but there seem to be an awful lot considering how few objects from Earth are present) which broke immersion a little... and definitely worst of all, the long loading times. These are tolerable most of the time, but when you get to a puzzle that requires rapidly switching between worlds a couple dozen times, it quickly becomes very frustrating and makes you wonder what they could possibly have been thinking to design it this way. Even so, I greatly enjoyed Obduction and I feel like the good points more than made up for the bad. It brought a fresh look to a beloved genre of old.
Obduction, is a very pretty looking first person puzzle game, with interesting different places to explore and figure out the lore based on notebooks and dialogue. It also has very clever puzzles with just enough hints to not feel like you are being handholded, but not so much that you can simply figure out in a matter of seconds.
As I said, the lore/story is not told directly but rather through logs and all of that, and if you piece it together, you get an interesting story and you also get different endings.
However, some sections tend to become more of a chore than fun puzzle solving.
The Myst series was my introduction to video games as a kid. I don't have the patience to play adventure-puzzle games nowadays, but I have a soft spot for Cyan and will play any of their games.
Cyan are a genius at integrating puzzles with environment without making it seem contrived or illogical, and they knocked it out of the park here. Obduction's puzzles are everything I love about MYST and Riven, solving them was very satisfying. After a slow start to the pacing (roughly the first 1/3rd of the game is all about opening doors/routes in the same world), I got into the groove, and started feeling that sense of accomplishment that lasted for the whole game. I barely used a walkthrough, and usually to point out a path I didn't notice earlier.
Cyan are also great at creating breathtaking worlds, and Obduction's worlds absolutely have the same "wow" factor of the Myst Ages. I enjoyed walking about and just admiring the landscapes.
Obduction's story was a bit of a letdown. There was a big buildup of expectation at the outset (through the trademark journals/notes) and I expected an engrossing drama like Riven's. The climax of the story was a bit underwhelming (even though it wrapped up neatly) and there seemed like many loose ends in the journals that weren't addressed. I get the feeling that Cyan initially wanted the story to be more involved and set up the in-game notes for it, but ran out of resources/time before release and just left them hanging. I liked the story for its potential, but it was still a bit disappointing.
Lastly, Obduction has a setting that turns the free-roam into a point&click game. First-person games of any type make me motion sick (FOV/perspective tweaking doesn't help), so this p&c setting was a lifesaver.
A worthy successor to Myst. Cyan are still going strong – may they keep making fantastic games like this.
My actual rating is 3.5 of 5 stars (half star taken off because of the story), but rounded up here.
I really enjoyed the game. There are a few problems, however, which is why I subtract a star:
1. Translation. In German, some puzzles cannot be understood at all, e.g. the hint with the compass and the license plates.
2. Loading times: The maze in particular is a real torture, you look longer at the loading images than at the actual game. That could certainly have been solved differently ...
I would still recommend the game, especially since it is currently on sale.
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