Obduction ®

As soon as I reached the Villein's maze puzzle about 3/4 of the way through the game I had to stop playing and uninstall the game, I just couldn't stand it any more. Obduction exacerbated all I hated about Myst and Riven (loved Myst 3-5). The developers seem to delight in mazes, and I think they are dreadful contrivances in games. I started to lose track of what teleport swapped with what other teleport out of the dozens all over the place, and that you had to somehow psychically know that when teleport A swapped with teleport B it would create a bridge, or open the back of a room in the place you just teleported FROM that you couldn't see unless you teleported back by a different teleporter, it became SO frustrating... the age old myst "you've just flipped a switch which unknown to you has effected something you can't see, or realise it has effected". Ended up loathing this game. 60% of your time was spent back-tracking, and then re-backtracking over and over through the maze like connections between worlds, you have to learn a base 4 numbering system and at the same time how to express that on an alien symbolic machine, which if you aren't strong at maths is a living nightmare, there are winding passages all over the place and the uniform rocks/trees make it so easy to miss turning or to completely lose you sense of orientation. Backed this on Kickstarter and I'm glad I supported Cyan as they are passsionate about what they do and deserve support, but the logic behind some of the solutions is so opaque that playing it just ended up an exercise in total frustration. I don't wish to be spoonfed answers "the code to the door is xxx" on a piece of paper, but nor do I expect a puzzle to rely on a single obscure piece of info, or reference that if you miss it leaves you at a loss and you can't progress without it. Ended up looking up the endings on YouTube, and glad I did as the pay off and "acting" really wasn't worth the effort.

Played this for a few hours so far, and I have only one word to describe it: breathtaking! From the first steps I took, it felt like a true Cyan game: There's no inventory. Story is slowly revealed, leaving me to want more, and each part of the environment tells its own story of what happened before I arrived. The visuals are stunning, as expected with the Unreal Engine. The puzzles... well, one can definitely trace their origins in Cyan's previous games. They feel familiar, yet fresh. Looking at the system requirements, I feared my PC would not be able to handle the game. However, the minimum requirements are for a processor and graphics card from around 2011-2012. My PC with a HDD, i3, GTX 750 Ti (2GB), and 12GB of RAM was able to run this on highest detail with little issue. The only setting I had to change was the texture resolution, as it was set a bit too high. If you have a relatively modern PC and want to be taken to an alien world that is beautifully crafted, a wonder to explore, and evokes a Myst feeling, then get this game. It's truly Cyan's best so far.

How long has it been since the last Myst-like game? The genre is essentially dead nowadays. Between a Dear Esther and a The Walking Dead, where are adventures? Indie developers have at least filled the old Lucasarts-style adventures niche, with their inventory and dialogue. But the Myst style is nowhere to be seen. Enter Obduction then. Everything is as you remember: nothing makes sense in the beginning, you learn what's going on by reading documents and even just looking around, and you gotta take a lot of notes or you'll never get past even the first world. Just like grandma used to make'em. Well, okay, that's a bit of an exageration. Obduction is overall a bit easier than the older games. It makes a few concessions to modern game design too, for example you can unlock shortcuts to make navigation easier. Now, easier difficulty is not necessarily a bad thing (hello there Riven). With a bit of patience most will be able to finish the entire game without having to look around for hints. The difficulty level is similar to the first Myst, though there's nothing quite like the old 'maze runner' (TM). The lack of sound-related puzzles is a bit of a bummer... but on the other hand, it means even sound-impaired players can get through just fine. So your opinion may vary on that. Where Obduction stumbles is in the technical side. Sure, some of the views are pretty gorgeous, but you really need a meaty PC to run it well. Loadings times can be pretty annoying, and considering that some puzzles will ask you to switch back and forth between Ages (not the right word really but you can see why one would use it), it gets frustrating at times. There are also several small bugs of differing impact, which seems the norm with Kickstarter game launches nowadays. Surely at least the biggest ones will be ironed out with time. Nevermind all that, though. Those seem like small issues in the grand scheme. As a throwback to the lost Myst genre, Obduction is a success. Thumbs up.

You find yourself in a strange new world full of bits and pieces that don't quite fit. Outside this world, a strange alien environment. The place is littered with strange looking machinery. At first nothing really works or makes sense. But as you move on and explore this strange new world things start to make more and more sense. You make the world your own and dive deeper into the story behind it. This game sucks you in, you want to learn more and solve just one more puzzle before calling it a day. It demands your attention and stimulates your brain. And when you finally got it right, it's quite rewarding. Obduction is very well made. The worlds are carefully crafted are are a please to explore. The audio part hasn't been overlooked. Both sound effects as well as music are stunning. Some puzzles are quite complex but still solvable in finite time. I often found myself a bit disoriented when resuming the game. There're a lot of paths and it can feel a bit overwhelming. But the warm up never took more than a few minutes. Some puzzles are quite complex and require you to step back and overthink your approach to them before you can solve them. But they're all well designed and solvable in finite time. For me this game is a 5 star winner and can only recommend it to anyone who likes adventures or would like to try one out.