LogFAQs > #951237642

#11. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC, 2018)
Company man woke me up. Said youd need ferry to the Obra Dinn.

You all really should, if youre into puzzle/mystery games at all, play this. This is one of the best Ive ever played. Ill mostly stick to how its played. There will be no spoilers here, but a lot of what I love about this game comes in the way you figure things out, and Im not gonna go into specifics there, not to mention some of the story reveals. IF YOU PLAN ON PLAYING THIS PLEASE DO NOT LOOK UP ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Beyond what I wrote here, and MSG in his.

I adore so much about this game. Its sort of a whodunnit, but not quite. If you enjoyed doing those sort of logic-based X/O grid puzzles (ie, Sandy, whose favorite color is not blue, finished ahead of Mr Roberts but before the pet foxs owner in the footrace and then you mark off everything with an X they cant be in a grid those puzzles), this game will be directly up your alley. And even if not, the way you solve stuff in this game, the way you explore the story, and the mechanics of how youre verified in how youre doing are brilliant.

The basic premise is you are an insurance claims adjuster in the 1800s (I know but this game is legitimately engaging and fascinating) checking out an old ship, the Obra Dinn, thats mysteriously shown up that had previously thought to be lost, and all the crew and passengers have vanished. Armed with a logbook that contains a drawing of everyone on board, a separate list of each name and their job/status, some basic ship info, and a bunch of blank pages- your job is to determine for each person on board, who they were (Ie, match a face to a name) and their fate. So you may have to say This is John Doe. He was shot by Greg Smith. Or This is Jane Doe, Johns sister. She fell overboard. How are you supposed to do this? Well, you have been equipped with a magic stopwatch. When you find someones remains, or something else representative of such, you can use the stopwatch and you are presented the 30 seconds or so of audio/dialogue leading up to their demise punctuated by the still moment in time in which that person perished (accompanied excellently by the soundtrack. Even if you dont like the music in this game, which I do, the way the music is used against these moments is phenomenal). And since its a still moment, you are usually presented with some awesome still frame of a death moment. Here, you can walk around and examine for any clues or whatever might help you.



I guess I need to mention the graphics at this point. There is (almost) NO animation at all in this game, with the dioramas being the main focus. Its old Vector DOS dithering-style graphics really make this feel like one of those ancient PC games, but it works perfectly well for the diorama style settings you explore, and it makes stuff looks really awesome in it. The whole way these death scenes are presented with the music and such are incredible. The voice acting is top-notch as well.

Anyway, it will not always be simple, because not everyone is going to be like Hey its me! Greg Smith! Prepare to die, John Doe! *BLAM*. You have to use the full powers of your deduction to determine these fates and most of the time, youre not going to be able to tell from just the one scene you saw. You might to have to use stuff you found out from other scenes to help you in this scene, maybe some process of elimination, maybe some other stuff. As you view scenes, they fill in in your book, and begin to tell the story of what happened, though you may not have a full understanding unless you solve everyones fates. Part of what makes this cool too, is the story starts at the end (the first few scenes fill out the last chapter) and from there, it becomes less linear and the story fills out in the order you explore it in.



In order to avoid complete guessing, your completed fates are verified in groups of 3. So once you completely fill out 3 different peoples complete fates, if you got all 3 right, the game will cut away and print them in your book. If you filled in 3 and this hasnt happened, you can wait, and figure out a 4th one, and then if 3 of them complete, you know which is wrong and to come back to it later. You can try to fix one you think is wrong, but since you were wrong to start with, youd probably be guessing, which you NEVER have to do in this game (which is a HUGE point in its favor, that everything is figure-out-able through deduction, never trial and error, but some of them can be very hard). If you play this, I definitely recommend avoiding trial-and-error except as a last resort, as its way more fun to figure stuff out.



This game simply is the best figure it out kind of game Ive ever played, and I absolutely loved solving everything and putting it together, and figuring shit out, and watching the story unfold, and trying to figure out based on the fates, the different character motivations and such (ie, you may know why John killed Greg, but youd like to know WHY). Youll be calling people by pet names for a while until you figure out who they are (oh yeah, shirtless guy). The story is pretty compelling and has a lot of twists, interesting characters, and WHOA!!! moments. And, just man. The way this game makes you think and the rewarding feeling you feel for solving it is unparalleled in any other game Ive ever played. I can never play this for the first time ever again, and I wish I could, but I love watching people play this for the first time, so if you ever do, please let me know and I would love to watch.



Also I think MSG used the perfect set of pictures, and I dont want to give any additional ones to avoid spoilers, so excuse me for just re-using his!

Oh and also this game was made by one person. Wild!

Next up: A game that I am in the minority of liking more than its much more popular sequel.

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~Wigs~ 3-Time Consecutive Fantasy B8 Baseball Champion
2015 NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPION NEW YORK METS