Obduction marks a comeback for the makers of Myst

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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/09/obduction-marks-a-comeback-for.html
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At least now when my parents ask me to help them solve the puzzles, I can just tell them to Google it and then go back to playing a better game, like Fallout 4 or anything else.

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Just because I feel that fantastic things need to be preached and supported…

If you loved Myst back in the day, do yourself a favor (and show support for one of the best indie game devs out there) and go buy/play The Witness immediately. At first it seems like a simple maze-puzzle-solving game… then you realize there’s an entire other level going on… and then when you get far enough you realize there’s actually a third level beneath that. It was incredible. Go get it now.

If you hated Myst, just move along.

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I didn’t like Myst. I’ve liked the Witness so far, although there are times where I solve a puzzle and I’m not really clear how I did it, which is frustrating.

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I loved Myst and Riven, and they’re still beautiful games, all these years later. Definitely looking forward to Obduction.

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Well, that didn’t take long at all.

In all seriousness, Obduction is the first game Cyan has made since 2005’s Myst V (excluding a couple of casual iOS things), and it’s really their first game since Riven that hasn’t had UbiSoft’s meddling hands all over it in the end. Myst 3 and 4 weren’t even made by Cyan, Uru was basically destroyed by UbiSoft deciding to get out of the online gaming market just as the game was launching, and Myst V was essentially made on commission using the cobbled-together remains of Uru’s unpublished story and assets. Left to their own devices, Cyan does spectacular work, and Obduction proves that out yet again.

It’s not a perfect game (Riven is the only puzzle-adventure game that I think has ever earned that sort of accolade), but it is very good, and it’s absolutely worth your time to play. And it’s also only $30 on both Steam and GoG, which is a screaming deal.

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When complaining is required, I’m right friggin’ there!

It's not a perfect game (Riven is the only puzzle-adventure game that I think has ever earned that sort of accolade), but it is very good, and it's absolutely worth your time to play.
You're not fooling me. I've been around since the first Myst. I've seen things, man. I'm like someone who was in the 'Nam, if in 'Nam we fought back against the View Cong's puzzles with aggravation and boredom.
And it's also only $30 on both Steam and GoG, which is a screaming deal.
Yes, but that's thirty dollars I could spend on absolutely anything else. You can see my quandary.
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Wasn’t there still talk of “realRiven” being made some day, i.e. Riven done in the same free-roaming style as realMyst? I guess I’m thinking of http://www.starryexpanse.com/what-is-starry-expanse/ .

On that note, word is that Myst will apparently be supported in the upcoming release of ScummVM, and Riven is supported in the development versions.

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My friend enthusiastically played Obduction for 6 hours, then he got stuck in a rock.

Then the game autosaved.

There’s one autosave slot.

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However much I liked the myst games, I think it was around 4 or 3 that I started to come across really, really bad puzzles. I’m talking complex, zero-feedback grid stuff that had few to no intuitive aspects and were too large to simply force a solution.

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Revelation’s (#4) puzzles are basically all awful, full-stop. The sense I got was that UbiSoft’s Team Revelation was trying to one-up Riven’s difficulty, without actually understanding how to make a good challenging puzzle.

If you get stuck like that, the easiest way to get un-stuck is to switch to point-and-click mode (it’s under the controls area of the settings screen). It’ll warp you to the closest node once you exit the settings menu, and then you can switch back to free roam. Definitely make sure they report the geometry glitch to Cyan so they can fix it, though.

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OMG this looks so nice!
Dammit, am I going to need to buy a gaming machine? I’m all Xbone these days… dammit.

Also, how the fuck did Myst come out 23 years ago!? How is that possible! 1993? Thats… thats… unpossible…

…so old

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I was all set to go grab it from GOG when I discovered it’s Windows-only (Windows 10 recommended). That’s not unusual at all, but I’d have hoped a sequel to the famously Mac-only (at first) Myst would at least be Mac compatible.

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It was nice, but the ending seemed a bit abrupt and not well telegraphed. But worth $30. to wander around trying to figure stuff out.

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In the kickstarter emails they’re talking about mac compatibility, but apparently it’s pre-release quality at the moment.

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I scampered out and bought it last week… actually got a Steam account for the first time in my life just so I could get it. (Okay, so I didn’t actually physically scamper anywhere…) I dearly loved all the Myst games, including Uru, although I never did finish Myst V. That was the first one that I got seriously stuck on, and to this day I just haven’t gotten around to finishing it.

I actually really enjoyed Myst 4. I thought it was exceptionally atmospheric, and not all that much harder than the previous two.

Anyway, I have discovered that my computer doesn’t seem up to handling Obduction. I have a Toshiba Satellite L855 laptop that’s about two years old, with a 2.4 GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM, and 64-bit Win10, but even with the lowest graphics settings, the game is quite sluggish and hard to control (never before have I had occasion to miss a mouse like this).

So I dunno. I wouldn’t have thought this would be the game to make my computer look like it’s eight years out of date.

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Ah, well then. Given that my Mac is eight years old, I doubt it’d run Obduction very well if and when the Mac version comes out. They should do an old-school Hypercard-based version for fogies like me.

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The Witness was…big. I loved it. Such infuriating puzzles, and yet such a sense of calm. Wonderful. I must go back to it and try to plug the holes. I’m not sure I found your third level, so I’m curious now.

It’s a shame Obduction isn’t available on consoles. I’ve got kinda used to sitting on the sofa and playing on the big (far) screen. I know I could set up a PC to do it, but isn’t that what the console is for?

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I backered this on Kickstarter! I can’t wait to play it. (But pretty much have to, because I’m not going to install Windows on anything I own just to play one game.) I’m also told Robyn Miller did the music, and that’s a huge bonus for me.

I know, right? Still love Myst. That, Riven, and Windwaker about the only games I like these days. So long as I can go explore a few islands, I’m game. I call it the “Scott gets to go explore islands” subgenre. Sadly under represented out there.

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Backed it. Playing it. Loving it.

My favorite Cyan title is - hold on to your seats - URU in single-player mode. It made me feel the most like an explorer, we got to see the ruins of D’ni civilzation and tons of cool worlds. It helped that I read the Millers Myst novels at the same time, it was such a fleshed out world. V was fine, but clearly a smaller production. III and IV were forgettable, they clearly lacked the “touch” of the creators. Riven is one for the ages, but I missed the world-jumping.

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