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AG Community Playthrough #23: Obsidian
Yes, you’re right TimovieMan! The land wouldn’t become barren in such a short space of time anyway
It was good to see the screenshot gallery filled up!
It was good to see the screenshot gallery filled up!
You’re welcome!
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
Well, I wasn’t able to participate here as much as I’d hoped , but I had fun reading the very thoughtful commentary from you all. And I’m particularly pleased to see the number of first time players who dug into the game and really liked it. It’s always nice to see a personal favorite enjoyed by others.
The Final Post-Mortem:
Allow me to declare the official end of the 23-rd AG Community Playthrough! For all of you who participated: thank you so much! This was a ton of fun for me. For those of you catching up: please, feel free to finish the game at your own pace! But then it’d be great if you can come back here and let us know what you think about it. This thread is not going anywhere.
Anyway, I have mostly said what I wanted to say about the game. Playing through it for the second time was an even better experience as I could concentrate more on the substance, and not sweat the puzzles as much. (Is that why people love replaying games? I never knew… ) Let me use the rest of the post to tie a few loose ends here and there, and air out the last few things I’ve been meaning to say but haven’t had the chance.
The Conductor Realm is, I think you’ll agree, a little disappointing. It’s not that it’s not visually striking and it’s not the actual endings themselves that bothered me (not the greatest or most original of endings, sure, but there was a choice, which I appreciated, and this sort of finale became inevitable given where the game was taking us). It’s just that the Realm has uninspired puzzles (I hate the bridge puzzle and its kin), and it’s too short given its importance. The wild ride until that point deserved a better wrap-up.
Misc:
Too bad there was no sequel. “Ceres II” anyone?
Of course, the possibility of a sequel was hinted at in one of the endings (but that seems almost mandatory for games and movies to the point of becoming a self-parody). But a sequel was indeed considered at one point. There was even most of a Realm (the Incubator Realm) that was cut from Obsidian which could be included in a sequel. Sadly, poor sales scuttled that possibility. Sequels and spiritual sequels of classic games have been popping up in recent months but, given the limited (cult, even) popularity of the game, I think that is not going to happen in this case. Sadly…
Obsidian (community playthrough) - 4/5
A surreal and innovative game that’s marred by an underwhelming (rushed?) ending [...]
Excellently written review, TimovieMan! I just had to say that its quality compares to the stuff that AG publishes. Really enjoyed reading it.
My thoughts are that Ceres on launch progressed further in intelligence than was expected, it was organising it’s own path, a communication black out occured hence Max’s dream that lead to the cross-over chip? (I’m not sure I’ve got that in the right order?) I tend to think that Ceres was ‘inspired’ by Lilah’s entries in her PDA but needed her to advance so lured her by capturing Max. Lilah had to solve all the puzzles for Ceres & they are all referenced in her PDA e.g. the meaning of the canvas puzzle Lilah was an artist & in her PDA you see a blank screen before she starts drawing. Ceres wants a world without people - in Lilah’s dream about the bureau she mentions there are no people
This is a very intriguing idea, chrissie! So Ceres is using Lilah as her surrogate inspiration generator by placing her in different settings, and learning from the way Lilah approaches the hurdles there? And Ceres’ eventual “aspirations” can then be seen both as an independent (albeit misguided) inference on Ceres’ part but also as an embodiment of some deep subconscious misanthropic drive by Lilah. I will have to think some more about that
The images imprinted on the chip possibly represent the path to human control represented by red ‘target’ through the 6 aspects of the Bureau world & the 4 environments in the Bismuth world?
Yeah, those had me stumped. According to The Official Obsidian Strategies & Secrets guide, the three little movies that play when imprinting the chip are of an ant hill, a city, and a cell dividing—all representing a sort of “distributed intelligence”. How this is relevant to Ceres, who is a centralized (artificial) intelligence is not very clear to me… (Of course, the actual pictures on the chip are stylized representations of those things.)
Oh, and I am really glad you joined us, chrissie!
(Obsidian’s ending already bugged me when I first played the game 8 years ago, and a few weeks later I was writing a very long post on moral choices in games—which I’m going to link to for the umpteenth time, because I’m just that vain. )
[...]
Some more reading material: an interesting interview with the designers, and an old thread about Obsidian.
I second all of Kurufinwe’s suggestions. They are all cracking reads. And if you haven’t had enough, check this website out: http://obsidian.internetwhiteknight.com/. It’s a true labor of love, collecting all the stuff that was available about Obsidian from all around the web and even the web archive. Some of the highlights include interviews with the game creators (including the one that Kurufinwe linked to), trivia, easter eggs, some of Scott Kim‘s (Obsidian’s main puzzle developer) leftover puzzles, a What Does It All Mean? essay, concept art, and a ton of other stuff.
Ok, guys. That’s it from me. Over and out!
For those of you catching up: please, feel free to finish the game at your own pace! But then it’d be great if you can come back here and let us know what you think about it. This thread is not going anywhere.
Oh good. Missed the deadline on this one (sorry) but am happy to report I finished the game approximately 24 hours ago. For some reason I had more trouble than I expected with the mystery code at the end so with my usual bout of frustration, i.e., throw brick at screen (well almost) I decided to give it a rest. But then suddenly I got an inspiration, I won’t say what just that it involved using a certain type of other electronic device totally unrelated to the game.
As for the Hollywood-ish endings I myself wasn’t all that disappointed. As I’ve suspected earlier, the design team had other aspirations for the game but as with many projects of this sort expenses and other constraints needed to be managed and controlled. Given what they had though, the important thing was to leave the player pondering over what is really far more surreal than anything that could be easily and simply tied up, and I think on that front that it worked. At least it did for me. I believe also that it was very appropriate to give the player control as to the option to make both choices and see the fallout. To be honest I have to say that making the choice to save Ceres left an image that literally freaked me out. But I had seen a similar image before, right?
Aside from a certain glitch, overall I thought it was a very good game. Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and comments as it helped make Obsidian a far more fulfilling and thought provoking experience even if I had actually completed it when I first started it years ago.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a rod and he will sit on a boat and drink beer all day. - USA Network
As for the Hollywood-ish endings I myself wasn’t all that disappointed…...
....the important thing was to leave the player pondering over what is really far more surreal than anything that could be easily and simply tied up, and I think on that front that it worked. At least it did for me. I believe also that it was very appropriate to give the player control as to the option to make both choices and see the fallout. To be honest I have to say that making the choice to save Ceres left an image that literally freaked me out. But I had seen a similar image before, right?
I’m glad you managed to finish the game RayB & was so pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t so disappointed with the endings & agree with your comments!
RayB,
When I played the game the first time, I had hours of trouble and frustration with the end puzzle, too, plus I had to do it twice because I hadn’t saved. Since I hope to get to the end again in the next couple of weeks, I think I’ll be relying on an electronic cheat myself unless things go differently this time.
Oh, and I liked both endings very much. They made me think.
Thanks for leading this walkthrough, Terminus. Although I’m still far behind, I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments.
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.
Excellently written review, TimovieMan! I just had to say that its quality compares to the stuff that AG publishes. Really enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for the compliment, but I really think the AG reviews are in a whole different league…
Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts and comments as it helped make Obsidian a far more fulfilling and thought provoking experience
^ I’d like to second this.
Playing in group and discussing it on the go definitely enhances the experience.
Even playing it AFTER a community playthrough is completed (as I’m doing now with the first Gabriel Knight game) has benefits in terms of fun things to try, expectations, additional info and even a better understanding of what’s going on in the game…
The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka
I’m glad you managed to finish the game RayB & was so pleased to see that I wasn’t the only one that wasn’t so disappointed with the endings & agree with your comments!
Thanks chrissie, I’m glad I did too. Looking forward to the next CPT just as long as it’s not Fahrenheit which I know it won’t be.
When I played the game the first time, I had hours of trouble and frustration with the end puzzle, too, plus I had to do it twice because I hadn’t saved. Since I hope to get to the end again in the next couple of weeks, I think I’ll be relying on an electronic cheat myself unless things go differently this time.
Oh, you don’t know how much that just made my day!
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a rod and he will sit on a boat and drink beer all day. - USA Network
Ok, I’m terribly late to the party but I will add my notes here anyway. Finished spider realm in one sitting tonight, it took me roughly as long as the bureau, maybe a bit longer, 2.5-3 hours, didn’t really check the clock when I started so that’s as exact as I can be.
Puzzles:
Honestly the tree and wave puzzles were the easier ones. The tree took a short while to perfect but at least you knew what you were supposed to do and it didn’t really require reflexes or anything, just a basic sense of rhytm. The waves I clicked through in seconds. Overall the oil realm was very easy, only the pattern took me more than a minute.
I was stuck for a while with the tornado, missing the extra screen like some others. The hardest one was the metal realm though, I just didn’t figure out that it was an equation. I made the end product instantly and then I tried everything. I thought I was supposed to “activate” them or somethig and kept trying out the 2 known recipes and even their parts on the machine and then combining them again. I had to peek UHS which told me about the equation. After that I was done in 5 minutes. I’m quite sure that just adding a questionmark to the tube would make the puzzle more approachable. As it was now, many of us struggled with figuring out what we were supposed to mix.
Now it’s too late to continue but I should be able to have another night in not too distant future for the rest.
I think I agree with the notion that this game will be better on a second playthrough. Like this it is rather confusing and even frustrating. Also my long break doesn’t really do wonders for the immersion and the story. But I guess I’ll play it through now as more of a puzzler and try to have that second playthrough some time later to really focus on the story.
Currently Playing: Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
Recently Played: Red Embrace: Hollywood, Dorfromantik, Heirs & Graces, AI: The Somnium Files, PRICE, Frostpunk, The Shapeshifting Detective (CPT), Disco Elysium, Dream Daddy, Four Last Things, Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, The Signifier
millenia, glad to see you have free time again! Please keep your impressions coming!
Took a while to get back to the game again but I fisnihed it tonight. Before starting the final episode of Cognition, so see how I much I did want to finish this game?
Bismuth realm had a few very nice puzzles. The church definitely took me a long time, at first I thought it was just about getting the symbols in the right order and I spent some extra time trying them out before realising what the statues did. After I popped a visit to the statues I realised what I was supposed to do but it certainly took me more than a few minutes, damn you engineers! It was satisfying to solve it by myself though and I couldn’t give up since I knew what I was aiming for.
After the church, I handled the statue quite fast, was a very nice gallery by the way.
The clue for blank canvas was rather obvious to me.
But then I had a real brainfart with the last flight.
It just never dawned to me that the controls worked like the “chessboard”. I needed a hint for that. I spotted the red light, I knew that the piazza pointed that red light to me, but still nothing. Earlier I had even noticed the non-regulation warning for hitting the button next to the starting one but totally forgot the thing.
As for the conductor realm, the puzzles weren’t so good in there as many mentioned. I pretty much lucked out with them, took me longer time to finish the last puzzle again for the final scene, hit the wrong 7th or 8th buttons constantly…argh.
The “unhappy” ending was more impressive but yeah, they were rather abrupt. Not horrible though, I’ve always been much more forgiving to the endings than most people in here.
Through the game I felt that Ceres was indeed very much inspired by Lilah. I thought she even took a female figure (at least partly) because of that. I can see that she could think that Lilah would also appreciate her vision in return. But yeah, it seemed a bit off that Lilah herself could possibly choose to not to flip the switch.
The game was beautiful with strong puzzles. The theme and setting was interesting and the surreal surroundings of course. I really would have liked subtitles, had some difficulties here and there making out what the people said (probably should have played with headphones screaming). I think the story worked well as psychological scifi horror.
The old school kind of horror without scare scenes and gore and such. The nightmarish surrounding and the slow realisation of the future Ceres has planned for humanity are very much horror to me but obviously I wouldn’t go around and advertise the game firstly as horror game.
Overall I’m having a hard time giving this game a score. It is a good game but it was rather frustrating at parts and I definitely didn’t play it in the best manner (scattered in to a few sessions with very long pauses in between). I’ve also played very few of these kind of first person exploration games so I don’t really have anything to directly compare it to either. I’ll let you know if can pin a number to it.
Currently Playing: Dragon Age Origins: Awakening
Recently Played: Red Embrace: Hollywood, Dorfromantik, Heirs & Graces, AI: The Somnium Files, PRICE, Frostpunk, The Shapeshifting Detective (CPT), Disco Elysium, Dream Daddy, Four Last Things, Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, The Signifier
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