Return of the Obra Dinn

I'll start off by saying that it's not for everyone. Between the "graphics" being monochrome, and the gameplay being exploratory, I know lots of people just won't enjoy this. That said, this game is incredible. A reinvention of the exploration genre, popularized in Myst, this game puts you in the role of a Death Inspector. Figuring out who the corpse of the day is, how they died, and who (or what) killed them, is a fascinating romp to explore this archaic ship. The "graphics" that so many lament, actually emphasize this gameplay as you're forced to peer closer to the pixels to actually understand what's going on. It becomes a Hidden Picture game in 3-D, where you pay attention to every detail, and every successful matching is an exzilerating payoff. (when you find 3 correct, you get confirmation that you're right.) As with his other games, Lucas Pope has created a completely original gameplay experience. The tale of the Obra Dinn, and the fate of its crew, will haunt your nights with visions of grizly death, and completion of the game, while satisfying, will leave you aching for the desolation. Many nights were spent (and made better while far from sober) exploring this madenning tale of death, sorrow, tragedy, revenge, intrigue, and wonder. I've never played it's like. This masterpiece deserves recognition as an artful continuiation of, nay replacement of, the Myst-like genre. If you like exploration games, and aren't put off by horror, and don't require Ray-Traced shadows to enjoy a game, then buy this. It's worth your time and exploration.

This is a little gem of a game. It's not terribly long. I clocked in under 12hrs which is a great length for this time of game. More of this would not have made it better. It's essentially a much more complex, larger version of the Clue boardgame just in a different -- and darker -- setting. I highly recommend it for anyone that enjoys piecing together clues. The way memories, how folks died, _who_ folks are... It's all very well done. I wasn't a huge fan of the art. It has it's own style and atmosphere. I'm sure it's charming to some but it strained the eyes more than I would've liked. Doesn't detract from the game though. Great game!

In my opinion one of the best mystery/narrativ puzzle games out there. I call it narrative puzzle because that is what you try to solve here. As you piece together one fate after the other, the big picture becomes ever clearer. I felt the puzzles had just the right difficutly for my taste - sometimes hard but never unfair. The best part for me, however, is the atmosphere this game manages to create. At first I was skeptical about the graphical style. But not only does it fit the scenery perfectly (realistic graphics would just not work that well here, I am sure), it also helps the gameplay along by forcing the player to look closely at the scenes they are presented with. The music adds to this as well, setting the right tone for these scenes. All in all an original masterpiece.

This game is excellent, but has little-to-no replayability. So, even though it's a single-player game, don't waste your most enjoyable play-through playing alone. I recommend playing through it on a TV with your nerdiest friends and family. I played through it with my in-laws over the Christmas holiday, and it was the preferred activity for any time the kids were asleep. I'm sorry it's over.

This game is an extended "Whodunnit" murder puzzle with 60 fates to be resolved. You have a crew manifest, a picture of all people, but you must not only correlate who on the picture is which crew member, you also have to find their cause of death. The game helps you by locking in correct answers for every few you get right. The most fun is the unrolling of what happened, when you travel backwards through the ship's fraught history by chains of murder scenes. It gets kind of tedious when you have several similar candidates (same country of origin/ethnicity) to chose from, several people doing the same jobs. But if you pick up on clues, you can at least group the people efficiently. You can assign a crew member role to people before identifying them - like "unknown officer", "unknown steward", etc. Wish I noticed sooner. In fact, the game pretty much gives away some identities in ways that I thought were too easy to assume. What doesn't help is the graphics of a game. Sometimes you think somebody is a certain ethnicity or origin and then it turns out they aren't. Also, navigating between clues and "frozen in time" murder scenes can be terribly time-consuming due to navigating the ship and jumping through the scenes. Visual connections between scenes can be especially hard to spot - I guess it takes the right kind of observer. The amount of clues in this game is staggering and on one occasion even the game itself cheats when giving you info. [SPOILER: Keeping an eye on who is in a scene is more helpful than you might reasonably expect.] The atmosphere of the game is great, I liked the music, and the events that unfold are dark and interesting.