Return of the Obra Dinn

This is generally a good game with a few problems. (no spoilers in review) You have to explore a number of scenes on a doomed ship, and figure out exactly what happened to each crew member. Each scene gives a bit of the puzzle, and put together you can figure out the whole picture. The graphics are, IMO, amazing, but I certainly understand how they might be polarizing. The author developed amazing new dithering techniques and has published papers about it. The deductions are mostly reasonable and interesting, there are a few very very subtle things that we did eventually figure out. That does give a good sense of accomplishment when you get it. The game generally makes it easy to track your discoveries and take notes of partial information that you have. There were a couple things that either seemed like a stretch or it was hard to find exactly the right way to input them as answers, but overall no huge complaints. My big complaints are about the UI. Ultimately, I have two major complaints. First, is getting back to a scene you've previously been to. You have to find your way back to the part of the ship where it happened, and interact to get to that scene. That's bad enough, to have to remember more or less where each scene happened so you can return to get more clues in the future. Even worse, some of the scenes are only accessible from *inside other scenes*. Sometimes having to navigate multiple scenes to get to where you want it. It was a huge source of frustration, and ruined the immersion because suddenly you're fighting against the game instead of thinking about where clues are leading you. Second, the game continually forces you into new scenes. Many MANY times I was exploring looking for clues in one scene, and then suddenly you're uprooted into entirely new information. This only compounded the navigational issues because then you have to remember to go back to the previous scene when you're finally allowed, remember where to go, go there, and remember what it is you were looking for. This more than anything is my largest complaint with the game. It continually ignores the players will and hijacks you into its forced and poor pacing. I certainly enjoyed the game and would recommend it, though with a few caveats.

Quel émerveillement devant un nouveau classique... d'un nouveau genre? Nous voici face à un style de jeu de détective très original. Pas un crime, mais un équipage complet disparu au retour de l'Obra Dinn. En votre possession, un journal très détaillé à remplir, ainsi qu'une montre magique vous permettant de visualiser les derniers instants de chaque cadavre à bord. A vous de reconstituer les différents actes de cette longue tragédie maritime, ainsi que d'identifier tous les passagers, et leurs destins funestes. Au programme donc, reconstitution morbide, collecte d'information et vrai processus de réflexion. Car les infos déterminantes sont rares, et il faudra déduire beaucoup de choses. Observation requise pour ne pas rater les noms et relations nommés, les détails vestimentaires, les modes de travail, les positions et les localisations, les groupes ethniques et sociaux à bord du navire. Une œuvre sublime, qui nous aspire dans le récit d'une histoire sombre et fantastique. N'hésitez pas à vous jeter dessus!!

Nice detective game

Spoiler Alert!! What a unique game! What an amazing way to tell the story, which in a way reminds me of Nolans' Memento (I am aware the pocket watch is also called Memento mortem). Great music! Like always setting the tone of the scene perfectly. And the surprises of every scene, what is it going to be, what happened? How did they die? The kraken chapter was soo cool. Same with Soldiers of the sea with the shadowy monsters. And amazing voice acting imo. And now to the core gameplay: deduction. It has big big strengths but with that come some inherent flaws. Just like some YouTube videos say, basically everything is a clue. Which one only realizes step by step. What is being said, what language it's said in, what accent one can hear. What place people can be found in, who they can be found with, they can be judged by their clothes, what they are doing, when they are doing it. What the time line is, knowing when people have died or are about to die. The amount of additional knowledge gained in the subtext of the book. Knowing and understanding the titles and who these people would be and what they would be doing. The deduction was so much fun and getting three fates right was evyrtime so satisfying. Studying bullet trajectories, following up on events that were discussed in the future. The sheer amount of people and action happening is very overwhelming in the beginning. But having a gigantic mind map of everything that has happend and what I have prepered prior was very satisfying as well. I just wish I had written down what I wanted to remember. Because one can't really play this game in one sitting. And thus I forgot key informations I actually saw but didn't remember in the end. Which made the last 20% of the deductions a little bit tedious, trying to "brute force" the way through to the answer. Then again I'm very proud of myself having been able to deduce soo many things as is. Sometimes getting things right in accident because I'd just said, yeah this guy is a standin for this group of people in general. Maybe that made me sequence break some parts of the game, I can't really know. The pacing I thought was amazing, different memories having me going back into them to really see every clue. As I said up until the end, where I'd forgotten some of the important clues I just saw a day or two ago. I loved however that I could, even still, reverse engineer how I could have gotten to every single conclusion, which calmed down my pedantic brain. Great story, very satisfying gameplay. A game that makes you feel smart. Amazing and dramatic scene setting with very atmospheric music made in total for a great game, with small, selfinduced pacing issues in the end. 9/10

Amazing! Was really pleased by the story and the process, totally worth the money. In-game navigation may seem a bit tricky at start, but you'll get used to it.

很好的游戏 非常有创意

This game sat, un-played for 8 years. Was hooked 5 minutes in. 16 hrs later... pleasantly surprised by Return of the Obra Dinn. You are asked to determine the identities and fates of 60 souls abord a ship thought lost years ago. As you investigate the story of what happened onboard is played out in pieces and out of order. Information comes in many forms, an accent, a haircut, a uniform, association, occupation etc. Connecting all the dots is up to the player. There is no hand holding, the player is forced to figure it out. This makes for some satisfying moments when the penny drops and you finally figure a part out. The game is a great example of less being more. Only 2 colors, only snapshots of the monent someone dies, only portions of dialog but ever part has meaning to your investigation, if you can make the connection. It's got a nice sound track, voice acting and sound production are outstanding. The whole game is well executed, very tight, no filler or fluff. If you're perceptive it's probably a 4-6 hr playthrough. Strong recommend