Return of the Obra Dinn

What more can be said than that this must've been the most satysfying 12 hours I've spent in a game? I was originally drawn in by the artstyle, I mean look at it - it's utterly unique, but this game is more than simply pretty graphics - it's a thrilling experience. The gameplay might literally only be WASD, MOUSE1 and MOUSE2 but Mr Pope has here created a game that's such a refined experience that there isn't a need for anything else, heck, you could probably figure it out without ever touching MOUSE2. Wait...figure it out? Yep! This a detective/puzzle game, a detective/puzzle game where-in you're a insurance inspector (sounds absolutely thrilling...right?) armed with a magical pocketwatch that gives you the same ability to see the past as various drugged-up Sherlock Holmses of yesteryear, with which you're let loose on the tens of corpses scattered across the various decks of the ship and have to make sense of how they ended up there. You'll have to combine your watch-induced visions of the past and the clues scattered about the ship with a passenger-list and an illustration to clue out the 60 fates that once made up the crew and passengers.

This game is truly superb. I'd recommend it to anyone even vaguely interested in the idea of playing a detective, solving a mystery, or anything of the like. I've played a lot of those games, and this has cemented itself in my top 5 immediately. I finished it completely in 6h40 minutes total, but I think most people would take a little longer since I have a lot of practice with this type of game. The tale is not only interesting and grand in and of itself, but the way in which it is unfolded creates a tantalizing experience. I'll purposely not tell you anything else about it, because the unfolding story is the greatest part of the game, and telling you anything about it instead of letting you experience it would be a bloody crime against you, the game, and mystery stories as a whole. The central mechanic of the game is one that, done well, can be extremely interesting, and done poorly, could make things a chore. Here it is done as perfectly as I can conceive of, to be honest. Take your time, look at everything, take notes unless you have a good memory and a good mind for faces and names (I took the wager to play without notes, so it is very much doable, it's just quite a bit harder). Don't let the visual style push you away either, because it genuinely looks amazing in game, and contributes heavily to the overall atmosphere. On that note, the music is gorgeous and engrossing every step of the way. The voice acting is also very good, i did not have a single issue with any of it. If you have issues with graphic sounds, depicting rather gruesome ends, you may have some moments where you'll want to mute. Rest assured, you'll get a transcript of everything that was said for every event you view, so it will not cause great additional difficulty. This is not just a good mystery game, it is honestly one of the best games I have played this decade. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

As long as you can get behind the graphical choices, you'll definitely enjoy yourself playing Return of the Obra Dinn. The game is not as visceral as Papers Please and the gameplay can be marred by some clunkiness, especially with the keyword system, particularly in other languages like French, but the game is otherwise excellent. Great story, excellent atmosphere. It transitions from a more adventure/discovery first half of the game, where you discover what happened to the Obra Dinn, to a more investigative later half as you piece together the more obscured fates of some crew members. The soundtrack is particularly excellent and the game boasts great attention to detail. I finished the game 100% in a bit under 10 hours, but you can definitely put a lot more hours into the game listening to the different kind of clues and relying on different hints, keeping you entertained for more. Since Return of the Obra Dinn is one of those games where most of the time your lack of progress will be your own fault and you can only blame yourself for not getting it, the length of two peoples' playthroughs can vary a lot. The fact that your brain wracking determines your progress "most of the time" and not "all the time" is what holds me back from a 5 star rating, but I can highly recommend this game. Also this stylized 3D feels like an excellent alternative to pixel art indie games, so props for that.

All of the murder mystery games that I've played and seen focused on some far-fetched series of puzzles that you should solve to move the story. You should complete one puzzle after another in exact order to progress. Some times these games will hold you by the hand and scream some clues at you like: " MISSIS SOANDSO HAS BLOOD ON HER BOOTS!!! HER HANDS HAVE BRUISES LIKE SHE WAS KILLING THAT MAN LAST NIGHT WINK-WINK NUDGE-NUDGE!!!!!" Sometimes these games will have some puzzle that you just don't understand or maybe you can't spot something which ultimately resolves with pixel hunting and other silliness. The point is that this "genre" of games pretty much was defined and it was (IMHO) stupid. And Lucas Pope did it again... The author of this magnificent game may have been known to you by his previous game "Papers, please" which was a genre-bending or even genre defining experience in game design. Return to the Obra Dinn made by exactly this habit of the author - to ignore conventions and barriers of genres. It almost seems like he was mad as me by this void of proper games that will make you feel like Sherlock Holmes or some other great detective. And he made this game as if to fix and revitalize this dreadful and un-dead genre. PROS: - The game will show you the whole story (except for one chapter) of what happened regardless of how good you are as a detective. No stream of stupid pixelhunting puzzles that lock your progress. - No stupid hand holding and screaming clues at you. There are some clues that are blunt, some are very subtle, but nothing is in-your-face press-e-to-sherlock - You have one and only one thing to worry about. The main game mechanic is simple to understand and the game builds on it effortlessly. No new out of the blue and far-fetched puzzles! - Music is superb! - Sound design, voice work and the direction is godlike. CONS: - The opening of every new scene may drag a tiny-bit at times :(

I love puzzle games. This is the first puzzle game that in a while where I had to break out pen and paper and actually take notes. I got about 15 fates in and I was like, "Well, I guess that's all this game is going to give me". Then I looked closer and slowly started to solve the rest of the fates, and a majority of the fates took some serious mental straining. To ding the game a little, I wasn't exactly sure how to solve some of the fates, but through a process of elimination, but even that felt rewarding. This game was refreshing to me, especially after I just got through with playing one of the Myst games, which, no offense, the world doesn't make much sense and the puzzles suffer because of it. This game, even though there were obvious fantasy elements, felt like close to reality. Loved it. I'd like more games with a similar game mechanic.