Myst creator Rand Miller wants to abduct you.
Miller’s newest game, Obduction, raised $1,321,306 on Kickstarter, and follows in the legacy of Miller’s Myst and Raven, two now legendary PC puzzle games. Combined, the two hits have sold over 12 million copies are among the best-selling PC games in history.
For a game like Obduction (launching on PC, Mac, and Oculus Rift on July 26) where exploration and getting lost is part of the appeal, it can be tough to judge off of only a short demo. Obduction intrigues me, but I’m not sure how otherwise strongly I feel about it. It didn’t blow me away, and in the days at important Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show since playing it has shifted to a game that I think fans of the series will enjoy, but not one that I’m dying to jump back into.
Brave new world
The demo starts off with you stranded on a planet called Hunrath. The picnic bench (from the short clip before the demo, I was told) still sits next to you. As you walk forward, you end up on a world that starts to look more and more like it could be Mars.
The trademark Myst puzzles are here — I got stuck in one area where I needed to figure out how to proceed past a giant rusty gate (the lever right in front of it wouldn’t open it) — and Obduction presents a mysterious world that you have to uncover. Miller mentioned that it includes a deep story, but said that the game wouldn’t be heavy-handed with it, instead slowly revealing it over time.
An odd hologram of a man soon greets you. You aren’t the only one who has been pulled here before. The hologram implies he is welcoming you to a bustling and thriving metropolis, an image that clashes with the landscapes around you.
It pokes you to follow a trail to a picket fence. There, another flickering hologram tells you to be worried, and it soon becomes quite clear that things aren’t as they seem.
Later, I found a man who was locked in something reminiscent of either a bomb shelter or a radioactive chamber, who asked me to get the power lines up and running. He also, forbiddingly, refers to this place as a prison. Well, there you go.
Oh, yeah, and there’s something going on with red and blue lasers, too. Not quite sure about that. Mystery!
Virtual exploration
For the VR demo, I was on another planet: Kaptar. This one included ancient ruins inside mammoth rock structures and ancient technology that I didn’t quite have time to get powered up.
VR does add a sense of scale to Obduction, but it comes as the cost of graphical richness and fidelity. Especially playing the two demos back-to-back, the difference in the resolution between a computer screen and the Rift are quite noticeable. You’ll have to make a trade-off when deciding which version to play. For me, I would gravitate toward the better-looking PC version.
“We designed it so it would play well in both,” Miller said. “So, I’m not sure that we’re breaking new ground, but I’m not sure we meant to. We meant to provide that similar Myst experience but in a whole new way, in a new place.”
Rand mentioned how VR had other added side effects. He knows the world inside and out, but he feels VR slows down the exploration experience.
“If what we’re building is a world you’re enticed to explore better, VR is [a ] really interesting tool for that,” Miller said.
Also, somewhat inherent to the medium, Obduction in VR used a warp travel system for exploring to help alleviate the problems players have when navigating in VR-space. Little nodes will appear when you are looking in the right spot, and you can warp to those, instead of having to actually walk.
Above: Obduction is the latest game from the creator of Myst.
I wasn’t a big fan of the node system, as it seems to limit exploration instead of fostering it, something crucial for a title like this — but they did note that players will be able to freely roam in the full game, though that could also present problems with VR motion sickness. Miller mentioned that it makes him sick, but that some people can stomach it.
They are also experimenting with other ways to navigate in VR, including steps and marked pathways instead of nodes. It will also have customizable options, as well.
“These early days are kind of like the Wild West,” Miller said.
Miller also added that the nodes were natural, given they cut their teeth on nodes in Myst, and they were always going to be part of Obduction.
There are some other problems I had with the VR versions as well, like having to physically turn all the way around to find a puzzle that was behind my character.
Getting lost
Of course, with the legacy of Myst such as it is, Obduction has to do something to appeal to fans of a popular and long-running franchise.
“Honestly, I think fans of our past stuff are going to feel a little deja vu,” Miller said. “Only because … and I think it’s because I like this feeling of being brought to a place I don’t know what went on. We could do that once in Myst.”
Miller explained that then, in the Myst sequels, players kind of knew what was going on. But in Obduction, which isn’t connected to Myst, it’s a whole new world to get lost in.
“This one’s fresh again,” Miller said. “It’s kind of nice having that clean sheet of paper.”
Just like the dock in Myst, players won’t know what’s going on.
Above: Something tells me getting this working won’t be as easy as hitting the “On” switch.
Miller also mentioned how much he enjoys Obduction’s opening area. Unlike Myst, where you can look all around from the beginning, Obduction’s initial area purposefully starts off in a dark, enclosed, small space that slowly opens up as you explore.
“I love reveals,” Miller said.
The Heartland
There’s one area of the game that Miller hasn’t talked about with anyone … until now. Miller didn’t want to give too many details, but there’s a “really magical place” in Obduction that the team hasn’t shown anybody yet called The Heart.
“Everybody at the office thinks it’s one of the coolest areas,” Miller said. “So, yeah, that’s one we haven’t really shared anything about.”
Old nightmares
In the glitz and glamour of E3, a quiet exploration-based game like Obduction can be a tough sell. It’s something more suited for long playtimes, not quick-and-dirty demos.
“The thing we have going for us now is, when we were demoing Myst back in the day, it was like nightmares,” Miller said.
People would play the game for a few minutes and not get it. They didn’t have a proper frame of reference for it. Now, people understand that games like Obduction open up questions and don’t give answers right away.
“But it’s still, yeah, it’s not the easiest to demo,” Miller said. “But you get the gist of it. It’s coming along nice.”
Little image of a big world
Obduction is a tricky one. I’ve never played Myst — but I’ve played games inspired by it — and after playing a bunch of good games at E3 this week, Obduction now struggles a bit to retain my attention.
Both demos also had a few glitches and bugs — I accidentally switched the game to free-walk mode and had to be reset to switch it back, and there were also problems with the loading speed of the game’s cursor — hopefully stuff that will all be fixed ahead of that game’s launch in July.
At the risk of repeating myself, it’s hard to judge a game like this with just a short demo, when it’s such a small slice of a large world. Obduction is interesting, I did enjoy my time with it, and I do it think will appeal to Myst and genre fans.
That being said, I’m not sure 100 percent sure it’s for me, or something I’ll make it back to. But I was intrigued and curious, and isn’t that really the point with a game like this?