Adventure Gamers - Forums

TerminusEst - 01 August 2013 10:36 AM

You are turning around to look at the door after every time you change the position of the rock, right? Just checking…

Of course.

Solution: drag the rock toward you so that it comes to its lowest possible position, directly toward you. Hope this makes sense!

And? I’ve done that about ten times since I found this puzzle. I don’t see where that gets me. With the Bureau at the lowest point the Chief thinks i’m upside down and at the highest point I obviously can’t exit or I’ll fall off.

Zifnab - 01 August 2013 10:10 AM

And by the way, if I was the girl in this game I’d just hang upside down over the Chief’s office so he thinks i’m the right way up. I don’t know why she doesn’t think of that. And she still expects me to do all her hard work! Huh. Women, eh?

Ha! I just noticed that you said this. You are done with the rock puzzle, man! Its whole purpose was to get you to the Executive Face so you have your first brief meeting with the Chief. Evidently, though, you haven’t explored that face sufficiently yet. Needless to say, there is a way out of it.

Come on. Seriously? I find it hard to believe no one had the same problem I did, especially since the Chief tells you to meet him again the right way up. It doesn’t exactly scream “congrats! you’re done!”, does it?

That “way out” was very hard to find. Definitely pixel-hunting territory.

So it looks like I’m a new “age” now, which means I"m finished, right?

One question: you guys keep talking about the PDA. Is that the thing in the tent in the forest? Was I supposed to take it with me? I don’t have anything like that on me.

On a side note: Has anyone visited the small “relaxation room”?
It is through a small door, next to the help/information office on the world’s first level/floor. Was there any purpose on it? I do recall strange music and a book that manifested each letter of the alphabet on each of its pages…

And yes, it was VERY strange…

Zifnab - 02 August 2013 01:15 AM

One question: you guys keep talking about the PDA. Is that the thing in the tent in the forest? Was I supposed to take it with me? I don’t have anything like that on me.

Yes, that’s the one. You can’t take it with you, but reading everything (videos, mails, journals, etc) gives you invaluable background information and understanding of the storyline.

Sefir - 02 August 2013 07:46 AM

On a side note: Has anyone visited the small “relaxation room”?
It is through a small door, nest to the help/information office on the world’s first level/floor. Was there any purpose on it? I do recall strange music and a book that manifested each letter of the alphabet on each of its pages…

And yes, it was VERY strange…

I didn’t see any point to that room either, or the cloud rings.

Before we move on to the next part, I wanted to post a few thoughts on the Bureau realm, specifically on why it’s one of the strongest bits of adventure gaming ever. And to discuss that, I first need to go back to Myst. (Don’t you always?)

Myst (and most of the games that followed in its footsteps) has a fundamental flaw: it’s unable to resolve the tension between the world, the gameplay and the storytelling. This is a problem with many adventure games (and indeed with most games that try to have exploration and story), but it’s particularly noticeable in Myst. Part of it is due to the lack of characters: the puzzles are mostly mechanical in nature, the story is told in large part through boring journals, all of which contributes to making the whole package feel unnatural. But mostly it’s due to Myst trying to be so immersive: by switching to first-person without a defined player character, by reaching a then-unprecedented level of visual and aural fidelity, by getting rid of the more “gamey” elements (the score, the infinite inventory, the cumbersome interface replaced by an elegant hand cursor…), Myst doesn’t want to be a game: as its tagline proclaims, Myst is “the surreal adventure that will become your world”.

But by doing so, it just draws attention to the fact that its worlds don’t feel like real places that actual people would live in, but rather like pretty wrapping paper around artificial puzzles and a tacked-on story. (The Channelwood Age might be the lone exception.) It’s ironic that many people feel that Myst is puzzle-heavy, even though it has far more exploration, at least as much story, and far fewer puzzles than, say, Day of the Tentacle. And most of Myst’s successors suffer from this same unresolved tension between world, gameplay and storytelling.

Obsidian’s Bureau realm is one notable exception. What is the Bureau realm about? It’s about being constrained by absurd, endless, byzantine rules and the necessity to bend them to achieve something. Everything in the Bureau realm serves that mission statement: the world, the gameplay, the storytelling. Obviously the world design in fantastic. That cube with the statue of Atlas at its centre is unforgettable. That moment when you first go down to the Sunken library, go up by another ladder and realize you’ve emerged standing on another face of the cube still took my breath away despite having played the game twice previously.

And then there’s the puzzle design, which also serves the story and the theme of the world. I’d like to single out two particular puzzles, which are normally the last two you do before you start breaking the rules: the clock and the coloured cards. Both are constrained by very strong and clear rules. You can boil each of them down to a mathematical problem and work it out entirely on paper. But they’re such complicated problems that you rapidly realize that it’s faster to solve them through trial and error, intuition and half-understood hints from the monitors. These puzzles teach you that, yes, there are rules, but understanding the rules and working everything out from them may not be the best way to achieve your goal. Subconsciously, you’re being prepared for the next step: actually breaking the rules. These puzzles are not artificial or tacked on: they perfectly serve the story and theme of the world.

As a final example, I’d like to discuss that end sequence where you climb to the Bureau chief’s office by moving on the Atlas face completely against the rules (and gravity) and stepping on the monitors. Many Myst-style games have this sort of exhilarating eye-candy sequence as a reward to the player. But while, say, the Amateria roller coaster in Myst III (probably the most memorable sequence of that type) is completely gratuitous, it is not the case here at all. This sequence is not just about showing off this surreal environment one last time: it’s about the thrill of breaking the rules, the rush of freedom. Subconsciously (I think we’re going to be using that adverb quite a bit while discussing Obsidian), it completes the original message: It’s about being constrained by absurd, endless, byzantine rules and the necessity to bend them to achieve something – and how enjoyable it is to do so. As such, it’s everything but gratuitous eye candy: it’s a very, very clever bit of storytelling.

And that’s what the designers of Obsidian figured out (just like the Miller brothers, who were working on Riven at about the same time): for a Myst-style game to really work, the world, the gameplay and the storytelling must be one and the same. In the Bureau realm (just like in Riven), the world is the story, the story is the puzzle and the puzzle is the world – and vice versa. And that’s what makes it so brilliant. Just like Riven.

When I first played Obsidian seven or eight years ago, and when I replayed it a few months later, I was disappointed by the Spider realm, in large part because I felt that it didn’t achieve that perfect unity of world, story and puzzles that the Bureau realm had. I’m eager to find out how I’ll feel about it this time around.

Kurufinwe - 03 August 2013 02:22 AM

But by doing so, it just draws attention to the fact that its worlds don’t feel like real places that actual people would live in, but rather like pretty wrapping paper around artificial puzzles and a tacked-on story.

The worlds weren’t real places - they were written. And in no way was the story tacked-on. Later in the series I thought the Age-hopping became somewhat of a novelty, but in the first game the idea was absolutely brilliant. Yes, better than Riven. Fun too, if you had an imagination. Oh, and no one complains about watching hundreds of cutscenes in Tex Murphy. For some reason those are an acceptable method of storytelling in games, but not reading journals, even in a game about writing.

On Obsidian, I’ll reserve judgement until later. I’ll admit I was impressed by the storytelling in the Bureau, even though I didn’t think it was entirely original, taking more than a fair share of cues from Gilliam, Adams and a few games (including Myst).

(off-topic Myst conversation; sorry!)

.

Zifnab - 03 August 2013 04:08 AM

The worlds weren’t real places - they were written.

Technically, they were pre-existing places abiding by the laws of physics, that then got linked to; but that’s beside the point. My point is that they don’t make sense even within the context of the story.

Take the Selenitic age, for instance. It’s a pretty little island, with a brook and some crevice filled with lava. But then it has some very complex apparatus used to monitor the sounds of the island, and the main purpose of all this seems to hold the code to a locked door. And that’s where I ask: WHY? Why is there even a locked door on an island devoid of sentient life? And if you need a code for something (door, computer password, whatever), you either pick something you’ll remember or hide a note somewhere. You don’t put a big puzzle in plain sight that gives you the code once you’ve solved it. It’s inconvenient for you and ensures that anyone with a bit of free time is going to get your code. It makes no sense. And then, behind the door, you find a subterranean maze, with a Myst linking book at the end of it. Once again: WHY, WHY??? How does that make any sense for Atrus to put his linking book there? Imagine the situation: he’s visiting the age with the kids, one of them gets injured and has to be brought back to Myst quickly, so… so they spend 20 minutes navigating a maze to get to the linking book? The kid will just bleed to death! (Good riddance, I guess…)

Myst Island is the same. It doesn’t have a bed to sleep in or any kind of food, but it has four distinct caches for books opened by solving unrelated puzzles – and a giant rotating tower whose only purpose is to provide clues to these puzzles! Who does that? It has to be the most costly and inefficient security measure ever!

That’s the problem with Myst. You start exploring these beautiful, slightly surreal worlds, but the more you explore them, the more you realize that they make no internal sense whatsoever and exist only as pretty wrapping around arbitrary puzzles. The more you try to immerse yourself into the worlds, the more “gamey” the whole thing feels.

Riven addressed these problems very cleverly, as did the Bureau realm in Obsidian.

Oh, and no one complains about watching hundreds of cutscenes in Tex Murphy. For some reason those are an acceptable method of storytelling in games, but not reading journals, even in a game about writing.

If a Tex Murphy game started with an hour-long cutscene, most of it backstory to stuff that you’ll only encounter several hours later, and then had no story progression until 15 minutes before the end of the game, I’m sure people would complain too.

Since these days I both play Obsidian and have a Riven Replay (almost an annual habit), I would have made some kind of comments myself too. I would have liked to wait a bit more to make any comparisons, so that I have a more complete image from Obsidian than just the Bureau world, but since this conversation started nevertheless, I will take place.
The Bureau world, while not as visually breathtaking as Myst (yes, it was breathtaking at the time…) or Riven (that one still is…), is an extremely well made world that follows its own laws and everything in it have some purpose as long as these laws are taken into account. I have to agree with Kuru that Myst fails in comparison to Obsidian’s first world when the two are compared as worlds. Also Bureau offers more interactivity with other people (ok! Terminals!), thus providing the player with a more “alive” world. Riven did that differently, where the world provided hints of life. It showed villages, huts, etc and occasionally, some people at the distance…And all these with some well written background in the journals that explained EVERYTHING. No riddle in Riven was out of place, not even the marble puzzle. It did the trick quite well and it is one of the reasons it is the No1 game in my lists. Myst 3 handled that very well too, since the worlds were supposed to be “training rooms” for S&A, thus the “loneliness” and built-around- specific riddles purpose was entirely realistic! I have nothing against dead or lonely worlds, but they have to make sense.  I remember a question always rises me when I visit Spire in Myst 4. How the heck Sirrus built the Spider chair, the wirings, the mechanisms, etc? The only material around him was rocks and crystals! Where did he found the proper tools/materials??  I disagree however with whoever speaks bad (sic) against journal readings. Myst has an entire mythos behind it. It is only natural that any information provided is good. Didn’t Obsidian do that with the PDA at the beginning? Providing some useful info through reading? Yes, the Myst library is bigger, but on the other hand, it is not necessary to read that info (just any hints that are mostly given visually, sketched, etc) to understand what is going on and proceed/explore the game. The same goes for all Myst games. All journals are sources of information that you carry with you and you are free to read whenever you wish for. After all, as Zifnab said, it is a game about writing. Last but not least, that reminds me the usual Book Vs TV argument. Imagination VS Visual. I’ll take the first anytime. Makes you think, not just entertained. And that is a good thing for an adventure game.
To sum up, the Bureau world is an excellent example of a world well made, didn’t tire me at all, despite the difficult riddles and that’s because all of them made sense and followed the world’s logic. Another reason was the humour, which is offered mostly through the terminals (Now THAT is an advantage of dialogs and interactivity) and lightened greatly the bureaucratic logics around, making laughable situations that could be even frustrating otherwise (for example, every time you failed in the maze, the cards-giving terminal at the beggining gave you different, funny and fitting to the worlds logic responses about her promotion! ). However I haven’t seen thus far the character development that TerminusEst was praisning on, but it was just the first world…Waiting for the next world with anticipation, hoping for the same quality as the Bureau world. 

So, our Dear Leader hasn’t popped in yet to fire the starters’ pistol for the Spider Realm, but I’m so anxious I’m starting now and won’t be surprised if I don’t move from this chair for the next several hours! 

Dara100 - 04 August 2013 01:35 PM

So, our Dear Leader hasn’t popped in yet to fire the starters’ pistol for the Spider Realm, but I’m so anxious I’m starting now and won’t be surprised if I don’t move from this chair for the next several hours! 

This is Him, graciously giving you the all-clear to proceed with the next Realm if you are really itching to play. It’s still (kinda) early on Sunday where I am at but I realize that’s not the case everywhere

I will post a more formal start post, wrapping up the Forest & Bureau Realms, and previewing what you will need to watch out for in the Spider Realm (other than spiders of course )

But until then, believe it or not, I have some work to do.

Forest/Bureau Realms Post-Mortem:

Not much to say about the Forest Realm—there were a few hints on the PDA (there has been an unauthorized accessed from an unknown location using an unknown method even though there is no network in the campsite region?! hm…) but its purpose was to establish the background (me-Lilah, you-Max, we-genius scientists, inventors of CERES, you-missing, me-gone searching for you).

(Incidentally, isn’t it refreshing to see a gender reversal of the grey-bearded Damsel in Distress trope? Or have I been watching too much Tropes vs Women? That’s some great stuff BTW.)

The Bureau Realm was way more exciting. Not much happened there in terms of story development (after all, all we did was try to get to the Bureau Chief) but, as I had a chance to say countless times before, the sheer atmosphere of that place paired with the puzzles is incredible!

Some people already made some educated guesses about where and what the Bureau is exactly. There have been a couple of hints about how it came into being. One thing is for sure—it is entirely too similar to Lilah’s dream described in the PDA to be a coincidence.

I obviously loved the puzzles in this Realm which helped me persevere whenever I was stuck on one. The only one I didn’t really like and found to be somewhat trite was the orrery puzzle—a stand-alone mechanical puzzle… meh. As a consequence working on that (trial and error all the way) was quite a chore and the most unpleasant part of the Bureau. (Talking about puzzles, there was an interview with the developers who claimed that the cubicle puzzle took more than half of the man-hours devoted to the Bureau Realm, which itself was more than half of the man-hours for the entire game. Now you know which part the developers really liked )

Another thing that stumped me but in a different way was the meaning of the weird room with the miniature mariachi and the book. TimovieMan had no troubles on that front:

TimovieMan - 02 August 2013 07:58 AM

I think that room is designed to help you “decipher” the letters above each cubicle on that floor.
I wouldn’t have been able to read ‘sources’ without it. That one wasn’t clear at first…
Not that it was overly important, though…

The Spider Realm:

Timing: Most people were done quite quickly with the Bureau Realm which was significantly more complicated than the Spider Realm. So we are cutting our play time in half: you have until August 11 (next Sunday) to beat it.

The following categories are mildly spoilerish (no puzzle solutions or plot points of course—just what to expect) so read at your own risk.

Structure: The way this Realm is structured is as follows: the main factory floor is the hub and it has portals to four locations, each with a puzzle or two.

Puzzles: The puzzles here are mostly fair with one very notable exception: a puzzle involving a tree, which requires a modicum of hand-eye coordination. I loathe that puzzle! It is particularly jarring since it is so different from all the other puzzles in the game both in terms of quality and type… Oh, well. You’ve been warned.

Others:

Lady Kestrel - 03 August 2013 07:31 PM

I just want to let you all know that I’m still here but haven’t gotten very far yet.  Real life has intruded big time on my game playing lately, but I hope to get caught up in the next couple of days.

Keeping fingers crossed that you find the time!

millenia - 02 August 2013 08:55 PM

Allright, I’m feeling very smart and/or lucky now. I finished bureau realm in 2½ hours and I have neither played the game before nor I have the manual.

Two and a half hours?! An impressive feat! Well done!

Kurufinwe - 03 August 2013 02:22 AM

As a final example, I’d like to discuss that end sequence where you climb to the Bureau chief’s office by moving on the Atlas face completely against the rules (and gravity) and stepping on the monitors. Many Myst-style games have this sort of exhilarating eye-candy sequence as a reward to the player. But while, say, the Amateria roller coaster in Myst III (probably the most memorable sequence of that type) is completely gratuitous, it is not the case here at all. This sequence is not just about showing off this surreal environment one last time: it’s about the thrill of breaking the rules, the rush of freedom. Subconsciously (I think we’re going to be using that adverb quite a bit while discussing Obsidian), it completes the original message: It’s about being constrained by absurd, endless, byzantine rules and the necessity to bend them to achieve something – and how enjoyable it is to do so. As such, it’s everything but gratuitous eye candy: it’s a very, very clever bit of storytelling.

I loved this bit of analysis! It is so deliciously ironic that the culmination of Lilah’s rule breaking involves using the Bureau’s own Atlas statue with its forbidden spherical load to subvert the Bureau’s control.

Sefir - 04 August 2013 03:55 AM

However I haven’t seen thus far the character development that TerminusEst was praisning on, but it was just the first world…Waiting for the next world with anticipation, hoping for the same quality as the Bureau world. 

Let’s just say that the character development will be… of a different nature. As for the quality… it is hard to top (or even equal) the Bureau’s splendor.