I feel like I played this game at an incredibly fortunate time in my life. Struggling to commit to any game for more than a few hours I was burned out on most modern game genres such as shooters, platformers and RPGs. When I first saw this recommended to me on steam during a sale I was intrigued by the art-style and main gameplay mechanic. I didn't have particularly high hopes I just knew it was highly rated and had a unique aesthetic. If you had told me I was going to play through the game in one long 8 hour session whilst losing track of the time I'd have been shocked. This game is good. REALLY good.

Mechanically the game is fairly simple. You walk up to a corpse, use your stopwatch on it and you get several pieces of information. It starts with fully voiced dialogue of the moments leading up to the death. Then once that finishes you get the big picture, the actual moment of death in frozen tableau. One of the most impressive things about this game for me is the way it sets your expectations for what the game will throw at you and then continually makes you re-assess what in the actual fuck is happening.

Once having viewed the scene you are asked to fill in notebook and describe who died and what killed them, and later what happened to the passengers who went missing off screen. Did they die? Did they escape? You don't have the answer spelled out for you and have to make a lot of educated inferences to finish the game. While some games are easy and use puzzles to make you "feel" smart, this game feels both challenging and rewarding. I never got stuck and had to use a guide. Meticulous checking off of names and revisiting scenes with newfound context is the name of the game here. Really great stuff.

This game and Outer Wilds are two games that completely changed how I viewed what games could be. I can easily say I have never played anything quite like it. A must play.

AHOY!
Ao contrário dos infelizes tripulantes do navio, eu adorei cada segundo dentro do Obra Dinn.

Tudo isso em meio ao caos, suicídios, mortes, monstros marinhos, doenças que assolaram o local, preconceito, pessoas ficando insanas e etc.
A curiosidade é imensa em tentar descobrir as motivações de cada uma dessas pessoas que estavam nesse navio.

Tudo isso graças ao Lucas Pope que é um gênio, e assim como já fez em "Papers, Please", criou outro game que marca uma experiência única e inesquecível.

An implicit encouragement of matter-of-fact objectivity, strewn about and undermined by moral and motive. Human sentiment being pushed to the periphery and pulled into focus by a mechanical rigidity. Life and personhood being smothered under an artificial sense of value. Both Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn feed a ritualistic fascination for rules, and use the satisfaction of following them as a thematic avenue into the player’s psyche in a way that only games can. Though I prefer Obra Dinn on the whole, I can’t help but wonder if Papers Please is more effective in this respect.

In Papers Please, Complicity is experienced firsthand, and as such, the intersectionality of its elements are an intuitive focus of discussion. In Obra Dinn, however, I find this kind of analysis a little more infrequent, which is understandable. It’s a bit murkier if the Greed the crew propagate and experience are adequately reflected and amplified through the player lens of an insurance adjuster/investigator that doesn’t actually participate in the events of the “story”. Without getting too autobiographical, I’ve seen the ways insurance adjusters operate – I know what kind of person that is, so from my perspective it has the potential to really work. I often ask myself, though, if Obra Dinn could have pushed that envelope a little further; if the game could have done just a little bit more with its framing device.

Tangentially, I think there is weight to the idea that both Papers Please and Obra Dinn eschew more meaningful aesthetics that would better contribute to their theming in exchange for a sort of minimalist shorthand that more quickly onboards the audience. Papers Please uses a cartoony USSR to microwave a visage of state power and bureaucracy. Obra Dinn, meanwhile, centers its morals in the wise, spiritual, “they were right the whole time” Formosan, and it maybe feels a bit orientalist. I have mixed feelings on both examples, but I do get a vague feeling that these games are a little loose and memetic in their approach their worlds, characters and stories. I’ve heard in interviews that Lucas Pope typically comes up with gameplay concepts (and in Obra’s case, 1 bit style) before deciding on a plot and environment that would be fitting for his games, and although I would absolutely not go so far as to say that these games’ worlds and narratives feel tacked on, (the ship Obra Dinn feels remarkably detailed and researched, for instance) I do wish more things in these games felt more interesting and considered.

I liked Papers Please a whole lot when I finally played it last year for the first time (holy shit does time fly) and I figured that it was only a matter of time until I played this game. I’m glad to declare that it completely lives up to the hype. The sheer level of detail in the storytelling here is nothing less than staggering, Obra Dinn conveying a deeply layered, richly complex, and utterly compelling mystery through a unique narrative structure that only pulled me into this world deeper as it went along. Learning more about this cast of diverse, colorful, and interesting characters is incredibly involving and engaging throughout, combined with the subtle and clever writing which deftly explores a handful of thematic ideas without ever feeling overwhelming or oversimplified. The core mechanics of investigation and puzzle solving are also nailed to perfection here, creating a thoughtful, consistently rewarding, and addictively thrilling gameplay loop. That aforementioned depth (both in regards to its story and its systems) is certainly part and parcel to what makes this game so special (and what elevates it beyond the majority of titles in the detective genre) but even the more surface level sensory elements are fantastic. The presentation and the production values are strong across the board, the art direction is refreshingly original and beautifully atmospheric, the voice acting is fucking outstanding and very believable, and the soundtrack (composed by Lucas Pope himself shockingly enough) is incredibly immersive and it’s always utilized to its maximum effectiveness. This game is an exceptional masterpiece that I would recommend to pretty much every gamer that’s worth their salt without an iota of hesitation. It’s one of the coolest games that i’ve played all year and it begs to be experienced going into it as blind as possible.

Probably the best puzzle game I've ever played, I'm not kidding.

Return of the Obra Dinn is one of those "detective games", where you find leads and the smallest details to solve the mistery it asks you. Something like "her story", for example.

It's so well structured, well written, so many tiny little aspects you'll just find out playing it again.

Also, It has an unique visual, an AMAZING sound design and holy moly I better stop typing, cause I swear, I could write hours and hours of how good this game is...

I'm honestly shocked of how much I liked this

one of my favorite games of all time, and one i dearly wish i could experience for the first time again! i think about this game often and i listen to the soundtrack regularly!

the first time i played it, close to a year ago now, i copied down all information in a physical notebook (even printed out and glued all character portraits into it) and i had such a fantastic time piecing it all together, i don't think i've ever played a game before or since that possessed me to go such lengths to track information (the closest is lucas pope's other game papers please, where i made my own list of passport info). i've replayed the game several times with the personal challenge of not taking any physical notes and 100% relying on the in-game book and that satisfies that replay-itch somewhat but god, what i'd do to not be able to recognize characters' faces anymore, not remember their names and roles on the obra dinn

interesting and addicting at first, with the puzzles genuinely making you think while still all being logically solvable, but gets repetitive and sort of frustrating from the pacing/padding between finding new corpses. the starting narrative is compelling, but once you fill out the broad strokes after the first two hours it's easy to see the full picture, and you're left with 8 hours of mindlessly combing over minutiae details, which is my main beef with the game.

on its own it's pretty cool when you realize oh this guy has this pair of shoes so i can trace it back to his bunk number!! but then you have to make the long trek back to cross check, and to make matters worse there's a lot of padding during this process, like only being able to exit cutscenes through doors or the stupid light that unveils new corpses that i hate with all my soul, because is there really a reason i need to follow it around in circles instead of just walking in a straight line to where the corpse is supposed to be? padding like this is rampant throughout the game, like having to wait way too long for new chapter details to unveil itself, and at times it felt more like a walking simulator than a detective game to me. i understand that the developer wanted more realism as opposed to it feeling too 'gamey', but when added with the fact that this game gives me motion sickness like no other, I feel that my enjoyment of the game would've been much higher if i was able to jump between discovered cutscenes easily to cross reference things.

at it stood, even though i really enjoyed the process of deducing identities (real world logic actually applies in every scenario, which is something i've only really seen obra dinn be able to pull off so well), the hassle of all those mindless in-betweens ended up soiling a lot of it for me, which is a shame.

This one's very memorable and special to me, but utterly for reasons outside of its storytelling and narrative design. As a writer, I tend to approach games in that way- Bear with me, I'll talk about things other than words in a bit.

Lucas Pope, I feel, does well with creating emerging stories through branching paths, heavily influenced by player action. In "Papers, Please", for example, it was extremely compelling to have little stories for all these people passing by your checkpoint, unfolding either on-screen or in your mind. After all, your decision of "APPROVING" or "DENYING" their visas was an incredibly meaningful one in the lives of these bit-characters! However,
even back then, dialogue-writing and scene-construction were not exactly Pope's forté, and there wasn't much meat to the characters' bones (partially because there were so many). That wasn't a huge problem when the micro-narratives the game created were so dependable.

"Return of the Obra Dinn" definitely does not play to the strengths as a storyteller that "Papers, Please" made apparent; it's a fairly linear game where player agency in the story is starkly reduced (considering that the game's story takes place in a past you interface with from the present through magical flashbacks). Obra Dinn is also divided into individual areas that, while variable in the exact sequence of the scenes within them, end up following each other in the same order every time.

By the way: Obra Dinn has an enormous cast, all of them named and uniquely designed - while continuing to underwrite each of them, worse even than the few consistent and familiar faces from "Papers, Please". It feels like you barely get to know anyone; the windows you see them through are so brief and so limiting. You have no agency in these people's lives because they're either already dead or otherwise gone. The game feels extremely dead because of that, to its detriment. In a game with a stronger horror-component, that feeling would've been compelling; here, it's kind of dull.

Then, there are some of Lucas Pope's historical and political beliefs that subtly seep into the writing and character designs; never becoming ghoulish, but never being particularly tasteful in its depictions of people from distinct cultures, nor of complex political circumstances drenched in blood (such as the East India Company); it attempts to ride a strange line of fantastic pulp and historical precision, where each side diminishes the other. (As an aside, I still struggle to forgive Pope for his toothless and dull examination of the "circle of revolution" in "The Republian Times". It's a jam game, I know, but c'mon.)

TL;DR:

Why does the game still stick with me. then?

The deduction mechanic in 3D-space was genuinely beautifully executed. On your first playthrough, there is so much to see and discover in these static scenes from the past; Obra Dinn absolutely is a game for people with a love for detail, and - guilty as charged, that'd be me! It's also very good at capturing a feeling; an era of computer games that's long-past, one that never played like Obra Dinn, but definitely felt like it.

Overall, I'd say it's a worthwhile thing to go into entirely unspoiled. It'll give your brain some good exercise for an evening or three, and despite its flaws (all that shit up there + the 1-bit style being maybe not ideal for a detective game), it really is a game you remember.

I had always been offput by the art-style but man I am so glad I played it. It is so so so fun to go through this game and experience the story how it is told through the deaths of the members of the Obra Dinn in vibrant and exciting scenes that you walk through and uncover. The puzzle element of finding out the name of the crew and how they died is always interesting and thank god for the system that correct you when you get 3 right at a time cause I would of lost mind if I didn't have that. I played this with a friend who had already played it so she helped me out when I needed it but never gave me the answer straight away so I would say a non-spoiler guide can be a help in this game to truly enjoy it while having a interesting, sometimes challenging, and amazing puzzle to uncover in the return of the Obra Dinn.

A genuinely magical game that’s kept me thinking about it and will continue having this grip on me for quite some time. Games that utilise the medium to such an extent that their identity hinges on the interactive element being present are some of the most fun ones to let sit with you, and this is one of my favourite instances of it. Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the greatest mystery games I’ve played and a lot of this is owed to the structure of the game, forgoing crafting a mystery specifically designed to surprise the player with its various twists and instead laying it all out bare and forcing you to pick everything apart to fully grasp the finer details of things. The mystery and story themselves are not the important aspects here, it’s just trying to immerse you into the role of a detective without any handholding beyond the bare essentials, and it does so perfectly.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a mystery/puzzle game that revolves around incomplete information and assumption, often leaving little to no definitive evidence and forcing you to jump all around to place with increasingly tenuous lines of logic as you feel yourself going insane. It was quite funny taking a step back after combing through a few scenes in excruciating detail and just thinking “wow, this is deranged” but that’s just how the game is. The player is likely to find all of the story beats of the game rather early on without knowing the fates of the vast majority of the cast, and then the rest of the game boils down to going between the relevant scenes in the game to try and figure out how to deduce some of them, which would seem like an experience that would feel stagnant very quickly, but is saved due to the sense of progression that will take place despite it all just looking like cleanup at first. The progression gates in this game are entirely dependent on and driven by the player, hinging on multiple big realisations on how they need to approach their investigations. This culminates in a deeply rewarding loop of thinking that you’ve hit the logical endpoint of what you achieve on your own, before realising a new detail that leads you down a new line of logic to discover someone, and then applying this newfound understanding of how to figure something out to other characters. A contributing factor to how this is so successful is due to the plethora of approaches that you’re expected to work out, sometimes really being as simple but uncertain feeling as “this guy hangs around this other guy a lot, they’re probably in the same field”.

The way that your answers are confirmed is a clever way of limiting the ability to brute force a lot of puzzle answers as well, since you’ve only got confirmation on whether you’re correct or not once you have 3 correct answers simultaneously written down. While some amount of guesswork was an expected element of this game’s design, by structuring it like this, players are still forced to confidently deduce 2 other people before they can start taking real shots in the dark with incomplete assumptions, solving a problem I’ve seen time and time again in deduction games where people will often resort to total guesswork the moment they’re met with some confusion and uncertainty. The presentation goes a long way in tying everything together as well, being visually striking while having the effect of being simple enough to make the important details easier to pinpoint while simultaneously obscuring everything just enough to invite uncertainty into every observation. I adore whenever a game can keep me thinking for so long after I’m done with it, and I love it even more when it does so through something as esoteric as it is here. Total masterpiece, something new to add to my list of favourites.

Games that tell stories only capable of being relayed through the medium of gaming will always hold a special place in my heart. Since my first encounters with video games as a whole, I've never quite found any method of storytelling to even compare to it. Sure, the occasional film or manga or what have you might catch my attention, but those I hold at the peak of any other medium don't really come close to the experiences I've had with gaming.

Return of the Obra Dinn has once again solidified this idea for me, and it does so in such a way where I feel that everything within the experience is deserving of commendation. The actors, writing, art, music, and everything all together unite for an extremely fleshed out and cohesive experience that held my attention the whole way through. I believe this holds true for much of the game's playerbase due to the incredible completion rates seen on each of the achievements. Return of the Obra Dinn manages to create a very unique gameplay loop I haven't quite seen elsewhere, it's an incredibly fresh and engaging experience that I feel anyone with a brain could hold appreciation for. It might not be a grand story in comparison to other titles of today, but it sure as hell is a good one, a GREAT one.

A game that will constantly have you thinking, theorizing, trying new things, finding new angles, and most importantly, keeping you engaged following through its bizarre and beautiful storytelling. This is a game that I believe couldn't and shouldn't be passed up, if you're interested, play it. You won't regret it.

Existem jogos tão bons que, embora me deixem com uma tremenda vontade de escrever uma análise sobre eles, simplesmente não consigo pensar em nenhum detalhe que não seja óbvio demais. E esse é exatamente o caso desse jogo.

Sabe aqueles filmes que começam pelo final e você não entende a história até vê-la por completo? Return of the Obra Dinn é assim do início ao fim. Nele, você busca pelo desenrolar da história através dos destinos de cada personagem, a fim de descobrir o que aconteceu para que o navio Obra Dinn nunca chegasse ao seu destino.

I only have a couple complaints for what is otherwise, in my mind, a perfect game. It has me aching for more like it, games where I really get to play a detective. I think the magic pocket watch is such a brilliant idea, allowing you to witness the moment of someone's death, because otherwise a game like this can't exist. It's always giving you just enough to keep your mind running. Total cohesion of narrative and gameplay. The way this thing unfolds is just brilliant, filling in the gaps with your imagination while the game consistently destroys your expectations.

My minor complaints are that I think you should be able to access someone's moment of death from the book. It gets a little tedious having to remember where someone's body is so you can re-live that death again to catch another clue. The other is that some of the fates are straight up a guessing game, but I think that's kind of realistic. There are few of these so you don't have to do much guessing. I just wanted to be able to know exactly what happened to someone if I could help it.

Don't want to give anything away, this was just an absolute treat. I loved every second of it and hope I get to have another experience like it again.

Return of the Obra Dinn and Papers Please both have the personality of their creator, Lucas Pope, written all over them. Yet, they are both so distinct and original, you cannot compare the two at all.

Obra Dinn is such a unique and creative way of storytelling, and the setting for it is probably the most interesting one could imagine. It feels incredibly real, mostly because of design: the ship's crew is diverse and 18th century-like, the languages are spoken by native speakers, the ship's design is true to its inspirations, and the interactions and motivations of the characters are exactly how one might envision them when thrown into a tragic story like this. The voice-acting is full of emotion, allowing you to closely follow what's happening on screen, even though you aren't even seeing the characters move.

The string of clues the player must follow is laid out in a scattered pattern, but I never felt lost in the story. Sure, putting names to characters is difficult sometimes, but I always felt like I knew what was happening in every scene. When I completed the story, I immediately watched a video with all scenes chronologically, and it all made perfect sense.

The one thing I would have changed about this title, is to allow the player to control cutscene length; at certain scenes, I felt short on time to view everything that was happening, while at others I felt like I had to wait ages. It would have been great to be able to choose when you want to open the book to insert the scene, instead of being forced to wait a certain amount of time.

But, this waiting time also adds value to the amazing soundtrack that accompanies every scene. It was fitting and well-composed in my opinion, much like the soundtrack of Papers Please. It would have been a disservice to skip the music on my first playthrough in my opinion.

Overall, I think this is an amazing puzzle-adventure! It's easy to understand, and hard to perfect, meaning that anyone will get a good kick out of it. I sincerely hope that Lucas Pope will develop more games in the future, because they are an absolute joy to play through.

Mais uma obra-prima de Lucas Pope, Obra Dinn é um notório tributo ao jogo de tabuleiro Detetive.

A narrativa, baseada no livro de anotações do protagonista, é apresentada de forma anacrônica e confusa propositalmente, e cabe ao jogador montar o puzzle.

Confesso que não é um jogo pra todo mundo porque é relativamente difícil e pode causar frustração pra completá-lo, mas com certeza fica mais divertido se jogar com um grupo de amigos e um caderno para anotações e rascunhos (muito importante!!!).

Eu ainda não peguei o final bom mas ainda tenho vontade de tentar novamente em breve.

I cannot believe something this cool exists. I'm a sucker for old timey salty sea tales, and this games setting was a perfect example of why. Within the first 30 minutes of playing this game I knew it was going to be special. It's one of those games that I became obsessed with and stayed up late at night thinking about it. The aesthetics and 1-bit design were incredible. The puzzle solving was outrageously addicting and satisfying. The story and the way it unfolded had me hooked from the get. The notebook system was unique, effective, and minimalist, although admittedly it could've used a couple of QOL additions (an in-game note taking feature would've been great).

Overall this game was freaking awesome and right up my alley. Greatest detective game I’ve ever played and it isn't close.

100/100

Return of the Obra Dinn is just phenomenal and I can't believe that I'm saying this because I dropped this game twice last year, but then I don't know what happened but I ended up picking it back up again from the beginning and ended up getting (probably) the most immersive gaming experience I've ever had.

I feel that this is one of those games that truly defines what separates video games from other visual mediums thanks to, what I consider to be the best use of the video game medium ever. This game is basically a murder mystery where you go to a ship lost at sea to investigate what happened there, and if this sounds boring to you, just give the game 5 minutes to change your mind. The more you investigate, the more you learn about the tragedy. The story itself is a fantastic one, mainly because of its out of order presentation. One moment its just a simple murder mystery, and the other moment it's.... well I suggest you see for yourself.

But despite all of my praises, this game definitely isn't for everyone as it very much asks for all of your attention, and there's also a possibility that you'll lose track of all the information that you've collected at some point if you don't pay attention. The game demands you to keep the story you've uncovered thus far on your mind at all times. The game itself isn't all that long, and can be finished in less than 5 sittings(like me), but the fact remains that this isn't one of those games you should push yourself into finishing. Lastly, for all the "gameplay outweighs story" people, the story is the gameplay for Obra Dinn, so.....

READ THIS
1) Try not use a walkthrough. You're missing the whole point of the game if you're using one, and you're better off dropping the game if you're doing that. If you're completely lost, checkout one of those on google. Don't watch the youtube walkthroughs at all, you'll end up ruining your experience.
2) I think this is something that anyone who's trying to get into this should know: the game, despite being confusing as fuck is very linear. It subtly does do a lot of handholding. So yeah, for those like me who were scratching their heads all the time in the first 1-2 hours, I hope this was relieving to hear.

All that being said, Return of the Obra Dinn is an experience I'll definitely never forget. The absolutely gorgeous art style, the soundtrack, the story, everything about this game is perfect. Definitely the best game I've played all year(so far).

Pros:
+ unique 1-bit visuals ooze style
+ central deduction mechanic is singular in the medium
+ the murder mystery hooks you from the first minute
+ death memories are incredibly designed and full of details
+ the game tells a fully realized story in a handful of static scenes
+ supernatural elements add a lot of intrigue to the story
+ faces slowly appearing on the sketch serves as a smart guidance system
+ the three-correct-solutions design is a great idea
+ the guidance book is well-designed and mostly quick to use
+ clues can be gathered in many different ways and places
+ some murder scenes accept various causes of deaths
+ incredible sound design and voice acting
+ the game can be finished with any number of correct solutions
+ the soundtrack is tailored to each chapter and serves secret hints...

Cons:
- ...but is far too blarring for my taste and cannot be volume adjusted
- no in-game system to record clues and possible connections
- memories play out twice for no apparent reason
- ghost animations after a death memory cannot be skipped
- memories cannot be played from the book
- not all causes of death are identifiable without some guess work
- some victims' memories can only be identified via other death sequences
- not all people can be identified in a given memory if they are too far away
- the final chapter is a letdown and reveals nothing interesting

Playtime: 11,5 hours with the entire book filled. A few solutions were lucky guesses.

Magic Moments: Realizing for the first time that there are supernatural elements to the story. Finally identifying that one guy with the beanie hat who is in practically every memory. Guessing corectly which place some of the crew disappeared to on my first attempt.

Most Difficult Deduction: The name and fate of the circus strong man.

Verdict:
Return of the Obra Dinn is nothing short of a masterpiece. Lucas Pope careful, precise creation of not one but 60 murder mysteries is simply incredible, and there are enough smart design ideas here to fill at least three other games. While the journey across and below the ship to each corpse and their death memories can get a bit tiresome over the course of a playthrough, the audio-visual style more than enough for it with a unique look that oozes style. It is save to say that Obra Dinn will feel just as fresh and exciting in the future as it did on its initial release all thanks to its daring but detailed art direction, even if the story of its crew and their often violent demise can only properly be experienced once due to the nature of the game.

One complete journey on the Obra Dinn however should be absolutely mandatory for any fan of deduction games, Sudoku riddles, or players interested in the dangers of maritime life in the 19th century. You will not regret it.

Doing an Whodunit? videogame is I would'nt even think possible. Yet here Obra Dinn is. It is a wondeful game that gave me feelings very few games did. Every game system is sober. This sobriety gives space for the true star of the game : the human brain. Thinking, comparing, looking, moving, hearing are all the tools you'll use to determine who, how, by whom. This is much more stimulating than how it sounds on paper.
The end is sober and suprinsingly satisfying.
The game is gorgeous.
The sound design is wonderful.
This game is a masterpiece.