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AG Community Playthrough #23: Obsidian

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Let’s take this show on the road!

What follows is an edited and expanded version of the playthrough introduction I posted in the voting thread. Please read anyway! Wink

The game: Obsidian is a 1996 sci-fi puzzle-centric first-person adventure—i.e. a science fiction Myst-like but with enough twists to completely break out of the mould. It is surreal (in the formal art sense) and with a good bit of character and story development (which is not driven by diaries and other similar shams, to boot!). You don’t need to know anything before you start the game—not even the identity of the protagonist; everything will be revealed in good time. Trust the game!

Controls: You use the mouse for everything (looking and moving around, manipulating objects, choosing options from menus, poking, prodding, and in general making an utter pest of yourself) and you use Esc to get to the menu, from which you can Save/Load/Quit and fiddle with the volume and brightness controls. Edit: You can skip all walk sequences and cut scenes with the Space bar.

Procurement: Obsidian has not been released digitally so you will need to hunt down a used-CD sale on Amazon or eBay or a similar site. This is not fun but it is totally doable. Luckily, I think that most of the people who are planning to join the playthrough are past this step.

Installation notes: Obsidian was released for Windows 95 so DOS Box is not an option here. You should be able to install it directly if you are running Win XP (possibly in compatibility mode) or earlier. If you are not so lucky, before jumping down the rabbit hole of Windows emulators, start by checking out this old thread, where the almighty Collector offers his Obsidian installer and some advice about how to get it running natively in Win 7. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. If it doesn’t work for you either, keep reading.

Personally, I (Win 7, 32-bit) played Obsidian in Virtual PC 2007, running Win98 but I also managed to install and run it in the newest Virtual PC, running Win XP. The reason I played it in the former was some resolution issues the new Virtual PC has (essentially, the game played in a square in the middle of the screen). I can provide instructions for the Virtual PC installation path if anyone wants them. Note that the game needs to run in 640x480 and 16-bit color depth.

It seems, however, that VirtualBox is easier to set up to work with Obsidian. I don’t know anything about it but some of those who used it to install Obsidian might be willing to offer some guidance.

I don’t know anything about the Mac version.

By the way, the game comes on 5 CDs so be prepared for a fair amount of CD swapping, some of which crops up in the middle of individual chapters in less-than-optimal way. (Anybody know a way around all the disk swapping?)

Bugs: There are no patches to worry about. I encountered only one bug in the entire game and it’s in the very beginning, and it’s not even a bug but more of a technical incompatibility.

Soon after the start of the game, in the Forest Realm, you will encounter an object that you will need to read in order to be clued into our protagonist’s background and in order to be able to trigger a subsequent event. The scroll bars for me were too fast and I couldn’t read everything. If you have the same issue, I don’t have a proper solution but I can offer a decent work-around. There is an Obsidian longplay on YouTube that you can use to “read” whatever you can’t. Just pause at the relevant screens. You might want to turn off the annotations, though.

After you do that, make sure to still scroll through the object’s text (even though you can’t read it all) in order to be able to continue with the game.

More seriously, I couldn’t “activate” the object the first time I encountered it. If the obvious “activation” routine (I am sorry I am being obtuse but I don’t want to spoil anything) doesn’t work, you might have the same issue. Restarting the game from scratch eventually fixed that for me.

Playthrough format: The game is divided into five chapters, called Realms—in chronological order, they are the Forest, Bureau, Spider, Bismuth, and Conductor Realms. The Forest Realm is the very short prologue (no puzzles here) and the Conductor Realm - the short endgame. We will play one Realm at a time, except for the first two which we will bundle together.

We will plan to have finished the first two realms two weeks after the playthrough start (see below). I am not committing to a complete schedule for the remaining Realms—we will play it by ear depending on the general Playthrough speed.

I am really hopeful that in addition to the puzzles, we will have time and desire to discuss the significance of the setting and the game events, their meaning, and the general qualities of Obsidian as a piece of art.

Start date: We will officially start the playthrough this Sunday, July 21st. If you already have your working copy and are itching to play, feel free to go through the Forest realm (should take no more than an hour, including the reading you will have to do; note Bugs above though!). But please wait with the Bureau Realm until Sunday!

If you haven’t set it up yet, let’s use the time until Sunday and this thread to help each other install the game.

P.S. I allowed myself to reinstate the Playthrough numbering system Smile

     
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Addenda: A few things I forgot, in no particular order (and in a new post because I ran out of characters in the previous one):

-Don’t forget the Spoiler Tags when discussing puzzle solutions! Some of the discussions about the game will necessary be interweaved with the puzzles. Use common sense when discussing these things and be liberal with the spoiler tags.

-I never thanked you, guys, for voting Obsidian to be a community playthrough! This is extremely exciting for me! Also, thanks to Kurufinwe who first turned me onto Obsidian with one of his Adventure Game Scenes of the Day. You can find the first seeds of this playthrough in that thread.

-Let the relevant authorities sticky this thread at a time that is convenient for them Wink

     
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TerminusEst - 17 July 2013 11:37 AM

Personally, I (Win 7, 32-bit) played Obsidian in Virtual PC 2007, running Win98 but I also managed to install and run it in the newest Virtual PC, running Win XP. The reason I played it in the former was some resolution issues the new Virtual PC has (essentially, the game played in a square in the middle of the screen).

I have the same problem with VirtualBox. The best fix I could find was to install the extensions package which allows me to stretch the screen in windowed mode (ctrl+C). Much improved but I still can’t get it into proper fullscreen mode without distorting the aspect ratio, so if anyone can do that it would be nice to know how.

     
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I’m looking forward to lurking on this playthrough.

God, I miss Fien.

     

Everybody wants to be Cary Grant.
Even Me.

-Cary Grant

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EDIT: that’s a reply to Oscar’s post

After looking on the Internet about this over the past few days, it looks like the best solution is to set the host OS’s resolution to 800 x 600 before launching VirtualBox, and then using the fullscreen mode there. It’s a bit inconvenient because switching by 1920 x 1080 desktop to 800 x 600 tends to jumble my icons a bit, but it works and I’ll survive.

     
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Ahh…works like a charm in my Win 7 64-bit laptop, in a Win 98 emulated environment within Virtual Pc. Far easier than I expected.

Installed and ready to go. Smile

     
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TerminusEst - 17 July 2013 11:37 AM

More seriously, I couldn’t “activate” the object the first time I encountered it. If the obvious “activation” routine (I am sorry I am being obtuse but I don’t want to spoil anything) doesn’t work, you might have the same issue. Restarting the game from scratch eventually fixed that for me.

Just read (or at least open) every single file you can. That triggers the door activation. Wink

It’s where I got while testing to see if the game works. Innocent


to play, feel free to go through the Forest realm (should take no more than an hour, including the reading you will have to do; note Bugs above though!). But please wait with the Bureau Realm until Sunday!

Took me only ten minutes. But I haven’t read/watched everything on the PDA yet…



And on another note: I stickied this thread, and unstickied the AVS playthrough.

     

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

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TimovieMan - 17 July 2013 12:41 PM
TerminusEst - 17 July 2013 11:37 AM

More seriously, I couldn’t “activate” the object the first time I encountered it. If the obvious “activation” routine (I am sorry I am being obtuse but I don’t want to spoil anything) doesn’t work, you might have the same issue. Restarting the game from scratch eventually fixed that for me.

Just read (or at least open) every single file you can. That triggers the door activation. Wink

I am actually talking about being unable to turn on the PDA.

TimovieMan - 17 July 2013 12:41 PM

Took me only ten minutes. But I haven’t read/watched everything on the PDA yet…

The hour includes all the reading… if you are a very slow reader Smile

TimovieMan - 17 July 2013 12:41 PM

And on another note: I stickied this thread, and unstickied the AVS playthrough.

Thank you!  Thumbs Up

     
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TimovieMan - 17 July 2013 12:41 PM

And on another note: I stickied this thread, and unstickied the AVS playthrough.

And you also remembered to add it to the playthrough list in the “Recommendations and important/popular threads” I see…well done.

     
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Sefir - 17 July 2013 12:52 PM

And you also remembered to add it to the playthrough list in the “Recommendations and important/popular threads” I see…well done.

Of course I did. That thread is my pet project… Tongue

     

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

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I don’t know why I had so much trouble with Virtual PC in the past but now it’s awesome. The mouse motion is smooth and I can experiment with any resolution available. I understand the game resolution is 640 x 480 but the aspect ratio looks more like 2:1. Anyone else seeing the same? Just playing around now to see how well it can fit the entire screen horizontally on a 17.3 in laptop.

Hey, this looks like a Carol Reed game. Grin
Or not.

     

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

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To me the screen seemed to look okay at 800x600 from Virtualbox XP. Not sure if I even want it to be in fullscreen, but might try it out at some point.

     

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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Just took a quick peek at the video link from TerminusEst’s original post and it looks to be a fullscreen view. Guess I’ll have to investigate further. One other thing, is there an easier way to exit the game other than clicking through all the credits?

     

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

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Collector’s launcher didn’t work, which uses DOSBox.  Had issues getting VirtualBox to work effectively with Windows 7 64-bit.

VirtualPC works perfectly using Windows 98. 

Looking forward to this.


Thanks Sefir

     
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RayB - 17 July 2013 11:14 PM

One other thing, is there an easier way to exit the game other than clicking through all the credits?

You can be direct and Alt-F4 out of the game after a save. Or you can take the proper exit door via the Quit button and hit Space to skip the credits.

     
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I’ve had it installed on my XP drive for several years now, along with several hundred of my favorite games, and looked at the compatability tab to see that “play in 640 x 480” was checked, although the os was not selected.  It is playing perfectly, but i did have the bug you mentioned and will check YouTube. 

Having built a system that dual boots has made it easy to play practically any game I want to.  I always install two dvd-rw drives to make it easier to play multi-disk games.  I have Virtual PC installed too but there’s nothing like playing in a game’s original environment.

Finished the Forest and am looking forward to Sunday!

     

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