Obduction ®

Great visuals, atmosphere, music and story. The puzzles are sometimes really far fetched, and a lot of backtracking is involved. However still engaging enough to see it through. +Graphics +Story +Puzzles +Music +Atmosphere -Backtracking -Far fetched logic in some puzzles -Maze.. I recommend this game.

You cannot rebind keys and are stuck with WASD keys. Tough luck if you have another keyboard layout like me... Thus, unplayable game on my side.

Myst and Riven was like lightning striking the same place twice, and Cyan has been trying to get a third, and I think they tried too hard with Obduction. It's not bad, but not great. It's enjoyable but has unignorable flaws. Like Myst and Riven, Obduction is essentially a giant maze. Most of Myst was generally small and compact, making it easy to navigate. Riven was larger, but it wasn't a drag. Obduction just has a ton of unnecessary extra paths. You will find yourself backtracking frequently, and toggling on "Run" mode barely makes a dent in your traveling time. This game NEEDS fast travel. Most of Obduction's puzzles are geometric/geographic in nature. There are a few code puzzles, but they're relatively weak. The alien numerical system was severly underutiliized. Most of Obduction's puzzles are easier compared to Myst and Riven. The only causes for getting stuck are usually: not knowing if something can be interacted with, not knowing where the location of a button/switch might be, or you've been caught by a red herring. And one puzzle I have no clue how it was solved; the door magically vanished. The premise of the story in Obduction is neat, and like Myst and Riven, much of the story is shared across notes and visuals. Unfortunately some story bits are easy to miss in Obduction and could even be mistaken for clutter. This ended up being vital as I got the bad end on my first play through, and had not found any information in-game to notify me otherwise. Myst and Riven did it right, as all of their most important story bits were impossible to miss with the cutscenes. Obduction startts strong and will scratch your Myst itch for a short while, but by the time you'll get to the end, you'll be wondering how this is the same studio that made Myst and Riven. You can see the inspiration, but the magic gets ruined when the flaws become nucances,and you'll be glad when it's over. Verdict: Buy only when on sale if you liked Myst.

This is breathtaking cinematic VR experience. The various world locations are diverse and visually stunning. The detail and expanse of the experience is phenomenal. I loved most of the puzzles most required some thoughtful meditation. There were a few that seemed quite arbitrary, even after looking up the clue There were also a few that were tedious requiring transporting back and forth between worlds. However, still a great experience. I bought in through Kickstarter so I played the Mac version on my iMac (i7) 32 Gig, and it runs great with my graphics card; AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB, I ran the program off an SSD drive which makes load times shorter. I am not sure how it would perform on a slower Mac but it works great on this setup. Cyan has recently come out with an update that has stabilized the Mac version cosndierably. Expect the Mac version to be available soon.

Like Myst, the story tells itself through the inferred and the implied. And like all good stories, even then some of it is never fully revealed leaving you eager for more. The puzzles are mostly not trite or gimicky. The world building does a good job of justifying them so they never break the immersion. There was only one puzzle that I could not solve except through blind trial and error. An area previously unreachable became accessible after I solved a different puzzle but I had no way of knowing that it had so I spent a good while exploring the entire world again. A few other puzzles caused me problems but only that one puzzle was not my own fault. The visuals are beautiful. The game relies on myst-like mechanics so they can focus on the static scenery rather than the complexity of game mechanics required for real time interaction with NPCs and such. On those rare moments where there are other lifeforms present, the game does a good job of hiding them off screen. The sounds have an almost tactile quality.