Obsidian Download PC

While checking Lilah's e-mail on her PDA at the campsite, the player hears Max scream in the distance. Running to check on him, she discovers a large black outcropping on the side of the mountain, the Obsidian for which the game is named. The glassy structure opens, and Lilah falls inside, leading to the beginning of the game itself.

Ceres' artificial intelligence has become sentient. In an attempt to figure out who she (the A.I. refers to itself as female) is, Ceres has used her nanobots to create a world. She seems to be discovering all the faults and downsides of humanity, and asking herself whether or not the Earth wouldn't be better off without people on it.

Unlike other Artificially Intelligent supercomputers, Ceres was not made conscious by learning about humans directly through a central device, but instead through the growing complexity of her nanobots, creating a distributed intelligence, akin to that of a beehive or anthill. In order to communicate with Lilah and her partner, the nanobots constructed a female android known as "The Conductor", with a white porcelain, human head with silver eyes and a bizarre electrical halo cap on top. Every time this android speaks, her (or its) mouth does not move, but instead the sides of her face flash light blue with every syllable.

During the complexity, Ceres, for unknown reasons, thought of her two creators as mother and father, begging for approval, yet able to change the world completely on her own. Max, suspicious of this, was imprisoned within his own invention: The Programmable Molecular Assembler, despite the fact that the PMA was the very thing that created her. Why the guide addresses Ceres as "The Conductor" is unknown, though the meaning could be understood in one of the game's endings.

The game is extremely linear until the end, although two realms involve areas that can be accessed in a number of different combinations. At that point, the player has the option of either talking Ceres out of destroying humanity, or ceding that she is correct. Depending on the choice made, the game plays one of two endings. One ending shows Ceres destroyed and Lilah returning to the original world with Max. The other ending shows Lilah return to a world which has been "rebooted" by Ceres, who in its misguided urge to cleanse the planet has erased the source of the pollution, mankind, leaving Earth in a bleak, primordial state, which Ceres considers decontaminated. The final shot of the second ending, in which Lilah stands on a cliff overlooking a wasteland, is identical to a painting seen earlier in the game.

Environments

The environments in the game are all pre-rendered computer-generated backdrops and movies, similar to those found in Myst or Starship Titanic. The visuals are very abstract and illustrative, resembling the work of the surrealist painters. Each of the four environments reflects the main characters' subconsciousnesses, as well as shedding light on the overall story through the use of symbolism.

The first area, exploring the character of Lilah's subconscious, deals with the themes of bureaucracy involved in getting the Ceres project funded and realized. At first, Lilah cannot be helped due to the bureaucratic protocols of the realm, as well as the main inhabitants, sentient CRT Monitors known only as "VidBots". However, as she progresses, she eventually figures out how to use the cramped and confining protocols to her own advantage.

The second area explores Max's subconscious, and directly references the creator's role in its creations- in this case, it deals with the paranoia and reality of the creation, Ceres, attaining a life of its own to a point where Max, the builder, is no longer needed. Many symbolic references are made here about its various components—electricity, oil, air (for pneumatic components), and metal.