Obduction

Obduction gets a release date

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Obduction

It isn’t June, but I’ll take it. šŸ˜›

Cyan, Inc. the award-winning creators of Myst and Riven, today announced that Obduction, their highly-anticipated adventure game, will be launching simultaneously on PC, Mac and Oculus Rift, and will be available for download from Steam, GOG.com, Humble Store, Mac App Store, and the Oculus Store on July 26, 2016 for $29.99.

Cyan also released a Kickstarter update explaining why the delay:

  • Fit and polish. That extra month gives us some quality time – to up theā€¦ quality – a good thing!
  • Unreal Engine 4 updates. We donā€™t control these, and Epic just released a big new update that changes a few things.
  • Oculus Rift VR version. This doesnā€™t affect everyone, but it helps us to tie everything into a larger launch event.
  • Avoid industry noise. There are a few big industry things happening at the end of June that our small company doesn’t need to try to shout over.

I don’t mind the wait. Plenty of other stuff for me to do in the meantime…

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Cyan releases a Teaser Trailer for Obduction

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1INKH_iBak8

Well, the graphics look real nice which is to be expected by Unreal Engine 4. The release date is June later on this year. I will definitely have this in my library upon release as a prize for having to mentally torture myself through the whole Kickstarter drama that unfolded by doing tons of exploring (not that I haven’t been doing that with Skyrim already lol).

However I will point out one thing that I’ve thought since the announcement of the Obduction Kickstarter, and I’m only pointing this out because someone over at RPS pointed out what I’ve been thinking since the beginning.

I didnā€™t play Myst back in the day and have heard wildly differing opinions about it. Obduction sounded interesting but talk of Myst ended up overshadowing talk about Obduction so I ended up drifting away. With this trailer Iā€™m still not sure. I think itā€™s hard to communicate gradual unravelling of mystery in a trailer ā€“ I didnā€™t really get a sense of that side of The Witness til I was playing it ā€“ so Iā€™m not really getting a feel for that side of things and itā€™s ended up at more of an environmental showcase kind of level for me.

This.

It seemed like whenever Cyan went to talk about Obduction they just couldn’t stop talking about Myst. We get it, Myst was an excellent game for it’s time and extremely unique. You can’t deny that. But it doesn’t quite look right to other people when you keep talking about one of your two successes constantly. This would be like if Bethesda talked about the first Elder Scrolls game ever made when introducing Skyrim, or the makers of Tomb Raider harping about how great the first one from 96 was amazing. Or if Valve kept talking about the first Half Life when trying to introduce a new product. It’s ok to talk about and remember those classics, but we’re not here to talk about your past products when you’re trying to tell us about your newest one. We want to know what you’re making NOW.

Obduction for Linux? Yes please!

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The Unreal Engine is getting Linux support (as of version 4.1) which means companies and groups who choose to develop with it will be able to make their games available to not just Windows and Mac users, but to the Linux platform as well. Cyan is developing Obduction under Unreal Engine 4 so it would only make sense for a couple people to ask about it. Cyan answered via Kickstarter today… sorta.

Linux support

Epic has announced that the Unreal 4 engine will have Linux support. We would love to support Linux and we are currently evaluating what it means for the scope and cost of development.

I hope they go through with it (especially since it would mean more copies sold to pure Linux users). Gaming under Linux is in still a young idea that’s still getting better, and I’d like to see Linux someday with a nice library like Windows has of equal RPG/MMO/FPS instead of the FPS’s being outnumbered by RPG’s and simulators. There needs to be more versatility, and with companies like Valve, Unreal and Croteam already switching to OpenGL that’ll set an excellent course for the future of Linux! Now if only the neckbeards could cooperate better…

The Obduction Kickstarter was a success.

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Cyan’s Obduction survived the kickstarter. They have met their goal and can now get to work. Here is a video celebrating their success.

Their latest post discusses some interesting features. For example, a roadtrip mode:

The Roadtrip Mode needs a bit more explaining. As weā€™ve mentioned before, weā€™ve found that our previous games – in spite of the fact that they were single player – were usually played by more than one person. Many times it was a big advantage for two people to explore together in front of the computer, or share clues over the phone. We thought it would be fun to support that idea! Roadtrip Mode allows two people to share the exploration via the internet. One player would be the ā€œdriverā€ – moving and interacting, while the other player would be a ā€œpassengerā€ – following where the ā€œdriverā€ goes, but able to freely look around on their own computer. They will be able to talk with each other, offering advice or pointing out highlights. And the players can switch the ā€œdriverā€ and ā€œpassengerā€ whenever they want. It seems like a great way to facilitate something that happens naturally – and let players share the journey.

You can vote up Obduction on Steam Greenlight

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If you haven’t heard via Cyan’s Kickstarter for Obduction they have recently announced that they would like to distribute Obduction via Steam. If you have an account on Steam you can login and vote them up of you want to support their project. Here is a link to the Steam Greenlight page.

We want Obduction to be distributed through Steam. As the first step in that direction, we have officially submitted the Obduction concept to Steam Greenlight. Greenlight is not just about getting Obduction approved on Steam, but it also helps more people find out about Obduction. But we need your help with this. To get the word out and show your support, head over to Greenlight and rate or favorite Obduction.

They also plan on selling their new IP through GOG and Humble Bundle. Also it will be DRM free, so no hassles. šŸ˜€