Episode 169 - Myst Boys and Myst Men - Obduction

Karffin’ Mofang podcast. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, as the last episode of Mystery May this year, we’re going to be talking about Obduction. This is a game in the style of Myst by Cyan, the developers of Myst, and boy did they ace the assignment. Obduction is more accessible than the originals, yes, but it does get into that same headspace more and more as it goes on. So the game has complicated puzzles (and some less complicated ones), but while the design mechanically hasn’t evolved too significantly since the 90s, visually, they have been able to create a world that looks very good and shows the imaginative otherworldliness these games are known for while using what are completely different techniques than what were used to create the visual elements of Myst or Riven. The visuals alone would probably have been enough reason to play the game at the time it came out, but it’s still a cool experience now to see some of the environments created for the game and to explore them, very slowly, as you scour for clues. We’re going to be talking about the pace of the game, the challenges presented both in and out of game, and we give some unsolicited advice on filmmaking, despite not being filmmakers ourselves. Thank you for joining us this week! This game did a surprisingly good job at letting us fulfill our “be people who can make any kind of progress in Myst games” fantasy, but still asked a bit too much of us to complete within the time we had. Are you a fiend for this style of adventure game, or did you pass this one by? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! The last few episodes have tested one of our weaker traits, being at all smart, but next week we are going to try and rally and prove we’re good at something difficult, because we’re playing Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC (as part of a theme with other DLCs)! We hope you’ll join us for that.