Obduction Chat With Rand And Eric
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- Cyan founder Rand Miller sits down to chat about "Obduction" with Cyan Creative Director Eric Anderson. Beware: Spoilers ahead!
Chapters
00:00 Intro music
00:19 Rand intro
01:23 New Game begins
06:20 Eric's favorite effect/Hunrath (Earth)
07:37 Voices
09:28 Open world ideology
13:00 Stylistic throwback
19:38 Ages does not mean 'Myst-related' every time
23:47 C.W.
27:25 Holdover Riven puzzle
35:25 To a new (old) save
37:55 The dome
40:26 The path to Kaptar (Chain)
46:53 The heart of "Chain"
50:08 The Puzzle Box
53:33 Art/game design details
56:40 Backer rewards
59:00 The crazy numbering system
1:00:54 Maray (the Swamp/Jungle age)
1:05:31 Sci-Fi tech
1:06:43 A miracle on a budget
1:09:15 One more thing
1:11:59 Outro & Thanks!
You can get Obduction from any of the following Stores:
Steam: bit.ly/3z4J6Z4
GOG: bit.ly/ObductionOnGOG
Microsoft: bit.ly/ObductionMS
Epic: bit.ly/ObductionEpic
Humble: bit.ly/ObductionHumble
PlayStation: bit.ly/ObductionPS
Mac: apple.co/3LRwgR2 - Zábava
I wish every development team were as chill and wholesome as Cyan, and Rand is such a treasure in this industry.
SOOO MUCH attention to detail went into this game and I'm glad you two showed some of it off. It's a beautiful world, I got lost in it for weeks. Thank you for what you do!
As a professional Level Designer... i can tell you that Cyan games are a real masterclass of Level Design... and i used Riven as a case study for my design analysis class. It's crazy how, in all of your games, everything is connected and meticulously thought through. The way world logic puzzles and environmental storytelling are intertwined to make a cohesive experience is pure genius. Thank you so much for being such an inspiration in my life.
And on a side note, I honestly kind of like the idea of all Cyan products being part of the same "Multiverse"... XD
I adore how excited Rand gets about the players "a-ha" moments. It's the best part about playing these games and it's so great to know how much all of you love to deliver that feeling.
Obduction is my favourite thing you guys have done so far. I know people still have such soft spots for Riven and Myst, but I think they're really overlooking how evolved the game design is in this game compared to older ones. It's just incredible
they obviously did evolve and are the greatest devs for that genre. I love Cyan, Rand and the whole team. yet Myst and Riven are just legends in the videogame history, that doesn't mean they are better, but without them they wouldn't be as good devs/storywriters etc as they are now.
no, riven was the masterpiece. obduction is not near that level, though still a good game.
Yeah agreed I’d say Obduction is a stunning game just like the MYST series. The world building aesthetics, texture work, animations, set pieces, sound design, etc, are all so amazingly crafted. This new riven remake looks to be otherworldly!
Rand please give Eric that well deserved pay-raise
I think this comment deserves more attention, personally.
@@EricAAnderson I bumped! ha
@@ryancoplan4671 Hah! Does that mean I need to cut you in on the profits?
@@EricAAnderson Just a CD key ;-)
Eric anderson is what’s wrong with cyan . He doesn’t respect the legacy or the fans
8:10 I've seen people not notice initially, but once they see enough spheres elsewhere and read the journal about seeds that contextualizes what happened here, they think "shouldn't the entrance canyon area look like a sphere?" and experience a sense of wonderment when they go back and see that it actually does. That might be the most satisfying way to notice. Some people do also ask "shouldn't there be slivers of lots of different worlds here from when the size or position of different abductees' spheres didn't exactly line up?" though.
38:28 Not only would the image in the cell wall be inverted, I think *you* would be inverted when you pass through, and in a way that would flip your chirality. I've always found it oddly convenient that in all the places where you can touch the wall, the ground on both sides maps to the same height (if it didn't, you'd fall when going in one direction and, I guess, get embedded into the ground going the other). I can imagine the inhabitants excavating or building up the ground as necessary in the interest of safety, but it doesn't really look to me like they did.
Thank you for taking the time to share this with us! I would love to listen to a whole playthrough of you two gushing over every little detail, the inspiration for the puzzles, and just all the work that it took to make this game!
I really appreciate how in the beginning you really took the player's feelings into consideration with just giving one path at the start, one objective, and then letting us explore - like holding our hand and leading us gently into the world and then setting us free. I absolutely loved this game and this video makes me want to replay it again!
Hard to believe it has been 6 years since the game hit the market. WOW!! Seems like yesterday. Obduction was a fun one just like all the other Cyan games. Looking forward to playing Firmament.
I've never recorded myself playing this, but yes, I definitely noticed the way the path turns so you see the seed at the right points. Farley tells you the same thing as you see happening with the seed. I love that about it. I love that little peek up through the cleft showing that you aren't on earth anymore. Possibly my favorite visual part of the game.
lol, "Oh right, it's a Cyan game." Yup, that ran through my head back the first time too.
At first I thought I had to water the garden by bringing a train cart to that broken pipe by fixing the windmill.
I didn't walk through the blue laser at first, but yup, hadda try going into it just to see what happened.
I actually liked the 2-D people, it reminded my of the Myst games. I waaas a wee bit disappointed that you can't even see from a distance the thawed people at the end, but it didn't surprise me at least.
The propeller puzzle/bridge is amongst my favorite puzzles, very logic based, like most, if not all, from this game. You can sort it out, and I like that.
I know that you didn't want to show the destruction of the other worlds too early in the game, but I do wish it was there somewhere. Just because it would make more sense.
I liked the MacGyver'd things everywhere. Again, logical that they would do that. The path, where Farley's easel is is my favorite place to go. Very idyllic. But I'm an artist, so maybe that's it, lol.
The perpetual motion gas crank did give me a little problem. Once the tank is empty, where did they get more fuel?
I quite enjoyed making my own maps of the worlds. Of course, Hunrath is the most complicated. It takes a lot of effort to get those first threads out, then the rest sort of falls open and everything comes together.
I'm going to stop commenting on your commenting now, lol. I'm sure no one is interested anyway. Suffice it to say, the Myst and other Cyan games are the best games in existence imo. So inspiring. My "Myst-style" game was inspired from these. Sadly, it's all only paper, but extremely enjoyable to sort out how the puzzles have to fit together with the story, and imagine the scenery, the cultures, the mystery. How to put clues in at the right places, to give enough, but not too much of the background, so that the end reveal, when you realize what happened, stays a surprise till the right time. SO MUCH FUN.
Enjoyed reading the comment. Thanks for taking the time. Why doesn't your channel have any content? Greetings from Latvia.
@@JurisKankalis thanks :)
I tried starting a channel awhile back, but health issues and life got in the way.
I was very impressed back then how big and detailed Obduction was considering it was a modestly budgeted kickstarter game. Really impressive on all levels, design, technical, art... its nice to see how proud you are of it, rightfully so! Backing Firmament was a no-brainer afterwards.
P.s.: I never noticed the first sphere when you arrive. Sorry. I only picked up on the sphere mechanic when I reached the trainyard. What a revelation! One of those few as-cool-as-it-is-elegant design ideas. Like in The Witness, once you noticed, you saw them everywhere!
Wow, I thought I had a false memory about Josef saying "Shorah" when greeting us in the beginning. Such a nice easter egg :)
Thankyou so much, Eric and Rand, for taking the time and effort to engage with us. It is always a privilege for us fans to hear from our heroes like yourselves!
You guys did a great job. Also, I can't believe how STUNNING this game looks even six years later, both in fidelity and artistic design.
But too short
@@NikaNakaidze if you look up all the answers maybe
@@tech6hutch Which answers?
@@NikaNakaidze to the puzzles
@@tech6hutch Yeah then it will be so short
Cyan fan since OG Myst. Thanks for posting this. I bought Obduction during the pandemic but barely ventured past the intro, mainly because of VR bugs. I watched parts of this video and it really made me excited to give it another shot. I'm really enjoying my time. Currently stuck at the russian power box in "Chain." xD
Finding the Myst book was a highlight. Can't wait for your next creation.
This is phenomenal. I feel like I'm learning so much about Cyan's approach to game development by watching, and getting all these details. I was one of the many people asking for more Obduction content, and here's a HUGE thank you for delivering!
Obduction is how I got my kids into loving puzzle solving adventure games such as this one and Myst. Beautiful game!
Thoroughly enjoyed this video and playing this game in VR. It blows my mind how well thought out the puzzle design is. It makes me happy that this studio that started out creating Myst is still building worlds to step into.
I still love that this game used real actors for some reason even as a modern Cyan game it took me back to watching my brother playing myst and Riven in the 90s :D thank you to the team for making such awesome games! This one was a lot of fun!
Amazing! Could listen to them talk for hours and hours. Obduction is really a modern work of art... AND a great game!
I love how proud they are of their work. There is something inspiring about watching anyone be so passionate about their job.
“Everything has a purpose and a meaning. We don’t do filler.” Weeeeell … there is a Russian made device in this game which would beg to differ. :)
50:00
when i first saw it, i thought it was just a good translation, but it was an easter egg. lol
When playing Obduction for the first time, I remember seeing desolated Earth while in Mofang, and I really thought that C was crazy about wanting us to turn on the device, but he insisted so much, that I did it anyway... then, when I got the "bad" ending I thought "yeah, of course, I was expecting that" but it didn't occur to me that I had a choice!
I love Obduction and I love Cyan games. You simply the create the best worlds and experiences that stay with me forever and inspire me every day.
I never realised until watching this video that the different spherical worlds line up with each other and when you travel from one world to another via the gateways you stay in the same relative spot but move to another sphere. There's no payoff to this - it doesn't in and of itself form part of a puzzle and you don't have to understand it to complete the game, but the amount of effort that must have been involved to make that possible is amazing to me
It sorta does. There are several elements where understanding the spatial relationships between worlds facilitates and expedites solving the puzzles, especially the ones that involve swapping back and forth while navigating what is essentially a multi-world maze (and that's not counting the literal maze near the end).
The true artists of game making and story telling.
I have been a huge cyan fan since I was a kid and was so excited when I got my VR headset to play a cyan game! For some reason I had really low expectations for this game, but ended up loving it. I'm glad you hit on the points that differentiated this game from the Myst universe, and I'm glad you are always experimenting with new stuff. The fresh ideas and games are such a great experience for me, so it is really fun to hear you talk about the experience building it.
Thank you Rand and Eric for all the great memories you've created over the years. This video is a treasure trove of insight on your process, and the thrill of (virtually) playing this game along with the creators is a particular joy.
I just completed Obduction yesterday - the journey captured some wonderful flashbacks to the same feelings of profound discovery I had playing Myst and Riven back in the day, but now in VR.
This video is icing on the cake - so nice to see the same enthusiasm from Rand and Eric! Thanks for the insights guys! It's been a real trip!
1:09:55 - Has anyone already got the sequence and knows its purpose?
I remember noticing that while playing the game and thinking it was much too fast and subtle to be an actual important clue. So I never got around trying to decipher it but that's exciting it actually means something!
I for one am interested in knowing who Jennifer and Jeremy are/were (in 2000). (Let's see if Rand remembers or even knows about this one!)
If anyone works this out then please do let us know! 🙏🏻
My guess (and from a bit of research) is they relate to the pods. I believe there are many Cyan employees in the pods, and I could see those numbers relating to different pods.
@@JonsMG I think you could be right, just wondering what it could be since we already know how to find Farley, Rand Miller & some others. And they’re adamant that it’s something we have not found… Really keen to know what it is!
Beautiful! Thank you so much! It makes me want to go play it again. I’ve done every game Cyan has created. I like to take them slow - each took a fun and engrossing year to leisurely walk through each with the curiosity of a child. Thank you🙏
It took me 30 hours to play through it. I played with my son and we kept notes and took our time. We love the game so much. Thank you for such a awesome game.
Personally my favourite area was the sections in space under the tree. They really caught my imagination.
I particularly loved the myst Easter eggs throughout the game. The ones that alot of people wouldn't get unless they played myst.
Such a cool looking environment also 45:00 reminds me of Ghens Temple room in the Riven Remake haha
I wish I could work for you guys. Would be glad to have you as my boss any day. Keep up the good work guys and always remember, the ending has not yet been written. 😉👍🏻
1:02:04 this part always reminds me of the top of a roller coaster repair bay, wonder if anybody has ever thought of that...
Played Riven when it first came out, some days ago watched through the Obduction gameplay - and now this interview appears out of nowhere. Is someone trying to steal my book from the cage? Anyway. Well done so far and keep going, you've got yourself a subscriber from Latvia.
absolutely love these videos, please keep them coming team ❤❤
Yeah I can't wait to play this in PSVR2 !
I loved this game sooooo much. I played together with my daughter, and when we got to Kaptar, she said "I am MOVING here!". And then when we got to Maray, I responded "And I am moving HERE!" I still use a screenshot of Maray as my desktop wallpaper at work. So gorgeous, and I loved all the callbacks to MYST and Riven, and the attention to detail.
There were a few things that bothered me, though. The first was believing that 100-ish people actually lived in Hunrath for all those years. The garden was too small to support that many people, the buildings we saw didn't seem to be big enough even if they had been packed with bunks. To really support 100 people, they should have had food plants growing in pots everywhere, every tree in the Bosque should have been a fruit tree, and at the least there should have been garden plots or greenhouses up on the tops of the inaccessible cliffs. A few indications that more housing had been dug into the cliffs would have helped too. I didn't need to be able to visit them, just seeing that there was enough agriculture and housing somewhere to support the town would have been enough to make it feel more real.
And I wanted more from Soria. It took so long to figure out how to get there, and it felt like an anticlimax. Even if it didn't have puzzles, because it was blasted to smithereens, it would have been nice to have some story clues to find, about the Mofang's battle preparations and such. I've watched some "let's players" who completely missed that the place had been destroyed, so perhaps it also needed some dead Sorians to get that point across. It felt like you guys ran out of time and/or money to finish out the area.
But that's nitpicky stuff. I'm really looking forward to the next one, and to whenever you are finally able to update Riven!
I feel so much better about getting lost in Maray over and over to hear that Rand and Eric ALSO get lost in it... ;)
Please do more of these! I would watch you guys enthusiastically play all of the Myst series in a heartbeat.
I'm glad to say that I was one of the people who didn't spend too much time on the Russian box and said, I'll probably find something for this later. Sweet Revenge was not what I was expecting to find... Though I did over think a puzzle that was ridiculously easy later on; I know that's on me. lol
Such a great video. Love Obduction, and love the shorts.
Thanks for your work!
Thank You oh so very much for the spoiler alert.
My long standing question with Obduction has always been: What chunk of what is now sitting in the middle of that campground? Because of the sign and welcome message from Joseph, it's obvious many who got here, got here from the ravine, so the remains of the last person's warp to Hunrath was swapped out to the forest when you came in. So... what was it? 😁
Hah, that's a very interesting question!
I'd LOVE to see another one of these chats have a sequel covering some of the endgame content. Yeah, t'd need some big spoiler warnings, but that's some content I'd really like to know what went into it!
Oh my god I remember spending like three days on that box covered in tons of buttons, and then completely forgot about it. Beat it a year ago and I'm just remembering it, that is sick and extremely funny of them! Love Cyan so much, totally down with them to put nonsense stuff in the games like this whenever they want, they are gods.
Absolutely brilliant game. Thank you
Such a glorious gaming experience. Thank you Cyan!
This was delightful. Please come back to this and explore a bit more some time!
It holds up fantastically! I just replayed it the other day. I love returning here and to Riven.
Very interesting Behind the Scenes you did there! I love the discussion of design decisions and discovering things I totally missed on my playthrough. I think it is time to go back and replay Obduction.
Love the attention to detail, the atmosphere and world building of Cyan games. This truly shows that gaming is an art. Need to play this again.
You guys keep being such an inspiration to me! looking forward to firmament!
Great video! Thanks for that :) Makes me wanna play Obduction again in VR since I now own a headset.
I got the impression the Moray material was pockmarked due to being made in an alien world where they got a lot of space radiation, or perhaps it was subjected to radiation during transport, causing lots of pits
I love Obduction, I still like to go in and just wander around, and now and then start over so I can wander around the parts you can't get at after the game is done.
But what I have never done is read (almost) all of the written clues on paper, on my 'reasonable' screen the words were too faded and mushed to read them. It wasn't until I found them typed on wiki that I could do the game properly using the given clues. That wasn't ideal because I couldn't always be sure which of the wiki pages were the note I was looking at on the screen, I basically read ahead.
If you do another one, please remember we don't all have rich dads who can buy us a mega computer.
You guys should put a developer mode in your next game where you put icons around the game and going to each icon gives you some backstory about the area you're standing in. Valve does that in some of their games and it's pretty cool.
Wow. I missed SO MUCH when I played this. I’m kicking myself now for how little I noticed. And I love Rand’s enthusiasm!!!!
Love your passion and enthusiasm! Can't wait for Firmament to replay the Myst saga and then Obduction for the umpteenth time! ;)
This is such a great game to play in VR.
One of my favorite details is the crazy shapes formed in the mountains from the giant external spheres. So much care was put in to sell that the sphere location wasn't intentional, if that makes sense.
The spheres are just where they are and as a result you get these fascinating slices out of huge chunks of the world. Never seen anything like it.
I still remember well the backing of this game and patiently awaiting it's arrival. Well worth it. Now patiently awaiting Firmament :D. Thank you Cyan.
I did rush through the beginning and didn't get the spheres are getting cut out thing for a very long time, even after some teleporting around. But when I finally got it everything clicked 😂 amazing game
The whole world is made up of spheres. The entire area you start in is one huge sphere, with smaller spheres scattered throughout it. I really enjoyed this game a lot. I don't have VR yet, but would love to experience it that way. VERY well done. I hope we see more like it in the future. Maybe do cubes next time... something to do with mining... 😉
And the handcrank on the pump is just one of those hacked together things the residents came up with to make it work. ;)
@cyan What Obduction needs is a set of novels, like how the D'niverse has the Books of Ti'Ana, Atrus, D'ni, and Marrim, but ones which explain what happened in Kaptar, Maray, Soria, Hunrath, and Earth
I may be reaching into it too much, but I think the rocks at the beginning forms the outline of the fissure in Myst.
If only I was streaming when I first played this game. I'm pretty sure you would have been so excited how I reacted to everything in this game.
Same here. No stream though, so poor Rand was robbed of our experiences. :) I know I personally had a lot of fun and enjoyment discovering all of these moments.
Rand is so wholesome :)
8:20 As someone had played MYST and Riven, I did notice about the sphere :)
I love how the particles effect still messes up streaming compression, too advanced but it looks sooo fancy to this day.
I like to experience these worlds and pretend as if it’s for the very first time 😊
I agree that Cyan is the best developing team in the world, they are great people.
Those doors are sick.
All Games of Cyan are wonderful mystic worlds. I Love all of them. Now I'm waiting for Firmament Like a little child for Christmas.,😂 In the meantime, I played Quern-undying thougts. Made by Young Myst Fans. ITS hard to find Games of this Type. Wonderful Landescapes, beautiful Sounds and Tricky Puzzles. Nonviolent! You can Explorer completely withoutplan and Stress-free,😍👍
51:25 I can read Russian but I don't understand it very well and I think it says "do something pointless" but my translation can be a little wonky :P
Petition for Obduction RTX+HDR remaster. If there is a game that desperately needs it, it's this one. Just like everyone else I'm waiting for Firmament, of course, but since the first Myst gets revamped from time to time while Firmament is being worked on, I don't see how a remastered Obduction could hurt the process either.
My only issues with the complexity machine were 1. The cursor placement being wonky especially when the machine is angled so it would hit the wrong buttons and the fact that it was a human device in this alien world lead me any maybe others to think a clue was just missed in Hunrath area. Also considering I was playing keyboard and mouse how much nicer it would have been to just be able to punch in number codes via the number pad.
Obduction seems so much better after playing Firmament.
nothing more to say but ❤❤❤
It's been a long time since I played this. What do the Villein numbers in the video that Rand pointed out do? Are they numbers to the stasis chambers?
I spent about 10 minutes on the Russian box before being satisfied that there were no rules to it and it I couldn't solve it until I got more information, but... That was an unsatisfying 10 minutes. The rest of the game was satisfying though👍
Love obduction and completed it in flat screen originally on Steam. Am playing it finally again in VR, but only have PSVR currently. The game looks good but I i wish there was an option for free movement and smooth turning and no blinders, really detracts from the experience :(
1:05:51 inspired from the Great Zero courtyard in URU...?
What VR hardware is the best option for playing Obduction and the future Firmament?
Nice but... what about Firmament?
Insufficient budgets can lead to more creative solutions to problems that you wouldn't have come up with if you had all the money you could possible want to develop something.
Please make a PS5 version of Obduction 🙏
would like to see the studio revist this game and fix the logical problems etc at the end. feels like development had to be truncated, maybe ran out of funding or something? could be a really good game, as is now just a pretty good one.
Rand buddy when will be firmament game? my pc sucks i cant install it anyway but still asking
I mean one could call the amount of back tracking and loading screens as filler. Im fine with back tracking but it was pretty intense in this combined with the insane amount of loading when doing rotating ppuzzles etc
Any chance we will see PSVR2 support for this?
I've never noted this was a propeller. 😅
I really like this game but am pulling my hair out at the maze, I thought I had it then messed it all up again.
i wish i had this kind of attitude when i first played the game! brilliantly conceived and designed, for some inexplicable reason it felt like a disappointment. although, reading the comments here, i realize i was the only one who felt that way :)
Sound is low in this vid
Now, how can I get URU in VR?
Some have been working on it. More developers would be useful in making this happen!
Rand is it summer where r u at? why u wearing short?