if you read one of the journals, it says that the beam only disrupts a certain alien's technology (Mofang). That bug you saw is a different type of alien (Arai)
I somehow missed the note about Farley's code to the vault so I had been trying to do stuff with the laser first and just didn't know there were different species. The reason I thought something would happen is because I had only seen two sitting out in the open and both were kind of in hard to reach spots with the laser.
This is a bit off topic, but I'll put it here for posterity:
I was trying to play Riven on Steam, and was constantly getting freezes after a time. The issue was that you need to play Riven on a single core. However, the Windows set affinity command doesn't work UNLESS you launch Steam on a single core.
So, if you put the following in a .bat file and then run it:
Steam will start with the affinity appropriately set, which means Riven will launch correctly. This also means you can stream it from other computers without having to worry about crashes (ie streaming on a Macbook means you can play full screen using spaces rather than Riven's shitty old "change the resolution of the whole display" thing -- the menu is hidden while streaming but ctrl+s and ctrl+o save and load as expected).
If you're annoyed by the whole pixel hunt thing, type in "b3hn" while playing, then press ctrl+tab. You will get a command prompt. Type "hs" and enter. Hotspots are now enabled, so you can see clickable regions.
Also, you can type in that same prompt "autosave", which saves on every screen. I can't confirm whether or not this can permanently ruin your save if you go into a death scenario (I haven't finished the game, not sure if such a thing exists), so use with care.
Or you could simply use a little utility called ImageCfg, which can save the CPU affinity mask into the exe file header (use it on Riven.exe, and other games that need it).
Made some solid progress tonight, finally getting back to the game after a few days off.. and now kind of not really sure what to do..
In the jungle world, I solved the kinda convoluted deal with the three seed transporters and the bridges (though I feel like I got kind of lucky there to an extent; seemed to take a bit of trial and error and I didn't always know exactly what I was doing)... got me back to Hunrath on the other side of the river, which I wasn't really expecting. Had to go backtrack to rotate the bridge, and then again to find where the mine cart could get a clear shot at the rocks blocking the cave on that side.
So I unexpectedly got to another world, the red/lava world where I hooked up the tree. However both the jungle and rock/ruin worlds are in states of partial completion. Maybe I have to dick around with transporter swapping some more to get a bridge to the other side of the jungle world (path to the left when coming down the hill from the first entry point)? I didn't do much else there I guess aside from what turned out to be the key to accessing the lava world... And maybe I have to do something with the crazy panel with 70 switches in the rock world (I already got what I believe is all the machinery connected and working)?
Already wasted a fair bit of time, so some hints (maybe without completely spelling it out) for either world would be appreciated.
Also, yeah... it's extremely obvious exactly where their budget ran dry.
I was like oh, cool, a 4th world, sweet; what does this have in store... look at this! It's fucking nothing! Walk across the bombed out looking lava world and pull one handle and that's it! lol
I think it's cuz they knew carrying out the human plan would be the death of them all. At the mofang world you saw part of dead arizona in the distance. CW was too stubborn. Farley was the only one who knew about it and connected the dots. She disagreed with CW's plans. The bug creatures (arai) would not communicate this successfully. You see them feverishly swarm the battery at the end. The Mofang killed the vellein who were assisting the humans (proven by the chambering in pods).
Made some solid progress tonight, finally getting back to the game after a few days off.. and now kind of not really sure what to do..
In the jungle world, I solved the kinda convoluted deal with the three seed transporters and the bridges (though I feel like I got kind of lucky there to an extent; seemed to take a bit of trial and error and I didn't always know exactly what I was doing)... got me back to Hunrath on the other side of the river, which I wasn't really expecting. Had to go backtrack to rotate the bridge, and then again to find where the mine cart could get a clear shot at the rocks blocking the cave on that side.
So I unexpectedly got to another world, the red/lava world where I hooked up the tree. However both the jungle and rock/ruin worlds are in states of partial completion. Maybe I have to dick around with transporter swapping some more to get a bridge to the other side of the jungle world (path to the left when coming down the hill from the first entry point)? I didn't do much else there I guess aside from what turned out to be the key to accessing the lava world... And maybe I have to do something with the crazy panel with 70 switches in the rock world (I already got what I believe is all the machinery connected and working)?
Already wasted a fair bit of time, so some hints (maybe without completely spelling it out) for either world would be appreciated.
Also, yeah... it's extremely obvious exactly where their budget ran dry.
I was like oh, cool, a 4th world, sweet; what does this have in store... look at this! It's fucking nothing! Walk across the bombed out looking lava world and pull one handle and that's it! lol
Okay: The way you transported from Jungle to Desert is part of a larger puzzle in the Jungle region. Go back the way you came and go all the way up on that elevator.
Also, you can type in that same prompt "autosave", which saves on every screen. I can't confirm whether or not this can permanently ruin your save if you go into a death scenario (I haven't finished the game, not sure if such a thing exists), so use with care.
There are a lot of bad endings in Riven where you end up dead or trapped! Some of them are pretty fun too. But generally you have to go out of your way to something stupid to get them.
Okay: The way you transported from Jungle to Desert is part of a larger puzzle in the Jungle region. Go back the way you came and go all the way up on that elevator.
The maze is NOT hard. Dunno why people are whining about it so much. It's standard Myst puzzle structure with an Obduction twist. Just look at your possibilities and draw it out on paper. =)
The maze is NOT hard. Dunno why people are whining about it so much. It's standard Myst puzzle structure with an Obduction twist. Just look at your possibilities and draw it out on paper. =)
For me it was because it took like 2 minutes to figure out what needed to be done and then what felt like an hour of laborious execution and looking at load screens. Just a sour mark on what was, outside of the maze, a great game that didn't waste much time.
For me it was because it took like 2 minutes to figure out what needed to be done and then what felt like an hour of laborious execution and looking at load screens. Just a sour mark on what was, outside of the maze, a great game that didn't waste much time.
I think it's cuz they knew carrying out the human plan would be the death of them all. At the mofang world you saw part of dead arizona in the distance. CW was too stubborn. Farley was the only one who knew about it and connected the dots. She disagreed with CW's plans. The bug creatures (arai) would not communicate this successfully. You see them feverishly swarm the battery at the end. The Mofang killed the vellein who were assisting the humans (proven by the chambering in pods).
The maze is NOT hard. Dunno why people are whining about it so much. It's standard Myst puzzle structure with an Obduction twist. Just look at your possibilities and draw it out on paper. =)
It wasn't hard, the only problem is my crappy computer took ~8 minutes to load after every swap in the game. I thought it was a good puzzle, I just didn't have good hardware.
Earth is the only planet that looks obviously janked
It wasn't hard, the only problem is my crappy computer took ~8 minutes to load after every swap in the game. I thought it was a good puzzle, I just didn't have good hardware.
Eight minutes?! Jesus. It took mine maybe 10 seconds and that felt a bit tedious . I kind of lucked into a solution and then realised the whole puzzle was much simpler than expected (
you only need one solution that leads to two perpendicular exits then you can rotate the whole thing and open a shortcut
). It's a shame, because the puzzle isn't totally awful in theory. It is a bit of a Riven-style "I know exactly what the game wants of me here, but finding the exact placement for these marbles will be really tedious" situation.
I saw the visual prompt by using the slide projector on the right whiteboard. I understand Villein numerals fully; my background is comp sci and I was able to deduce the rules for the numerals no problem. Was a lovely throwback to Riven, tbqh. However, the prompt given by the right whiteboard does not make sense given the rules. It isn't a number. I copied it down and used it in the gas station then translated it back to decimal, and it became a number. I remember that this list of Villein numeral rules explains that the system corrects errors, so I assume that's what this was.
My question is whether there was another way to solve this? It felt like cheating.
Puzzle several hours later involving the use of Villein:
When opening the initial door in Jungle World, there was a one-digit Villein numeral pattern. The four settings were door closed and solid, door closed and wobbly, turnstile, and open. I opened the door and went through.
Was there a document anywhere that would have explained this, or was this meant to be a trial and error process that I in turn use for the next thing I'm going to ask about?
Puzzle shortly thereafter involving the use of Villein several times in a row:
For the bridges. I experimented a little bit and figured out that each digit refers to a chunk of the bridge, and the value you put in that digit refers to the status of that chunk.
Was there a document or something to lead me to understand this, or was this intended to be experimentally extending what you learned in the second puzzle I mentioned?
That's the exact feeling I had after completing that bridge area in the jungle. I felt somewhat like I stumbled on the answers almost too easily for it to have been earned as intended by the game, if that makes sense.
I saw the visual prompt by using the slide projector on the right whiteboard. I understand Villein numerals fully; my background is comp sci and I was able to deduce the rules for the numerals no problem. Was a lovely throwback to Riven, tbqh. However, the prompt given by the right whiteboard does not make sense given the rules. It isn't a number. I copied it down and used it in the gas station then translated it back to decimal, and it became a number. I remember that this list of Villein numeral rules explains that the system corrects errors, so I assume that's what this was.
My question is whether there was another way to solve this? It felt like cheating.
Puzzle several hours later involving the use of Villein:
When opening the initial door in Jungle World, there was a one-digit Villein numeral pattern. The four settings were door closed and solid, door closed and wobbly, turnstile, and open. I opened the door and went through.
Was there a document anywhere that would have explained this, or was this meant to be a trial and error process that I in turn use for the next thing I'm going to ask about?
Puzzle shortly thereafter involving the use of Villein several times in a row:
For the bridges. I experimented a little bit and figured out that each digit refers to a chunk of the bridge, and the value you put in that digit refers to the status of that chunk.
Was there a document or something to lead me to understand this, or was this intended to be experimentally extending what you learned in the second puzzle I mentioned?
As far as I know, there's no document for that stuff outside of
the worksheet that explains translating the numbers.
So to answer your questions; Nope, that's how you solve it. Trial and error. Intended (I guess?).
If you felt like you cheesed the system...here's my experience:
"There's a gate here, I guess I'll enter 0 to turn it off. Ok that's done. There's a bridge here, it gets longer if I start counting up from 0 but gets incorrect at some point, I'll try entering the highest number possible. Ok that's done."
If you finish the game, you'll realize
actually understanding the Villein number system is not needed outside of one puzzle in the game.
This kind of stuff is exactly what I was talking about with my criticisms earlier in the thread.
I saw the visual prompt by using the slide projector on the right whiteboard. I understand Villein numerals fully; my background is comp sci and I was able to deduce the rules for the numerals no problem. Was a lovely throwback to Riven, tbqh. However, the prompt given by the right whiteboard does not make sense given the rules. It isn't a number. I copied it down and used it in the gas station then translated it back to decimal, and it became a number. I remember that this list of Villein numeral rules explains that the system corrects errors, so I assume that's what this was.
My question is whether there was another way to solve this? It felt like cheating.
Puzzle several hours later involving the use of Villein:
When opening the initial door in Jungle World, there was a one-digit Villein numeral pattern. The four settings were door closed and solid, door closed and wobbly, turnstile, and open. I opened the door and went through.
Was there a document anywhere that would have explained this, or was this meant to be a trial and error process that I in turn use for the next thing I'm going to ask about?
Puzzle shortly thereafter involving the use of Villein several times in a row:
For the bridges. I experimented a little bit and figured out that each digit refers to a chunk of the bridge, and the value you put in that digit refers to the status of that chunk.
Was there a document or something to lead me to understand this, or was this intended to be experimentally extending what you learned in the second puzzle I mentioned?
With the bridges I entered the symbol from earlier in the game, which created a couple of blocks. Then just made sure there was a 'vertical' connection on both symbols again and that did it.
I saw the visual prompt by using the slide projector on the right whiteboard. I understand Villein numerals fully; my background is comp sci and I was able to deduce the rules for the numerals no problem. Was a lovely throwback to Riven, tbqh. However, the prompt given by the right whiteboard does not make sense given the rules. It isn't a number. I copied it down and used it in the gas station then translated it back to decimal, and it became a number. I remember that this list of Villein numeral rules explains that the system corrects errors, so I assume that's what this was.
My question is whether there was another way to solve this? It felt like cheating.
Puzzle several hours later involving the use of Villein:
When opening the initial door in Jungle World, there was a one-digit Villein numeral pattern. The four settings were door closed and solid, door closed and wobbly, turnstile, and open. I opened the door and went through.
Was there a document anywhere that would have explained this, or was this meant to be a trial and error process that I in turn use for the next thing I'm going to ask about?
Puzzle shortly thereafter involving the use of Villein several times in a row:
For the bridges. I experimented a little bit and figured out that each digit refers to a chunk of the bridge, and the value you put in that digit refers to the status of that chunk.
Was there a document or something to lead me to understand this, or was this intended to be experimentally extending what you learned in the second puzzle I mentioned?
Maybe a document wasn't needed in this case. What you describe is what happened all the time in The Witness,
teach the rule in a simple panel, then apply it in more complex panels
. I think the problem here is that it's too easy to get
through the bridges
without ever fully understanding the rule in the first place, there are so many possibilities that work.
Also I thought it was cool that you could
enter numbers
'slightly' wrong (though still making sense, otherwise they couldn't be auto corrected). Like spelling errors. It makes kinda sense that humans would make spelling errors when dealing with
I've been thinking about the bridge puzzle, and with the recent discussion of it I'm going to weigh in and say that it is simultaneously the worst and best designed puzzle in the game. Mostly the worst though. It is also potentially the easiest puzzle to solve, but the most difficult to grasp at it's logic. I can also explain how to partially fix the puzzle, or even design a new one with the same principle that would just work better.
One thing before I continue onto spoilers. I remember reading an interview with Rand Miller where he talked about the puzzle design. The first thing to note is that they tried to make a conscious design decision to have the puzzles feel more grounded in this world. This would make it much closer to Riven than the other Myst games. It also helps the puzzles make more sense to a wider variety of players. They really seemed to have used game testers to a greater degree too. If something wasn't making sense for them, or they had the wrong impression of a puzzle, it was changed accordingly.
Anyway, so here we are on Maray. If I remember correctly, the rationale for the kind of strange, complicated, and somewhat obtuse puzzles is that they wanted to slow people down. With the war going on they didn't want the Mofang to arrive in large groups. Its something like that anyway. What this translates to in game design is that they can make any kind of puzzle they want without truly grounding it in the world. I mean that rotation maze is quite ludicrous. At the very least it's obvious how to solve it though.
Now for the bridges. First lets look at it in terms of the game's world. Their implementation does not make any sense. If it was another game, maybe something closer to Myst or Myst 3 I would be OK with the puzzle. Both of those games have puzzles for the sake of puzzles. I mean with Myst 3 it's kind of the excuse for the entire game. Going back to the bridge, it doesn't seem to do much to slow people down. Once you figure the first one out, it's the same thing for all of the other ones (besides the last one). It also doesn't make sense with how it works. There's no reason for the input method to make a bridge (or remove those walls) bit by bit depending on the number you put into the console. The most obvious implementation for something like this bridge would be a simple on/off switch, or maybe a switch/lever that gradually builds the bridge the farther you move it. In terms of security, a password would also be more efficient.
Here is the thought process for solving the puzzle. You are supposed to fully understand how the Villein number system works. They give you a worksheet and a machine that directly translates the numbers. After that, you find that first panel that you get to from Kaptar. You're supposed to play around with the panel and see how the numbers gradually build the door. After a while you eventually come to the first set of bridges. You take what you learned from the first panel and try to apply it here. Eventually you're supposed to figure out that each digit corresponds to a piece of the bridge. That means entering any combination of Villein numbers from 22,222-33,333 as long as it only contains 2s and 3s (in base 4 of course).
Looking at the entire puzzle, I actually like the idea of it. I just don't think it's implemented in the right game, or in the correct way. More than likely, this is how solving the puzzle goes for a majority of players:
You try to figure out the Villein number system. You may understand the basics, but it's still very alien. Maybe you make some notes, like the highest number possible. There's no pressing matter where you have to use it, so you continue on. When you eventually get to the first panel you disconnect the lines and the door disappears. You're both excited to explore the new area, but you were already trying to solve Kaptar in it's entirety, so you leave and continue on. Once you come to the bridge you get a basic sense of what you have to do. Whether or not you have any concept of how the system works you play around with it through trial and error. You notice that the higher the number you put in, the more of the bridge is built. At this point you either figure out the highest number you can enter, or happen to chance on a solution through complete trial and error. Both end up working and you continue on. I know this from my experience, and from a couple of streams that I watched.
In both of those situations the puzzle is solved, but the logic is not correct. This is why I think it is potentially a good puzzle. If the solution was more precise or rigid, I think it would be a major problem point among players. It could have been way more difficult where you needed a specific number, but they allow for any combination of 2s and 3s. They had to have come across this in testing. As I mentioned earlier they tried to make the puzzles make more sense. Instead of making it easier, they probably noticed that many people could essentially guess their way through after lots of trial and error and decided to keep the puzzle as it was. It may have been the exact opposite too, where the puzzle was too difficult, so they made it much more possible to guess a solution. I think in a way, for a game like this, it's a great way to balance difficulty.
Unfortunately this also doesn't make for a very fulfilling puzzle. I love the joy of solving something. In games like this, there's always one single solution that you come to after lots of thinking, and it makes you feel awesome when you solve it. Cyan's games are kind of known for puzzles with large leaps of logic instead of a slow, gradual learning curve. Due to the nature of the puzzle and it's difficulty, it got me thinking about The Witness. For all of the similarities The Witness has with games like the Myst series, it's kind of the antithesis of those kinds of games. I think Obduction could have actually learned something from that game in terms of this puzzle. There are a few things that could be done to fix or improve this thing.
That first small panel in Maray is way to annoying to go back to for someone trying to figure out the logic of the puzzle. There's actually a very elegant and easy way to solve this, while giving the bridge puzzles here some much needed context. There should have been a ramp leading up to the area, containing a gap at the bottom for a small, single piece bridge. The control panel could have been placed just after the door you remove, so you would have to use the main Maray seed to access it. That way the flow of the game would remain the same. Anyway, it would be another single digit panel, but it would have the number 1 already input into it. That way there's a frame in the gap. The player would instantly turn it to 0 (since it's the same thing they did previously) and of course it would disappear. They would then experiment and realize exactly how the panel works, and in the process unlock a path to the other panel and a shortcut to Kaptar. The puzzle with the longer bridges would still be difficult to some, but they would have more context.
There's another potential change I would make to make it more of a puzzle. It could either be separate, or work with my first suggestion. Instead of the blocks being more formed as you put in higher digits, it could have instead been that different digits give the blocks different properties. For example, Maybe placing a 2 would make a regular solid block, but a 3 could make an elevator. I'm not being creative here, but I'm sure Cyan could have come up with something more interesting. The general idea is that you would need a more specific number to form a bridge. It may remove some of that trial and error difficulty balance I mentioned earlier, but I feel it would be a more solid puzzle overall. It would also solve the story issue as well. The panel would make more sense, since the different numbers would actually mean something and be necessary. It also allows for each bridge to need a different number while grasping the basic concept. I feel this would slow more people down as the story concept suggests.
Glad RE: above replies that I worked out those puzzles the way the game intended me to. I still believe the first Villein puzzle is basically unsatisfying, since the game teaches you something and then proceeds to break the rules, forcing you to be unable to apply your knowledge that you just gained. The other two puzzles were fine, and I agree that like the Witness there's some degree of satisfaction given from going from a very simple version of a puzzle to a more complicated one. But the number of (Maray spoilers)
bridges that you need to activate
, all being exactly identical, is kinda a bummer. Feels like they had originally intended a more complex set of puzzles but either people weren't good at them or they ran out of resources.
I completed the game (all endings) today. I had a lot of fun in the pod area. I took photos of the logbook containing what was in each pod, and visited 194 (
Farley
), 205 (Rand), 221 (thinking "Robin" was "Robyn" -- it was not), the books and boxes (206, 238, 190, 254), before I visited the intended solution. It's pretty cool stuff. Edit: On Reddit, I found a list of pictures of every pod here -- you can see that floors 13 and 14 are team members if you've watched the team videos. I suspect floors 11-12 have kids of team members. I would guess the remainder of the humans are backers. 53 has someone labeled a human ... who is obviously not a human and I'm guessing that's someone who backed to get put in the game but then never submitted a photo.
I was poking around the in-game files and the Mayor on Maray (
the alien or robot impersonating the mayor to beckon you towards the bomb--which, btw, the game files call a WMD
) is called
iMayor
in the game files. Cute. Of course anyone who has played a Myst game knows to be suspicious of someone acting suspicious. In addition, there are (ending related spoilers)
movie files for the good ending indicating the codename for the verdant planet you end up on is "Diaspora" -- appropriate, of course.
The movies and text are both totally unencrypted, as well as any art element used in a document. So if you're looking for easter eggs hidden in the game's text, go for it. They're all JSON files in Notepad. Unfortunately, the photos you take with the camera (c:\Users\<username>\AppData\local\Obduction\Saved\SaveGames\slot0\) are JPGs, not PNGs. That sucks. But you can extract them, at least.
I am missing the achievement "Eggcelent"--I looked it up, it seems to essentially be a backer achievement you wouldn't get without being a backer or cheating. That's fine, I guess.
I'll have more to say about the game and puzzle design in a few days when I'm done thinking through everything. I will say I am a little disappointed that Soria is what it is. It's very pretty, it's tantalizing, and obviously it conveys story information, but I think this is a pretty clear indication they ran out of budget. A KS update last year suggested they were close to signing a deal with a publisher, presumably to get more money, which fell through. I would like to see what their overall vision had been had they gotten this extra money.
Going back through the KS, dev blog, interviews, and other pre-release media to see what changed and what stayed the same. Farley changed:
This didn't really quite come through, as there were fewer characters, but obviously is very visible in the environmental design:
The overall premise of the seeds has been constant since the campaign:
Definitely ran out of money in Soria, but sorta achieved this goal:
Not quite:
They implemented the 3D object view/rotation fairly early, but given that it's only used for the backer rewards, some random stuff that doesn't matter, and one puzzle, I would guess that they had originally intended it to do more. Also, visible in this interview, how Cyan managed to not go bankrupt through very creative publishing arrangements:
From a dev blog, you can see the publisher falling through:
(I'm fairly certain this was Majesco--who initiated a project under the label Midnight City to fund a bunch of stuff and then immediately went under)
I think based on multiple references to characters, lots of human concept art, and this Maray concept art, the original idea of the game would not have been such a "dead world" -- you would have arrived before shit hit the fan. They made the decision to do FMV fairly early on in dev and I think by that point they had decided to pare back the cast of characters.
Also, the easter egg achievement has a number of possible solutions according to what I've found online. One of the solutions is a joke from a popular British comedy series--I won't spoil it here--but I did find that when RAWA (Richard Watson, a Cyan old-timer who worked on Obduction) had surgery for brain cancer last year he made the joke in the update he posted about his health, so that's a cool way in which the dev updates tie in with the resulting game!
I finished it, it was fantastic was a little bummed by you know what but oh well
I hope this sells well and they can make something new or at least go back to kickstarter.. not sure if I would like something new or the riven to obduction's myst... hopefully the success of this will allow them to get a publisher for extra funds too
Nice post Stump. The object manipulation stuff not really being in there was a disappointment to me, I remember watching that early video of them opening up the secret compartment in the lamp. I do like that the world isn't populated, lends it self to the lonely atmosphere like their past games. It makes it special when
you see the living/dying Villein
towards the end of the game.
As for the obvious big thing being cut, honestly it didn't bother me much. Probably because I'd felt like I'd had my fill from what's already there. I'm sure they had some fantastic plans for it though.
1. why did the mofang attack? from texts it seems they were cool w/ ppl and shared technology, so what went wrong? 2. where does the tree come from? it is just a natural process or was it created by someone 3. did the mofang attack earth/nevada (since they were able to see the real earth from their skybox) and that's why the town rallied against them? or was earth just fucked like farley postulated
This is not clear from the story--only that some Mofang disagreed with the plan (both based on the leaks that gave rise to the countermeasures and based on the pods).
2. where does the tree
come from? it is just a natural process or was it created by someone
attack earth/nevada (since they were able to see the real earth from their skybox) and that's why the town rallied against them? or was earth just fucked like farley postulated
I think the implication is that the Earth was fucked by its own accord, possibly nuclear war. We know that time is a strange thing after you swap--people came from all different times in their own timeline to all different times in Hunrath. So we don't know when the ruined Earth is from. But we know that each of the civilizations was abducted from existential danger. The Villein were explorers leaving their planet to find another planet. The Arai were used as bait and had a sort of parasitic relationship with other species. We know each of the individual humans was abducted from trauma based on the sign-in log at Farley's. So I suspect Earth was doomed in some way. But we don't know. I don't think it's the Mofang WMDs that damage the Arizona we see--in general the glimpses of the other words we see outside the cells... we seem not to be able to go to those places. Like Soria looks beautiful and purple when we see it outside the border of the Hunrath cell, but the Soria cell we visit has been ruined by the WMD before the game even starts. So I don't think it's possible for the Mofang to have attacked real earth from within the Sofia cell where they developed the WMD.
The maze puzzle becomes easy when you realise you can rotate the pieces.
Teleporter with a weight... I do not recall, got a picture?
That panel with a lot of buttons and such is only for an achievement. Unfortunately I also didn't put the code before it dissapeared.
Points of no return for different endings... As far as I've been exploring the webs there are several endings but the most common 2 endings are tied to something you are free to do 5-15 minutes into the game. I wont spoil it but you are free to do that action throughout all the game so it pursues you until the end.
I added a little more details on the previous post.
Regarding that picture for me is just lore filler. Maybe a failed experiment where you can activate the contraption with a specific weight. Maybe that is how it works
I added a little more details on the previous post.
Regarding that picture for me is just lore filler. Maybe a failed experiment where you can activate the contraption with a specific weight. Maybe that is how it works
They didn't have a ton of resources for this game. They even had to cut content when a deal fell through with a publisher. If you're upset it's not on consoles, I'm hoping they make enough off of this to create some ports. If you're upset there's no Mac version, I think it's actually on the way. I believe backers got access to an unfinished Mac version. I have no clue when it would be released though.
EDIT: I was reading this Eurogamer article. It's a general article about Cyan and of course Obduction, but there's a little nugget here that I thought was interesting. It's leading in from a discussion about Cyan's old publisher Borderbund:
"It's nice not to have to live with that model anymore. These are much better days," Miller says, referring to Kickstarter, the mobile market, and the ability to self publish on console (to which Miller says Cyan has had "encouraging talks" regarding console ports of Obduction).
I'm a backer, and we received a Mac version in addition to PC (I haven't tried it, and I believe its still kind of buggy and un-optomized). I imagine they'll be improving that version in the near future.
I'd be surprised if the game doesn't make it to consoles at some point, provided it does reasonably well in sales.
In any case, I'm just pleased that we got such a great looking PC title from Cyan, considering their budget.
There are three endings, one of which is a failure ending, one bad, and one good. Both the bad and good endings you can get from loading game after you get the other one. For most people this will be get the bad ending -> load -> do things differently to get the good ending. The failure ending triggers about 30-45 minutes before the end of the game if you do something to get yourself killed. Don't quote this if you haven't finished the game:
Get yourself blown up by the bomb in Maray. The game has showed you many documents that say not to approach it, what happens if you do?
The seed machine with the scale actually has a very clear purpose... not for you, but for other characters. If you look at the surrounding environment, and think about what went down just before you arrived in Hunrath, it'll make sense.
You know from the documents that the Mofang sent out bombs to destroy the other cells. Sympathetic Mofang spies leaked this information to the others, who planned a countermeasure.
You've seen those documents.
Continue reading and/or quote me only if you've finished Maray, the world with the maze:
You see the bomb that makes it to Maray; the documents say Maray would be the least precise bomb, they weren't sure exactly when or where it'd get there. That's why they prepare the gauntlet maze, which is explained in the document written in blue ink so the Mofang can't read. You see the two Villein who died; one trying to man the blue laser to stop the Mofang bomb, one who dies killing the Mofang impersonator of the mayor, but not before he's pinned under rock.
And now when you've finished the game:
You know the Hunrath bomb never arrived. You see Soria, the Mofang world, and it has been destroyed by a bomb. Where did that bomb come from? Kaptar, the rocky area. The bomb teleported into Kaptar from Soria with the seed swap machine with the scale--you see the dead Mofang lying cut in half in the area because only half of him was inside the terrain when it swapped back. The point of the scale is to reactivate the seed swap machine when the bomb teleported in, so the bomb immediately swapped back to Soria, blowing it up.
You know the Hunrath bomb never arrived. You see Soria, the Mofang world, and it has been destroyed by a bomb. Where did that bomb come from? Kaptar, the rocky area. The bomb teleported into Kaptar from Soria with the seed swap machine with the scale--you see the dead Mofang lying cut in half in the area because only half of him was inside the terrain when it swapped back. The point of the scale is to reactivate the seed swap machine when the bomb teleported in, so the bomb immediately swapped back to Soria, blowing it up.
So, they knew where the bomb would appear in Kaptar and built the scale device there. Someone was posted there to stand on the scale, I assume. At the precise moment before the bomb arrived, they stepped off the scale and out of the seed radius. The bomb seed swaps in, sending the scale device to Soria, where a Mofang notices it and tries to stop it. But since no one is standing on the scale, the device immediately swaps back, cutting the Mofang in half and sending the bomb back to Soria where it blows up. Do I have that right?
