8/10

The game varries from pretty damn amazing to slightly amateur at times in all aspects:

Graphics are almost consistently awesome - with a few small graphical imperfections, most notably, the clipping between terrain assets and the ground.

performance on a 1070 was okay - but some moments were terrible. I ran it most of the times at 70-90 fps 1440p on highest settings, but occasionally, I found spots which stuttered and sunk the frames surprisingly low - one point at the very end of the game, I caught it drop to 20 fps. This was due to my view distance setting.

The use of SFM, for the most part works, but there are moments (again at the very end) which breaks the immersion, and seem a bit cheap (a particular explosion at the end of the game looked extremely bad and hurt immersion)

Gameplay was exactly what I wanted. A complex world puzzler with plenty of logic and context puzzles - this was my first Cyan game - it certainly felt like its own signature mix of gameplay elements.

Puzzle difficulty ranged from generally easy to stupidly hard and nonsensical at times. Some puzzles definitely felt fine-tuned and well thought out, others gave me no context and had me wandering the world in search for something that could've been easily missed in the first place.

A few logic puzzles were extremely complex, particularly one reoccuring math puzzle, which I thought was awesome and investing.

some puzzles had you wandering back and forth which got tedious rather quickly, and lasted a very long time, these were drawl stand-out moments which overstayed their welcome, one being a frustrating maze puzzle.

Story was presented in a way that worked well - through text and sfm messages - I felt the ending lacked the depth I wanted it to though, with it finishing a little bit too abrubtly. There were key story moments in the game that really worked on the other hand, and felt awesome.

The general concept for this game world was cool - I simply wish they went further with it, and expanded some of the ideas out further (the ending again comes to mind).


I recommend this game if you like difficult puzzlers and adventure games - it was worth $30 for me. The story was good and very unique, but execution leaves a bit to be desired - core gameplay is interesting and fun.

There are almost no words to explain how great this game is.

I have been a fan of the Myst series, having completed every game in the series, and also URU, with the exception of Revelations, which was simply too tedious.

The best way I can describe Obduction is to say it is a combination of Myst, Riven, and Exile, all rolled into one. It resembles Riven, most of all, only as if Riven managed to take crack cocaine, and, of course, with far superior graphics.

The other thing which makes Obduction so unbelievably good is that, while the puzzles are not simple by any means, they are absolutely not impossible, and quite often it is a matter of order of operations.

My wife and I, (who actually legally married in URU in front of nearly 100 people--an advantage of living in the great state of Colorado is that you can marry yourselves!)--have been playing the game every night since I purchased it, somewhere in the neighborhood of a week or so ago, and not one single night has passed where breakthroughs have not been made.

Where this game, imo, most resembles Riven from the Myst series is that everything seems very interconnected. In Myst, one would solve a puzzle in an age, then get the necessary pages (blue and red) to eventually solve a puzzle, but there was little connecting the worlds besides information. In Riven, everything was in some way connected to another problem on another island.

There are no islands in this game, but there are a number of strange alternate worlds or times. I am not yet clear on this yet, but it certainly is important that finding ways to connect these is going to be important as the game progresses.

I have designed (way, way, way back when using BASIC language), and played, adventure games for as long as I can remember, and certainly Myst was a breakthrough in that market. Riven upped the ante and is certainly considered one of the greatest, and quite difficult, adventure games of all time. Obduction out does them both, as far as I can tell so far, and is graphically beautiful on top of that.

I do not write many reviews, but this was a kickstarted campaign which raised nearly $1.5 Million. It is my hope, that if this game is a success, Cyan will continue with further adventure games, so I encourage anyone who is a fan of the genre to purchase Obduction. It is insanely good.

15/10

If you enjoy Dream-like adventures then this is worth much more than other games that cost nearly twice as much

The best Myst-like game I've played in over a decade. If you like puzzle games where the puzzles aren't in-your-face, this is one you shouldn't pass by.

They created a game in which you totally forget everything around you. Fantastic, almost photo-realistic graphics full of life, an easy and comfortable navigation, an alien soundscape and soundtrack, intelligent, demanding puzzles and a really interesting new story. Sometimes it was not always clear to me what to do next - a few more story details would have been nice in my opinion. Overall, Obduction is a beautiful and mind-blowing game. It is not a reissue of Myst and Riven, but as soon as I entered the first world Hunrath, I instantly fell in love with the new environment and wanted to explore every single corner in this huge and complex world. I had a similar feeling when I first played Myst, and that's why I think Cyan is a very special team. I am looking forward to playing more games like Obduction in the future!

It's a great game that doesn't hold your hand; it just presents you with the world, and it's up to you to find your way. The story is interesting and well thought out; (like Myst,) the story is already happening when you arrive and while it's easy to pick up the basics without much extra effort there's a lot of lore hidden in books and notes if you want to know more.

That and it was deeply satisfying when the numbering system suddenly made sense.

The only true downside for me has been the amount of walking back and forth some of the puzzles need. The areas are larger and more like rabbit holes than other Cyan World games, and I really started to feel it when I made the same trip for the 7th time, or got completely turned around trying to find the door I'd come out of only a few moments before. Aside from one occasion of being unable to walk forward, and a few framerate drops that became fairly predictable (there are a lot of pretty, but large, vistas), the game has run well for me too.

Whoever dreamt up that stupid box is only redeemed by the sweet revenge wrought upon it. DX

I've loved Myst, Riven and all the other games Cyan have put out, and Obduction is no exception. New worlds new lore and a mysterious and beautiful journey

Highly recommended for fans of Myst and Riven. Great puzzles and wonderful worlds to discover. Amazing how everything fits together. Explore everything, and pay attention to small details! Some of the puzzles will require math skills (or blind luck). ;)

Very happy I helped with the kickstarter.

Easily my game of the year so far (and I honestly doubt anything is going to beat it, but then again FFXV might be a contender).

As someone who entered the PC gaming world with the original Myst back in the day, and over the years completely losing myself in Riven, Exile, Revelation, and again in realMyst, finding out that Cyan (now Cyan Worlds) was quietly building yet more fantastic worlds for us to get immersed in got me all wide-eyed and twinkle-toed.

I could probably go on and on about the game, even without spoilers, describing its cleverly crafted puzzles so organically meshed with the masterfully designed world, and praising its subtle but powerful storytelling through intriguing dialogue and acting... but I don't particularly like writing excessively long reviews.

There were only a couple of very minor things I felt they could have (and perhaps should have) done a little differently (or better, I might say), but they are very insignificant in the overall picture.

In summary, I HIGHLY recommend this game, particularly if you're a fan of the original Myst games.

Here's my YouTube playlist of my experience with Obduction:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpd1JXlj2IKrGkWOzz2xnXfOJf7Lxemmp

Please note: My commentary wasn't very good in the first two videos. I think I was just too distracted by my first moments with the game. Feel free to start with the 3rd video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwn6WFV60UI

A worthy sequel to Myst.