Obduction

"Backtracking: The Game"
This is a game about pulling a switch that opens one path but closes another. So you have to backtrack the long way around, do it again (or possibly several more times), and open a shortcut so you don't have to anymore.
This is a game about exhausting every path until you're stuck, wandering back and forth, remembering you're an adult who doesn't have hours to waste on this, looking up a walkthrough for a hint, and realizing you're just a dummy who overlooked a button.
The first western world, Hunrath, is the meat and potatoes of this game. It's fun to explore, dripping with lore, and opens up piece by piece with some clever puzzles.
The second mechanical world, Kaptar, is a dip in quality. Cool aesthetic, but it's mostly long winding paths and unsatisfying puzzles.
The third jungle world, Maray, gets hardcore. In classic Myst fashion you have to teach yourself an alien number system. This world focuses on a gauntlet of puzzles with a gimmick that is awesome in concept, but an absolute pain in the ass to execute on, forcing you back and forth through dozens of loading screens.
There's a lazy 4th world that only serves as an extra step. At this point the devs clearly had to rush this game out, because everything in the endgame is obtuse and inexplicable. A puzzle you can only brute force or look up, because there's no indication of what to do or when you've done it. An area you must revisit with no indication that it had changed. A "good" ending that requires an extra step for no reason.
I love navigational puzzles. I'm a weirdo who likes the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. But finishing this game reminds me why this format is so dated, especially now that we have the likes of The Witness or Outer Wilds to play. I'm only recommending it for the Myst nostalgia, for players who understand that playing a Cyan game is less about enjoyment and more about quieting the obsession in your brain to complete it.

Patience, Grasshopper
Despite some maddening flaws in the story and game mechanics, I quite liked it!
Here's what I learned, or wish I'd know earlier to keep the enjoyment up:
Explore and observe! Things DO work logically - you can observe to find solutions: Trace wires and pipes to their origins; Deduce working mechanics and the forces that influence them; Look for similarities and patterns to tie clues together with puzzles.
Be Patient! There is a grind or two involved. I played most of the game in VR, but found that it was easier to go back to desktop play if there was a tedious grind that needed to be overcome.
Explore again! Some paths become available because of things that you don't realize you've done. There is a logic to MOST of it. On the other hand, some things happen because characters have apparently reacted off-sreen to things you've done.
Set your VR graphics quality high! My settings initialized to LOW and it stole some of the joy out of the experience.
Don't get stuck! Save a backup copy of your progress, There is an icon for each entry of the LOAD GAME screen that lets you back up that file. Do it! I clipped through and got stuck in the environment a couple of times. I really thought that I'd have to sacrifice my progress. Fortunately, I was able to USE TELEPORT MODE in VR and later on the Desktop version to get myself out of the jam.
This game gave me legitimate nostalgic MYST vibes at times. There are some great moments of discovery. I wish I'd been just a LITTLE more patient with it an not consulted the solutions on the internet, but I was never quite sure if I was dealing with a glitch with the game, rather than just missing a clue. If you have the time, I think the slow journey makes it all worth while.

The quintessential Cyan game!
I mean Myst was fine and all, but placing the creator on the same level as his creations always felt a bit off to me, lazy narratively and ontologically dismissive, not to mention self-gratifying (yeah, we’re game designers and writing games feels a lot like creating worlds, so let’s make a game about that!), small minded and colonialistic in vision (John Walker was right to point that out) and an all around obvious metaphor. I was willing to ignore it in order to enjoy the puzzling – it wasn’t all that hard, ha ha – but I never accepted it as a worthy premise and always felt a little guilty for enjoying something so poorly staged.
Well, no more of that, Obduction does away with that weak premise and only keeps the mystery and the brush with the unknown that the Myst games are renowned for, the total suspension of your cognitive background, that putting you in a situation where everything you know is worth nothing and you have to learn it all anew in order to fit there. The sheer otherness of their setting, the genuine experience of alterity, of something else, the absolute opposite of familiarity and cosiness, that’s what the Myst games are all about and you’ll find that amplified tenfold in Obduction, a game where every little thing you gain, anything you “possibly, understand” feels like it was plucked at great cost (and neatly cut out in a small sphere) from an ocean of incomprehensibility.
A game, ultimately and intentionally, so alien in setting, so otherworldly in its perplexing design that it’s essentially about being abducted by aliens. :)

A good successor to Myst. This means, puzzles are not easy and consequently the game is not suitable for everyone. The surrounding setting could have been better exploited (it is large but with little interaction) for example, many kilometers traveled on foot to press a button as if it wanted to be an open space but in fact it is not. The story is unsatisfactory in many points ... Overall rating 7/10 good longevity but the full price is not worth it.

I can recommend this with a few caveats. I think all the major problems with the game can be summarized in 3 points:
1. Being required to slowly walk back and forth for puzzles (your character feels too slow even when running)
2. Long, stretched out animations to sit through repeatedly.
3. Puzzles that require sitting through load screens over and over.
These things combined have the capacity to almost ruin the game. Everything just feels too slow. Even opening up the menu to look at your photos is slow, because the menu isn't brought up instantly when you press ESC, and there is no shortcut to open the Photo album (that I know of).
Sometimes it happens that, long after you've intellectually solved a puzzle, you still have a lot of rote mechanical busywork or walking back and forth to do before you're done.
And finally, long stretches of the game will pass with you staring at load screens. I don't know what percentage of my play time was load screens, but I guarantee it adds up in an annoying way.
On the other hand, even these puzzles I find annoying to execute, I think are clever and inspired. I recommend this game because it delivers where it truly matters: the ideas are sound, the puzzle design is great, the game looks good, the story is intriguing. I enjoyed my time with it.
I feel that, for Cyan's next game, a few adjustments is all they need to deliver a truly wonderful experience. The challenges they have to face in the future all lie in making the puzzles not just fun to figure out, but also fun to mechanically execute.
There aren't many games out there to scratch this particular itch, and Obduction does a great job of it. I recommend it, if you have experience with this type of game and don't mind the annoyances that happen to come with this one.

Certainly a difficult game to review. It contains about as many strength as it's flaws. What at times felt like a very enjoyable and immersive world was also tedious and frustrating. Maybe I just didn't have enough patience and got caught up on some of the puzzles.
The necessity to physically have to backtrack made the narrative pace glacial and I would end up losing my train of thought during a an attempted solve.
The main game play mechanic involves swapping back in forth between worlds, often bringing and utilizing some of that physical environment with you. An interesting mechanic indeed, but was predicated on load times between worlds, which again slows the pace down and removes me from the world. That in addition to backtracking left me just wanting to get through and finish the game as the puzzle resolution and sense of progression didn't feel very satisfying. Which is a bummer as the worlds, story and characters are engaging. I didn't feel like I was able to interact with the world as much as I would like. It felt light on puzzles and overall content. I'd be solving and progressing but I didn't truly understand how or why which ultimately made me apathetic.
PROS+
1) Beautiful worlds that are both eerie and familiar.
2) Striking story with callbacks to old 1950's UFO tropes.
CONS-
1) SLOW pace, with lots of backtracking and aimlessly wandering. This could've been fixed with a faster sprint,
2) Limited world interactivity with objects and characters.
3)Have to sit through a myriad of load screens which is necessary to progress. Even with newer SSDs, these loads can take up to 15+ seconds. Do that about a 100 times and that's Obduction.
I ending up finishing the game feeling hollow. All of this build-up ending up falling flat. Which is a shame considering Cyan's heights with previous titles, even though I did have significant issues with Riven. I just imagine this game could've been so much more and brought the genre into the modern era, but instead felt mostly middling. Maybe I just wanted it to be a game that it was never going to be.
However, if you enjoyed previous Cyan titles like Myst and Riven you will most likely get some enjoyment out of Obduction. Despite it's flaw it's worth an experience. Without hints it will probably take you between 20-30hrs depending on how observant and quick you are. With clues and a walk through it can be done in about 10.

Another beautifully crafted adventure from Cyan. Although there are no linking books, Obduction has an interesting story, gorgeous and detailed landscapes, strange technology to explore, and an alien numbering system to figure out. It is a very large environment, with 4 realms and a community to save. Throw in teleporting and 'swapping' objects between realms and it is a lot to take in. The biggest challenge is understanding what to do and where to go next. You can solve items in any order but there are a number of 'prerequisite' tasks (such as opening gates or clearing obstacles) that are hard to get your head around.
I started the game when it was released in 2016 and was enjoying it until I got overwhelmed by a puzzle called 'The Gauntlet.' I ended up quitting and never tried again until now. I started a new game and used a guide through that puzzle (which I still can't see solving through trial and error) and completed the adventure, with both endings.
Game mechanics are easy. I played with a mouse and keyboard (although the controller is fully supported). The game auto-saves but provides you the ability to copy your current save to 10 slots. This is an important feature as it allows you to 'roll-back' if you get to far down a wrong path or have forgotten to give yourself access to an area. It was a lifesaver as I worked through 'The Gauntlet.' There is also an in-game camera that allows you to photograph items of interest rather than using a pencil and paper.
I highly recommend this game to those who enjoy exploring a world like Riven or Quern. There is enough lore to learn the story as you go, countless objects to examine, a lovely sound track, and breathtaking scenery.