Ob`duc´tion, n.1. The act of drawing or laying over, as a covering.

Obduction is an all-new, real-time, first-person adventure that harkens back to the spirit of Cyan’s earlier games Myst and Riven. Obduction resurrects that incredible feeling of suddenly finding yourself in the middle of a new world to explore, discover, solve, and become part of.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of Myst, one of the best-selling computer games in history. The Myst name is widely recognized as uniquely defining a new kind of gaming - amazingly immersive worlds where the point is to understand your environment rather than test your reflexes. The Obduction project will take what Cyan knows about creating deeply immersive worlds and apply it to an entirely new game with fantastic scenery, incredible architecture, compelling story, and exceptional challenges.

Obduction will be built with the same framework that made Cyan's earlier games such a wonderful experience: stunning landscapes, deep storyline, engaging characters, dramatic soundscapes, and challenging yet intuitive puzzles. Obduction is an entirely new property, delivered using one of the most powerful game development technologies available today. Obduction is an adventure game for the new millennium that stays true to the concepts that made the genre great.

At the base funding level, Obduction will be developed for both Windows and MacOS, with a targeted release of mid-to-late 2015.

The game is being designed with a flexible scope in mind, so that as the budget grows, the game grows. More places; more puzzles; more mystery; more complexity; more adventure!

Gameplay:
Obduction’s gameplay is best described by playing Myst or Riven. If you haven’t played those games then you’ll need to know a few things. You end up in this new world without a huge cinematic or cut scene that gives you lots of information. We’re not trying to motivate you artificially by making you into someone else. This is you in this place - you have to act and react like you are really here. That will mean you have to scope out your surroundings - move around, look around, turn over a few stones, push a few buttons. Yes, there’ll be buttons… and levers, and cranks, and valves, and pumps, and more. As you explore there will be some places that are locked, or blocked, or walled, or crusted over, or more.
So your play will involve finding out how to get past those “challenges” by learning what they are, and how they work. Sometimes the puzzles can be really simple - like just turning on a light. And other times the puzzles are insidiously tough - like learning how a huge boiler works so you can open it up, climb inside, and crawl through the drain (like in Riven.) But it’s important to us that the puzzles are part of the landscape and culture, so that it doesn’t seem like there’s just a random vault with a random match in it. (Yeah, some of Myst had a bit of arbitrary-ness, but try Riven or Myst Online/Uru and you’ll see how our design evolved and just what we’re talking about.)
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