Please Get To Obsidian By Rocket Punch Games

2 5月 2023

in my search to find something as interesting as MYST, i stumbled upon a rather obscure title that people were calling it as a science fiction-styled MYST. i don't really agree with this comparison for things i'll explain later, but i do believe Obsidian can stand alongside that legendary title as one of the great FMV adventure titles out there.

Obsidian is a game that starts off in the woods. as you advance through the woods, you get hit by this dynamic soundtrack that is synced to your movement and the surrounding world. for a rather simple trek through the woods, it is a surprisingly evocative way to open the game with staff credits.

and then you find a tent where, inside, you can read through a PDA full of emails and FMVs about nanotechnology and a dude with really bad shorts. you learn that these two characters, leila (who you are playing) and max, are taking a well-deserved break from their work putting up a satellite that's fixing the environment through nanomachines. their vacation spot? the wilderness they've restored to full health.

don't worry about that weird rock formation in the forest though. i'm sure nothing bad is going to happen.

as you leaf through their diary entries and vlogs, you learn that the two have these vivid dreams: leila dreams of bureaucracy and max of fixing some mechanical spider. very normal dreams like my own.

however, max doesn't seem to be around so you start searching for him and reach the weird rock formation. all of a sudden, it "opens up" and now you're in the middle of the bureaucracy leila dreamed about.

and the game properly begins there.

what makes Obsidian utterly interesting to me is how it pingpongs between different moods and subject matter. you're laughing your way through tedious bureaucratic processes: an eye doctor whispers so softly you can't hear what they're saying, so you're told to meet the ear doctor who's annoyed that you can't see them very well and they refer you to the eye doctor; there's a hints booth that gives you unhelpful advice; and you can fill out a questionnaire that asks about how you eat your ice cream. this whole section seriously made me laugh. but once you get to max's spider dream, everything becomes this distressing allegory about the emergence of artificial intelligence and how sentient machines will master the four elements.

these elements by themselves are nothing special. indeed, apart from the environmental theming, the game is a mishmash of ideas. however, it is this mishmash, this rapid oscillation between different ideas that defines the game for what they are. each area is a dream by a character and there's no smooth transition between dreams of different people. when you get out of leila's dream, you're being tunneled into the max's dream through fmv vortexes. it's an unusual framing device that makes the game distinctive from MYST where the channeling books, the mcguffin technology that make traversing through the different Ages possible.

this is where the MYST comparison really falters for me, but it's also why i think Obsidian is such an interesting game. the MYST series is all about the grounded logic of the worlds they're in; you're fiddling with contraptions that people would use to go around to places. you're just someone troubleshooting alien technology in a way. this is something many MYST clones and the sequels not developed by Cyan don't get: the best puzzles of MYST and Riven don't follow some adventure game logic but instead a curiosity on how things work and is directly related to worldbuilding; Riven after all tasks you to become a geologist of the islands in the end. Obsidian doesn't care for that at all; it's closer to the pre-MYST adventure games and it revels in its dream logic, but it never goes to the infamous fridge logic sierra games love to do. instead, it's about creating these dream worlds that have clearly established rules and that's it, no explanation. there's certainly "logic" and "physics" in each dream, but they don't go out their way to be explained other than "dreams are cool, man".

and i think that adherence to simplicity is what makes the game really stand out for me. you're going through these gorgeous FMV sequences and alien visuals without much sense of what is going on. it's like going through a theme park attraction in a way. and the game is really flashy about it: musical jingles play when you move into a new sub-area and you get a different soundscape that changes the entire atmosphere. Obsidian is a flurry of emotional experiences and doesn't really stop until the game ends. the acting and the writing are solid and it's impressive how the staff is able to adapt to these different moods. i'm very fond of max's actor. his performance is charismatic when he needs to. i cannot fault Obsidian for anything FMV-related. it is a genuinely beautiful game that keeps me hooked and dreaming for more.

unfortunately, i do think the lategame puzzles are a bit rough: there's a bizarre timing puzzle that just sucks, many puzzles devolve into "just solve this chess-like puzzle" and don't really add to the experience of the game and story, and the difficulty is all over the place. the lategame puzzles with the exception of one hilarious programming puzzle feel like they're added because of the belief that games like it need puzzles. as much as i like the game for doing something very different from MYST and its clones, the consistent difficulty level and MYST's ability to make puzzles enrich your player experience are the things that i wish this game had learned.

and i think Obsidian's ending is a bit too abrupt. one can muse about how dreams like this must end and they usually end abruptly, but the lack of some epilogue hurts the title a bit.

but honestly, i think Obsidian as an entire package is incredible. i'll say it again: it's a shame this game is rather unknown except to adventure game aficionados and has not seen even a GOG re-release because it's really, really good. it shows off everything great about pre-rendered and FMV games: lovable actors in dreamy landscapes, unique worlds, and interesting stories not possible in games before and after this era. MYST can be remade into a VR game, but i cannot imagine Obsidian being anything but this janky pre-rendered adventure game. it's a lovely title and i would love to see more people play it.

if you're interested in a proper overview of the game, Obscuritory wrote a really good article detailing the story beats and the themes. for those too unnerved by FMV adventure shenanigans, there's a recent longplay that has recorded the journey from start to finish. people who are interested in playing the game can do so through ScummVM without any installation nonsense: just drag all the contents of the first disk into your favorite empty folder and the contents of the other four disks will directly go to the "Obsidian" subfolder that came with the first disk.