There was a kickstarter for this back in 2013, it was a success! And now the game is coming out July 26th of this year! I myself really enjoyed Myst and Riven back in the day, after that I never got far in any of the sequels, I am interested to see how this will turn out.
Everyday life is gone. An organic artifact that fell from the sky
inexplicably transports you across the universe. You’re in a place
called Hunrath, with pieces of earth scattered within an alien
landscape. Nobody’s here - well… almost nobody. Explore, uncover,
solve, decide. This is your story now.
A tech artist on this team gave a GDC talk this year about using shader techniques to stretch the geometry budget. It was fascinating; I picked up some real knowledge from that presentation. I’m looking forward to seeing the game in action.
I’ll pick it up as soon as I get paid. I really really hope it runs ok on my machine. My poor 960gtx is getting long in the tooth
EDIT: Nerdy question - have any of you guys read the Myst Reader? It’s very well written and ties up some lose ends and introduces a couple of others but… well, it’s candy for anyone who was enthralled by Myst’s universe
Yep, but I have them as separate volumes rather than the omnibus. I enjoyed them overall, though I generally remember that I found the Book of Atrus both the least well-written and the most successful. I think that’s because it stuck to Atrus’s direct history and his own discovery of D’ni. The others are fine, but the problem with intriguing, mysterious backstories is that the eventual answer to the mysteries is never as satisfying as the one you imagine yourself.
Just fired it up. More demanding on my graphics card (GTX 650 Ti BOOST) than anything I’ve played in the past year, even with settings dialed down. Got it to stop crashing and freezing and now it’s running pretty well. So far it really is like a contemporary MYST kind of game.
Edit: One criticism. Saves are automatic and there’s only one slot.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to play the game on my aging PC. The system requirements are not sky high (though not inconsequential for a Myst-like). But the moment I start the game, I can hear my GPU (Radeon HD 6950. Bit long in the tooth, but theoretically good enough) fan go into overdrive. Also, I “only” have 6GB of RAM.
Even on medium settings, I get an uneven framerate that seems to stay consistently below 30fps.
Pity. was looking forward to it. But I might want to wait for an upgrade.
Started playing. Not horrible, but lacks the grandeur of Myst and for that matter the love-of-craft of the two sequels. But I much prefer a connected puzzle-world in which things make some slight amount of sense as being part of a complex system to an island full of random puzzle installations that are just plopped down here and there like exhibits at a museum.
So far I’ve made it past the dome, trying to figure out how to get to or under the tree.
I couldn’t disagree more. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “making it past the dome”, and I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn’t gotten very far, but there’s some pretty amazing grandeur in the villein machinery in rock world, and specifically in the reveal about what all those massive chains and hooks are for.
Perhaps I just haven’t gotten far enough yet. But so far nothing seems all that awesome to me. Perhaps it’s the quaint old-west-steampunk vibe of the Arizona town, or perhaps it’s the art style. But even the alien vistas don’t seem as cool to me as some of the views used to in the earlier titles. So far I haven’t had any of the feeling of “immanence” that I used to. Yeah, yeah, floating rocks. Maybe it’s No Man’s Sky’s fault, come to think of it, because it pretty much sates you on floating rocks and purple alien vistas in the first hour of the game…
Hmm, I’m wondering now what you have and haven’t seen. Can you vaguely tell me or spoiler-hide how far along you are? I should probably bite my tongue until we start a spoiler thread. But I think you might change your mind by the time it’s over.
Okay. No doubt this is still very early: I’ve reactivated the generator, blown up various bits of red-colored tech, and penetrated the “dome” with my blue-laser-trolley. CW (Cyan Worlds I guess) told me to get to the tree and make it “healthy” again. I’ve read about the various races in Farley’s house. Not sure offhand what I should do next, but possibly there are more things I can do with my trolley.
Obduction is in fact one big interconnected puzzle situation where the puzzles are a meaningful part of the world, not just installation art pedestals dropped all over an island. I meant to say in my post above that though I wasn’t impressed as much by Obduction early on as by Myst, Riven, etc., I nevertheless prefer it to The Witness.
Ah, in that case, Miramon, I hope you didn’t read my spoilered text. :) I’ll be curious to hear what you think as the game progresses.
Juan and Misguided, I’ve made it pretty far, but I haven’t gotten to the end yet, and I fear I may be “stuck” (i.e. I might have to look online for help). But given how little patience i normally have with these types of games, Obduction has been a big hit with me so far and I haven’t needed any outside help to make progress. And, yeah, if you’re into Myst or Witness, this is pretty much a must-have. Since it’s by the folks who made Myst, it has a lot more in common with that than Witness. In fact, I’d say it’s the polar opposite of Witness in some important ways.
