1993's Myst was a hugely successful adventure puzzler that helped redefine the genre. Now its developer Cyan Inc. is back with a spiritual successor but does Obduction live up to expectations?
This page is part of the complete walkthrough for Obduction. You start on a trail in a Forest after nightfall. In the background you will hear Farley's group recording, with only Farley talking, along with the first track in the game's soundtrack. As you walk around the bend you will see an object, a Collector Seed, fly over the lake. Continue down the path and notice the seed fly by a couple. For Obduction on the PC, Guide and Walkthrough by repare.
Obduction's premise is pretty simple. You're somehow transported to a strange new world in which isolated parts of Earth have been preserved and relocated among alien surroundings, necessitating you solve a bunch of puzzles in order to get home. Unlike most puzzle games, Obduction gives you very little instruction as to what to do. Instead, you're left to explore your environs and try to figure out this bizarre land's mechanics on your own. This type of approach has an appeal. It can be refreshing for a game to not hold your hand and allow you to use your intuition but in Obduction's case, it doesn't really work out for the better for a number of reasons.
The first thing to discuss is the technical problems. As soon as you start playing, you'll notice Obduction has a terrible frame rate. It's so bad that it continually freezes momentarily as you move around which is both annoying and takes away from the immersion of some of the prettier areas you'll discover. It gets particularly problematic when there's more stuff onscreen as the frame rate can go down to single digits or just lock up entirely for a few seconds at a time.
Next, there are the loading times. Throughout Obduction, you'll have to operate 'seed' devices that transport you to a new area. Doing so results in a lengthy loading screen in which the frame rate again falls into single figures. You have to use these seeds throughout the campaign as well so it becomes a significant issue. In fact, getting around Obduction's world is slow in general. You can 'run' but you don't go very fast and you repeatedly have to cover the same ground over and over again in order to find your way back somewhere or merely uncover something that will give you a clue as to how to progress. As mentioned before, Obduction (like Myst) isn't the sort of game that holds your hand. Instead, it's up to you to figure everything out which is fine if it can be logically deciphered without loads of aimless wandering around and banging your head against the wall. Sadly, that's pretty much all you do here.
Solutions can be very cryptic such as a diagram on one side of the map that you have to somehow know to remember and realise you have to input into a machine on the other side of the map or two letters on a licence plate that you have to figure out correspond to two numbers on an old-style telephone dial that you'll have to put before the other numbers on the plate to form a key code for a door. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. The other kind of 'puzzles' that will stump you are much simpler and usually involve overlooking a seemingly insignificant switch or button on a device that you'll need to operate to progress. This latter issue isn't helped by the incredibly finicky controls which often make it unclear if something is interactive and if it is, how it can be interacted with.
One noticeable instance of this is the mine cart that you have to repeatedly use to get around one area of the world. This contraption has to be the most infuriating vehicle I've ever been forced to use in a video game. People who whine about the Mako in Mass Effect should try piloting the mine cart in Obduction and see what real frustration means. It's not even that you move just as slowly in it as you do on foot; it's that Obduction makes you get out of it every few yards to redirect the tracks in order to go where you want. Given how slowly you get in and out of the vehicle and how imprecise the controls are to select the door, pull levers, get back in, etc.; it could drive you insane before delivering you to your destination. If you're playing with an inverted Y axis, you're in for an extra level of annoyance because someone forgot to invert the onboard controls so you're constantly looking the wrong way when you're inside.
Even when you're not in the cart, getting around Obduction's world is a chore. Basically, it plays out like this: wander around for ages until you spot something you missed before and finally figure out how to progress, reach a new area and get excited at finally seeing something different, get stuck again after thirty seconds, repeat. Most of the time, you'll be backtracking across the same areas bored out of your mind, slowly trudging through the same ravines and up and down the same sets of steps. The world's also confusing to navigate because you dip in and out of a purple 'otherworld' that transports you to haphazard areas. Plus, a lot of the scenery looks the same, leading to confusion and yet more mind-numbing backtracking.
Despite all this, there are a couple of good things to say about Obduction. The puzzles' difficulty means that finally solving one does give you a sense of accomplishment (or maybe it's relief). There are also some cool graphical moments like when you first flick the switch on a seed device and watch your surroundings completely transform.
Other than those couple of points, I'm really struggling to say anything positive. Obduction is apparently getting a PlayStation VR patch soon which will make it more immersive but I really don't think it will improve on the tedium of its campaign. It would be better served by a patch that sorts out its technical issues but either way, it's still going to have the same monotonous gameplay.
- + There's a sense of satisfaction whenever you finally solve a puzzle
- + Some pretty graphical moments
- - Loads of tedious and slow backtracking across the same areas
- - Frame rate issues and long loading screens
- - Finicky controls and illogical puzzles
Obduction, developer Cyan Worlds' long awaited followup to the genre and era-defining adventure games Myst and Riven, isn't without its share of headaches and frustrations. At their source, a number of glitches and bugs that render an otherwise sublime game experience less so. Collected here are some of the most common issues still facing players, and their solutions, as tested by the community and GameSkinny staff.
Loading, Saves, and Loading Times
Obduction Definition
If the game is stuck at the loading screen:
First, make sure Obduction has been patched to the most recent version [Patch 1 - September 2, 2016]. This bug has been widely reported, and has been fixed for most players. For players who are still experiencing long load times, the issue is likely not in the game's code.
In our testing, a quick check of the task manager showed that this problem is often caused by a slow hard drive. The game loads approximately 2 gigabytes of data before it is playable. On SSDs, loading was reported to take up to 30 seconds, on slower drives, loading a game can take minutes. Loading the task manager will reveal if the game is loading or stopped completely: ultimately, patience is the only solution for this variation.
If the problem persists, or you are unable to update your software, setting the game language to a non-English option, loading a save, switching back to English and reloading the save should solve the issue.
If the player character is stuck in place:
The game contains several different maps, and loading zones between them: the game locks you in place until the new area is fully loaded. While some loading zones are obvious: a portal between worlds, the screen dissolving as a teleporter activates, others are less so, like the path to the roots of 'The Tree.' The key is to look for a pink or purple circle in the upper right of the screen, which indicates the game is loading.
It is also possible for the player character to become 'caught' while moving, even inside an area of the map that has fully loaded. The way to unstick yourself is by using the game's ability to switch control schemes. If the camera is moveable, but the player is not, switch from 'Free Roam' to 'Point-and-Click' to warp your character to a nearby patch of 'safe' terrain. You can change this option in the Controls tab from the Settings menu.
Blurry Text and Unreadable Notebooks
It wouldn't be a Cyan Worlds game without pages upon pages of juicy lore to dig into, or some scattered notes hinting at the solution to a nearby puzzle. Certain graphics settings create a variety of problems that make these difficult to parse at best, and at times, completely unreadable. Hp sk 2061 wireless keyboard.
If black boxes are covering the page:
This problem occurs primarily with multi-page documents: large portions of the page are covered by large black rectangles, effectively removing crucial portions of the manuscript. The solution here is to adjust the game's resolution to the largest vertical resolution supported by your display. During our testing, the problem resolved itself at a resolution with at least 1050 pixels vertically. If playing at a lower resolution is necessary, running the game in borderless windowed mode may leave enough of the page intact to suffice.
If text is too blurry to read:
No bug here, but a setting titled Resolution Scale. In its normal application, this is used to improve graphics by rendering a game in a higher definition than is shown. This is kept low by default, as it is a resource-intensive process, but for some users it can make the difference between chicken-scratch and text so crisp it leaps off the screen.
Obduction Reviews
Some users have reported changing texture quality or resolution provides a more permanent fix, but given the length of the material, cranking the resolution scaling up to maximum is a quick and effective fix. It may be worth changing that setting back to normal during puzzle solving and exploration: a lowered frame-rate and longing for a more powerful gaming rig is the most likely outcome.
If text is too small to read:
The setting to adjust here is 'Field of View.' Papers and books are read by holding the objects to the player's 'face,' This distance doesn't change, regardless of where the player is looking, so as the width of their vision increases, objects directly in front of them become smaller. Turn the FOV setting to its minimum while reading to bring text into view.
Photo Woes
Obduction's only inventory item is a point and click camera, which should be useful for taking screenshots of scenic vistas, alien landscapes, or puzzle hints. It is, as of this writing, completely unreliable. Photos saved to the hard drive are prone to corruption and can often vanish entirely, leaving only a thumbnail behind.
In-game, this leads to errors where certain photos cannot be shown at full size: in reality, the image is gone, irretrievably. To check on the status of your photos, head to C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocalObductionSavedSaveGames and check the folder of your most recent save.
Between the various save files in the game above, as few as 1/4 to as many as 1/2 of all photos were lost. They can be identified by the blank preview image, or by their filesize of 0 kb. No reliable fix has yet appeared for this problem: using another method to save screenshots is the only workaround.
- Users who own the game through Steam can use the F12 button to use Steam's own screenshot tool.
- The PrintScrn button on the keyboard will copy the current contents of your screen to the clipboard: pressing it again will overwrite the current image, so images must be manually pasted into another file or program.
- Alternatively, use a third party screenshot application like ShareX.
Abduction Meaning
Everything and Anything Else
Obduction Game
Obduction is a big game, and the developers are a fantastic resource when nothing else seems to work. Patches for a number of outstanding issues have been released with remarkable frequency, and even these remaining problems are unlikely to plague users for much longer. Until that time comes, this old-school strategy will help keep you playing, and keep your progress intact.
Save Early, Save Often, and Make Copies
The easiest fix to a game-breaking bug is to have an untainted copy of your progress at hand. Obduction doesn't support on-demand saving, but you can copy any of your saves as often as you want. Above all else, our highest recommendation is using this option to make a backup copy of your save on a regular basis.
One noticeable instance of this is the mine cart that you have to repeatedly use to get around one area of the world. This contraption has to be the most infuriating vehicle I've ever been forced to use in a video game. People who whine about the Mako in Mass Effect should try piloting the mine cart in Obduction and see what real frustration means. It's not even that you move just as slowly in it as you do on foot; it's that Obduction makes you get out of it every few yards to redirect the tracks in order to go where you want. Given how slowly you get in and out of the vehicle and how imprecise the controls are to select the door, pull levers, get back in, etc.; it could drive you insane before delivering you to your destination. If you're playing with an inverted Y axis, you're in for an extra level of annoyance because someone forgot to invert the onboard controls so you're constantly looking the wrong way when you're inside.
Even when you're not in the cart, getting around Obduction's world is a chore. Basically, it plays out like this: wander around for ages until you spot something you missed before and finally figure out how to progress, reach a new area and get excited at finally seeing something different, get stuck again after thirty seconds, repeat. Most of the time, you'll be backtracking across the same areas bored out of your mind, slowly trudging through the same ravines and up and down the same sets of steps. The world's also confusing to navigate because you dip in and out of a purple 'otherworld' that transports you to haphazard areas. Plus, a lot of the scenery looks the same, leading to confusion and yet more mind-numbing backtracking.
Despite all this, there are a couple of good things to say about Obduction. The puzzles' difficulty means that finally solving one does give you a sense of accomplishment (or maybe it's relief). There are also some cool graphical moments like when you first flick the switch on a seed device and watch your surroundings completely transform.
Other than those couple of points, I'm really struggling to say anything positive. Obduction is apparently getting a PlayStation VR patch soon which will make it more immersive but I really don't think it will improve on the tedium of its campaign. It would be better served by a patch that sorts out its technical issues but either way, it's still going to have the same monotonous gameplay.
- + There's a sense of satisfaction whenever you finally solve a puzzle
- + Some pretty graphical moments
- - Loads of tedious and slow backtracking across the same areas
- - Frame rate issues and long loading screens
- - Finicky controls and illogical puzzles
Obduction, developer Cyan Worlds' long awaited followup to the genre and era-defining adventure games Myst and Riven, isn't without its share of headaches and frustrations. At their source, a number of glitches and bugs that render an otherwise sublime game experience less so. Collected here are some of the most common issues still facing players, and their solutions, as tested by the community and GameSkinny staff.
Loading, Saves, and Loading Times
Obduction Definition
If the game is stuck at the loading screen:
First, make sure Obduction has been patched to the most recent version [Patch 1 - September 2, 2016]. This bug has been widely reported, and has been fixed for most players. For players who are still experiencing long load times, the issue is likely not in the game's code.
In our testing, a quick check of the task manager showed that this problem is often caused by a slow hard drive. The game loads approximately 2 gigabytes of data before it is playable. On SSDs, loading was reported to take up to 30 seconds, on slower drives, loading a game can take minutes. Loading the task manager will reveal if the game is loading or stopped completely: ultimately, patience is the only solution for this variation.
If the problem persists, or you are unable to update your software, setting the game language to a non-English option, loading a save, switching back to English and reloading the save should solve the issue.
If the player character is stuck in place:
The game contains several different maps, and loading zones between them: the game locks you in place until the new area is fully loaded. While some loading zones are obvious: a portal between worlds, the screen dissolving as a teleporter activates, others are less so, like the path to the roots of 'The Tree.' The key is to look for a pink or purple circle in the upper right of the screen, which indicates the game is loading.
It is also possible for the player character to become 'caught' while moving, even inside an area of the map that has fully loaded. The way to unstick yourself is by using the game's ability to switch control schemes. If the camera is moveable, but the player is not, switch from 'Free Roam' to 'Point-and-Click' to warp your character to a nearby patch of 'safe' terrain. You can change this option in the Controls tab from the Settings menu.
Blurry Text and Unreadable Notebooks
It wouldn't be a Cyan Worlds game without pages upon pages of juicy lore to dig into, or some scattered notes hinting at the solution to a nearby puzzle. Certain graphics settings create a variety of problems that make these difficult to parse at best, and at times, completely unreadable. Hp sk 2061 wireless keyboard.
If black boxes are covering the page:
This problem occurs primarily with multi-page documents: large portions of the page are covered by large black rectangles, effectively removing crucial portions of the manuscript. The solution here is to adjust the game's resolution to the largest vertical resolution supported by your display. During our testing, the problem resolved itself at a resolution with at least 1050 pixels vertically. If playing at a lower resolution is necessary, running the game in borderless windowed mode may leave enough of the page intact to suffice.
If text is too blurry to read:
No bug here, but a setting titled Resolution Scale. In its normal application, this is used to improve graphics by rendering a game in a higher definition than is shown. This is kept low by default, as it is a resource-intensive process, but for some users it can make the difference between chicken-scratch and text so crisp it leaps off the screen.
Obduction Reviews
Some users have reported changing texture quality or resolution provides a more permanent fix, but given the length of the material, cranking the resolution scaling up to maximum is a quick and effective fix. It may be worth changing that setting back to normal during puzzle solving and exploration: a lowered frame-rate and longing for a more powerful gaming rig is the most likely outcome.
If text is too small to read:
The setting to adjust here is 'Field of View.' Papers and books are read by holding the objects to the player's 'face,' This distance doesn't change, regardless of where the player is looking, so as the width of their vision increases, objects directly in front of them become smaller. Turn the FOV setting to its minimum while reading to bring text into view.
Photo Woes
Obduction's only inventory item is a point and click camera, which should be useful for taking screenshots of scenic vistas, alien landscapes, or puzzle hints. It is, as of this writing, completely unreliable. Photos saved to the hard drive are prone to corruption and can often vanish entirely, leaving only a thumbnail behind.
In-game, this leads to errors where certain photos cannot be shown at full size: in reality, the image is gone, irretrievably. To check on the status of your photos, head to C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataLocalObductionSavedSaveGames and check the folder of your most recent save.
Between the various save files in the game above, as few as 1/4 to as many as 1/2 of all photos were lost. They can be identified by the blank preview image, or by their filesize of 0 kb. No reliable fix has yet appeared for this problem: using another method to save screenshots is the only workaround.
- Users who own the game through Steam can use the F12 button to use Steam's own screenshot tool.
- The PrintScrn button on the keyboard will copy the current contents of your screen to the clipboard: pressing it again will overwrite the current image, so images must be manually pasted into another file or program.
- Alternatively, use a third party screenshot application like ShareX.
Abduction Meaning
Everything and Anything Else
Obduction Game
Obduction is a big game, and the developers are a fantastic resource when nothing else seems to work. Patches for a number of outstanding issues have been released with remarkable frequency, and even these remaining problems are unlikely to plague users for much longer. Until that time comes, this old-school strategy will help keep you playing, and keep your progress intact.
Save Early, Save Often, and Make Copies
The easiest fix to a game-breaking bug is to have an untainted copy of your progress at hand. Obduction doesn't support on-demand saving, but you can copy any of your saves as often as you want. Above all else, our highest recommendation is using this option to make a backup copy of your save on a regular basis.
Abduction Vs Adduction
Seeing a bug we haven't found? Have a fix we haven't tested? Drop a comment below! For more serious concerns, you can contact the developers directly at Cyan's own support site.
