This guide describes the shortest path through Obsidian for QA purposes. This contains heavy spoilers, skips several optional puzzles, bypasses ways of finding solutions, and is generally not very fun, so only do this if you need to quickly progress through the game to test something.

Press space bar to skip transitions

You can press the space bar key to skip most point-to-point transition FMVs. This greatly reduces the amount of time needed to complete the game.

Forest Chapter

Turn left and enter the tent.

Open the right sleeping bag, then open the journal.

Power on the journal and click Continue.

View the following journal entries (you don't need to play the videos, just open them)

Mail

Open all 3 videos.

Projects

Open the following:

Downloaded Speech Prep (First entry in left column) DREAM-spider (Second entry in left column) DREAM-red tape (Fifth entry in left column)

Turn off the journal, leave the tent, turn left. You should hear Max scream. Go forward to start the Bureau chapter.

Bureau

Look down, click the elevator button. Go forward to the information desk. Turn left, then go forward, then turn left again and go forward twice to reach the bookshelf area.

Turn left, go forward, then forward-left to the ladder on the left side. Pan up, then go forward to climb the ladder. Go forward, turn right, and press the button to ride the elevator to the library.

Library

Turn right, then go forward once, then forward-right to the aisle with "STU-TRO"

Turn right and open the top-right cabinet, labeled "TOSS-TRAN"

Press the double-up button 4 times and the up button 5 times to locate the "TRADESMAN" document, and take the document.

Back out of the filing cabinet, turn right, then go forward-right, turn left, and go forward 3 times to reach the light carousel. Pull the lever right, then turn right twice and go forward twice to start the cube maze.

Cube maze

Take your cards from the vidbot greeter. The way the cube maze works is you can enter any outer room, but must have cards to transfer into another room.

Assuming the maze is laid out as:

0 (Goal)	1	2
3	4	5
6	7 (Main Entrance)	8

the fastest path is 1, 2, 5, 8, 5, 2, 1, 4, 3, 0.

If you need to check the "attempt to get stuck in the middle room" scenario, the path to attempt to get stuck from room 3 is: 2, 5, 4, 7, 8, 5, 4, 3, 4, the path to attempt to get stuck from room 7 is 7, 4, 5, 2, 5, 4, 7, 4, and the path to attempt to get stuck from the north room is 1, 4. There is no way to get stuck from room 5. There would be if the max card limit worked the way the scripts are set up by going 7, 4, 5, 4, which would cause a card overflow if you tried exiting through room 7, but doing that just gives you a fifth red card.

Anyway, once you reach room 0, talk to to the vidbot to stamp the document, then back away, turn left, and go forward to exit the maze.

Turn left, go forward twice, then forward-left, then turn right and go forward twice to return to the carousel. Pull the lever to the right twice, then turn right twice and go forward twice to enter the Immediate Action area.

Immediate Action

Go forward to approach the booth. Turn left, then go forward-left to the clock puzzle.

Turn the middle dial to the right 4 times, then the bottom dial to the left 3 times, and pull the lever to fix the clock.

Turn right, then go forward-right to return to the booth. Turn left, and talk to the vidbot to submit the document.

Turn right once and you'll be contacted by the rebel. Turn right again and go forward 3 times to return to the carousel.

Pull the lever to the left once, then turn right twice and go forward twice (ignoring the rebel) to reach the phone puzzle.

Phone Puzzle

Drag the red line on the left slider all the way to the bottom, the line on the middle slider to 1/4 way from the bottom, and the line on the right slider to 1/4 way from the bottom, then push the red button to enter the balancing rock room.

Drag the mountain downward so that it faces you, then turn around and go forward twice to enter the sky face.

Finale

Turn left, go forward, turn left, go forward, turn right, and go forward-left to approach the ladder base.

Turn right, pan up, go forward to climb the ladder.

Go forward-right, then forward to the information desk. Turn right, then go forward to step on the information vidbot. When it finishes yelling at you, go forward 3 times to start the Spider chapter.

Spider Chapter

Go forward twice, then turn left, and go forward-left to approach the pylon. (If you get an assert here, click Ignore).

Look up, then go forward twice to start the air puzzle.

Air Puzzle

Look down, then click the ball to enter the ball. Click the console in the center to start the air puzzle.

The goal of the air puzzle is to push the balls so that all 3 light squares except for the middle are filled. The simplest way to do this is to "rotate" the balls around the side clockwise, that is, use the outermost blowers to push a balls around the edge until you're ready to do otherwise.

First, push all of the balls to the edges and rotate them until all of the balls are in an "L" shape on the bottom edge and left edge.

Push 1 ball to the top-right, then push it down to the fourth row, then push it as far left as it will go. Then, push the left-most column up, and the bottom-most row left. Repeat this process 2 times so all 3 of the light spots on the fourth row are filled.

Push 1 ball to the top-right, then push it down to the second row.

Push the other ball in the second row as far right as it will go, then push the left column up once and the bottom row left.

Push the ball in the second row as far right as it will go, then push the left column up once. Repeat this process 1 time so all 3 light spots in the second row are filled.

Push the left row as far up as it will go, then push the top row as far right as it will go.

Push the right column down once to position a ball in the middle row. Push the middle row left twice.

Push the right column down once to position another ball in the middle row. Push the middle row left once.

Go backwards twice to return to the main puzzle area. Look up to look at the tornado.

Drag the gun and release it to fire a projectile. If the tornado is in a bad position, you can look away and look back to randomize its position until you get an easier one. Shoot the tornado to finish the puzzle, then turn around and go forward to enter the control room.

Look down and drag the card into the second slot on the panel.

Turn around and go forward 4 times, then forward-left once. Turn right, go forward once, then turn left, then go forward once to return to the front of the spider.

Turn left, go forward-right, then go forward-left to the left pylon. Look up, go forward twice, and wait for the cinematic to complete to start the metal puzzle.

Metal Puzzle

Go forward-right twice, then forward once, look left, then go forward once to enter the lab.

Drag the first red vial into the left container at the top, then the third yellow vial to the right container. (Note that there are currently 2 bugs with this: The click area of the vials is MUCh larger than it should be, so you may have to drag from the left of the vials to drag the correct one, and it may get stuck after pouring the vial. If the second bug happens, hit Esc to go to the menu and Esc again to leave it and it should fix itself.)

Press the button to react the components. Take the orange container, then look right twice and go forward to leave the lab. Go forward once, then turn right and put the container in the reactor. Turn left, go forward, turn right twice, press the button, and wait for the cinematic to complete.

Turn around and go forward-left, and then forward to return to the control room.

Look down and drag the card into the third slot.

Turn around and follow the steps from the end of the previous puzzle to return to the front of the spider.

Turn left, go forward-right, turn right, and go forward-right to approach the right pylon. Look up and go forward twice to start the fire puzzle.

Fire Puzzle

This is a timing puzzle and there is no simple way to do it. You have to click the sun to start a series of lightning bolts that must contact the spikes on the ground when the tree is touching them. Holding the mouse button down will pause the corresponding tree limb, allowing you to adjust their timing.

You probably want to solve them in order, i.e. get the second one timed until you can click the sun and have it hit both of the first 2 spikes, then adjust the third until it can hit 3 in a row, and so on until all 5 are solved.

Once all 5 are hit in the same activation, the tree will burn. Turn around and go forward to return to the control room.

Look down and drag the card into the fourth slot.

Look down and drag the card into the third slot.

Turn around and follow the steps from the end of the previous puzzle to return to the front of the spider.

Turh right and go forward-left twice, then turn right twice, and go forward-right to approach the pylon. Look up and go forward twice to enter the oil puzzle.

Oil Puzzle

Go forward-right to approach the dowser. Set the coordinates to 038.1 and press the button to solidify the castle.

Back away from the dowser and go forward twice to go to the wave puzzle.

To solve the wave puzzle, you need to get the waves in sync. Moving your mouse over any wave will pause all of the waves, so the easiest way to complete the puzzle is to wait for a wave to overlap a seam in the grid and fix the seam, then line it up with other waves in the same row.

Once you're finished, the water cube will come out of the ground.

Turn right twice and go forward twice. Turn right twice and approach the dowser again. Enter the coordinates 133.5 and push the button.

Turn left twice and go forward to return to the control room.

Look down and drag the card into the first slot.

Control Room Connect-The-Dots

You need to connect the dots into a spider shape. Each dot only connects to 2 other dots so just click around. You can look down at the panel for the approximate shape.

Once the spider shape is completed, turn around and go forward 4 times to start the Inspiration chapter.

Inspiration Chapter

In progress

Conductor Chapter