Obduction ®

This game is essentially a walking simulator with switch- and teleportation puzzles. Before I go any further: This game NEEDS an SSD. Without it, you will be driven mad by the loading screens in the second half of the game. With an SSD, the level usually loaded in within 10-20s for me. Graphics look beautiful, and apart from occasional minor stutters the game ran smoothly on my aging machine at 1080p on max settings (AMD FX-8350 @ 4,5GHz, gtx 970, 16GB RAM). The game's story is mostly told via written notes you find throughout the game world, though there are some audio/video elements too. Initially almost everything is locked down and your task is to get the place up and running again. There is one NPC who offers some vague guidance, but mostly you need to figure stuff out on your own. There are no quest or objection markers of any kind. No inventory either, you strictly manipulate objects in the game world. For the teleportation puzzles it's important to understand that the teleportation switches always swap an area around them with a similarly spaced area in another place. So you can use that to manipulate the environment, which means you need to be aware of what just swapped where, and how do you get the environment to be like you need it? You need some spacial awareness for this game. There's another type of teleportation that's more straightforward. Though even there it makes senses to note down on paper which exits connect together. There's also a complicated maze puzzle where you should sketch stuff before you start. Though the game has a functionality to take photos ingame and review them later. Without planing, you might have to take some rather long detours or endure many loading screens. The game world itself is well crafted, with much attention to detail. You get the feeling that some mysterious cataclysm happend not long ago, which drew me in. There is no combat at all though. Overall: Game is good, but not for the impatient or easily frustrated.

Pros - Looks beautiful and has a quite yet mysterious atmosphere created by some nice ambient sounds and slow musical tracks. - Majority of the enviroments are quite interesting to explore, especially the main hub area. - First half of the game is interesting with a cool setup and some good puzzles. Cons - Second half of the game drags due to tedious teleportation puzzles. They're interesing at first but become much harder and drawn out due to the game's slow pace. - One of the final areas is very underutilised; to the point that it feels like it was rushed to meet a deadline. - Story starts off interesting but loses interest about halfway through, same with majorioty of the characters. Overall Starts off great but runs out of steam and becomes tedious by the halfway point. I wish it could've turned out better becuase I really wanted to full enjoy this game.

I avoided this game for a while because something put me off about the graphics, it somehow seemed plastic-y or "out of the box" - once I finally gave in and played it, I definitely changed my mind. The amount of detail is super satisfying if you're into this kind of game. You just have to play it to get a real impression and then you'll turn into a tourist trying to check out every angle. And of course the jumbled collage/thrift store style design has a point in the story. It's all really about the joy of exploration here and it's super satisfying how much space there is to check out. Puzzles are on a similar level to Uru, really about finding logically integrated ways to navigate a large space, nothing too crazy. I played on a new laptop with an SSD, so that one puzzle everyone hated was doable, though visually contrived. To be critical, there were areas this felt a little visually and sonically uninspired, compared to other Cyan games. Yes, most of it is super striking, but a lot of it is also piles of identical rocks, and in places I really wanted the premise of the alien life forms to go further into how the environments were designed. After playing something like Outer Wilds, while the realism here is a super satisfying notch higher, it would be cool to see some new ways of navigating beyond walking/unlocking doors/riding train-like things. I'd also have to echo other people mentioning that things are really hard to read on lower graphics settings! And finally, though it's a matter of taste, I wasn't into the music in this one at all, it felt much more traditional and dramatic rather than adding to the immersiveness. Despite all that, I found it a fun and balanced experience. Excited to see this company still trying to push world-building further - at the expense of our computers as always!

I played plenty of adventure games before, because I love the idea of them, and how they play for the most part. I also never before have finished one, because I found myself stuck on a series of annoying and incomprehensible puzzles, and got too frustrated to play further, to say it lightly. Until this one. Everything is just so comprehensible in this one. Almost all the puzzles are logical and possible to figure out sensibly. I only got stuck once, in one place, but it may be just because I was relaxing after work and weren't as sober as I probably should be to tackle a game like this. Other than that, a fantastic experience that reignited my interest in adventure games. A colorful and imaginative world I wish I got to explore more. I will certainly be watching what else this studio got in store.

I bought this game after reading some 5 star reviews; and I was so sure it was going to be an amazing game to play. Frustration! An endless walking experience, with boring tasks instead of fun challenges. The graphics are beautiful, the story is maybe awesome (I didn't play even half of the game, so don't know if it is) but the puzzles are so tedious. I love Myst and Riven, and I wanted to love Obduction; just can't. Sad.