Myst Obduction from Cyan (Myst, Riven)

[Jenkem]

Reading Zombra's description makes me feel like he's playing a different game than I did or is just not paying attention. The train engine probably didn't work the first time because when you put the fuel in you had the fuel tank gasket open so the fuel never stayed in the tank. If you are just running around and clicking on shit then no wonder you are confused as to what you are doing.

 

[Zombra]

Nope, I definitely had the gasket closed. More likely I didn't wait long enough to fill the little beaker, though I feel like I did. Maybe you have to wait a second after the beaker fills, something like that. I mean obviously I did something differently. I'm OK admitting I must have missed something on one pass on that one "puzzle".

But even if I got it immediately, that task would have felt less like a puzzle and more like a chore. The door one still seems completely arbitrary and the train one still seems like drudge work. Are these the early tasks that teach you the language of the game, to set you up for the actually interesting part later? Or is it all "find the buttons to push and then push them"?

 

[Jenkem]

Which door one? The one with the water flow? What train one exactly? It seems you are still in the beginning of the game, the turning on the power generator was a chore, someone requests you to turn it on.

 

[Zombra]

Which door one? The one with the water flow? What train one exactly? It seems you are still in the beginning of the game, the turning on the power generator was a chore, someone requests you to turn it on.

So the game is in the dreary, not-fun intro, and I should stick with it because it becomes fun later?

 

[Jenkem]

I don't know what you mean by dreary, have you talked to CW? Some of your complaints may persist if you feel you are just clicking on shit to see what happens, every thing makes sense for the most part. Examine the mechanism of that door again and its connection to the flowing water... The game does open up after the opening area and every puzzle can be solved by observation and logic.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Finally Finished it. I looked up guide for the pods vilein numbers, cos i ain't got time for that, but overall the game is great.

Story and lore is fascinating i like it. Much better than the witness ( i love it for the creative puzzles, but story is almost nonexistent)

Puzzles are generally good, but jesus how much it demand you to run back and forth between worlds making round to get to other teleporter, back and forth.

The world and puzzles are well thought, well crafted, and was really open. The "ambiguity" is ok because unlike myst where you press a button and dont know what changed, and have to scour the whole map to see if a pixel is different lol. The objectives are mostly clear but the way to that objective aren't too linear. I solved the gauntlet before figuring out how to connect the tree in the bugs planet, and i am sure i do alot of stuff out of order in its contained "chapters" or between them.

There are alot of red herrings here and there like early i thought i have to bring the cart on the higher elevated tracks and i spent an hour before concluding it isnt the objective at all lol.

Overall great game. Could do with less backtracking and loading between worlds could be shorter so those swap puzzles are less annoying.

Technically they have improved the game so much since 2017. I played it around that time the game run like ass. 30-40 FPS in some places especially insect world and loading times were like twice as long maybe more. I wouldn't have the will to continue now if it was as long as the 2017 version, especially the gauntlet part lol.

8/10 great puzzle game with good story and lore, the visual and world design aesthetically is brilliant. Puzzles are good for the most time.

 

[HoboForEternity]

anyway for people who said story is incomprehensible, i find it pretty straightforward, one thing that eludes me is

Spoiler

moffang's motivation for war

. otherwise, the general plot and lore is mostly explained in the house (also secret passage in farley house too), trough the races notes, tree notes, and the recording of the arrivals.

i do miss some details like

Spoiler

the tree kidnaps people who are about to die (i read the notes that the tree saved their lives, but i didn't figure it was literally.) , and not just randomly. it also kidnap intelligent species who are about to extinct

but otherwise the general plot are clear by the time i did the gauntlet part

Spoiler

tree switched a plot of land from different species, humans are taken, interact with alien, then one of the species suddenly "fuck all of you" and they fought a war with but they lost and their sphere got nuked by their own weapon, while the other species opt in to be frozen in stasis as guarantee if the plan fails. the whole puzzles are build to prevent the moffang from accessing the sleeping pod and killing them all.

 

[Jenkem]

anyway for people who said story is incomprehensible, i find it pretty straightforward, one thing that eludes me is

Spoiler

moffang's motivation for war

. otherwise, the general plot and lore is mostly explained in the house (also secret passage in farley house too), trough the races notes, tree notes, and the recording of the arrivals.

i do miss some details like

Spoiler

the tree kidnaps people who are about to die (i read the notes that the tree saved their lives, but i didn't figure it was literally.) , and not just randomly. it also kidnap intelligent species who are about to extinct

https://obduction.gamepedia.com/Mofang_War

 

[Darkozric]

Finally I've found the time to finish this. Game has some lovely vistas and interesting world-building.

Unfortunately, unlike Myst, whose lore apparently preoccupied the creators to the point of turning it into a book, here things stay on the surface.
Yes, you read a lot of journals, but nothing to do with the amount of reading in Myst.
Yes, you learn a lot about both the earthlings of Hunrath and the alien inhabitants of the planets.
But the information remains only at an encyclopedic level - who they are, how they got there, how they plan to leave.

There is no proper background and certainly no philosophical or other extension to the whole setting.
You're just on a foreign planet and you need to find a way to escape.

I think in Obduction Cyan tried to reach Riven's level of puzzles and difficulty.
Unfortunately it doesn't succeed, not because it lacks difficulty - on the contrary.
It fails because it lacks originality and ingenuity.

Riven had a greater puzzle logic where you slowly came to the realization that the Rivenese people's numeric system was based around the number 5,
and that helped you to solve other puzzles and understand the world as a whole better. It felt organic, like I was roleplaying an anthropologist.
Obduction has a similar puzzle logic where an alien race has a numeric system in base 4, and the game literally spoon-feeds you a worksheet which tells you this and how the numbers work.

Also the constant backtracking and re-backtracking accompanied with the autistic teleportation loading times didn't help at all.

The music tracks were quite good, although in no way come close to the amazing ambient sounds of Riven or the beautiful orchestrations of Myst 4.
It's an honest effort, although I won't remember them. On the other hand, the sound effects, similar to the graphics, excel technically.

The ending was kind of meh, having finished The Talos Principle recently, Obduction's ending felt p. underwhelming.
Still, the game is ok, especially when you consider the amount of modern garbage that is out there. But I'll be honest, this is the first Cyan game that I won't replay.