Return of the Obra Dinn

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JaySevenZero
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Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions of The Return of the Obra Dinn for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder to all that where feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but self-editing (brevity) is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mainly reading. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
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Caliburn M
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by Caliburn M »

Great game
Loved the graphics but felt it was hard to tell what was happening at times due to their low resolution (explosion ? balloon ? jumping fish ? who knows)
Really loved the music and the sounds, even the voice acting was surprisingly good for what I would assume was a fairly low budget game.
Gameplay wise it was extremely clever and well done apart from the fact that you couldn't enter the dioramas from the book once you had seen them, searching for the right body just felt clumsy and awkward.
The only other fault I found was that to solve many of the deaths you needed you to notice the hammock numbers, failing to spot this would probably require you to fall back on guesswork. The other cases required information that applied only to the individual making the hammocks seem to be a lazy way to finish the game.
Overall though a very clever and well made game.
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ashman86
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by ashman86 »

I thought I had a good idea of what to expect heading into Return of the Obra Dinn. After hearing glowing reviews from friends and critics, I was fully committed and ready to dive into the game with the hilarious premise of playing an 18th century insurance adjuster.

I solved the first few sailors' deaths, delighted at how clever the game made me feel and at how elegant the game's core flashback mechanic was. I was curious, too, to learn why the crew had become mutinous and why so few of them were left aboard the ship, but I'll admit that I wasn't sure how long I'd last before the historical fiction might bore me, and I wondered if I'd be clever enough to piece to together the remaining 50+ sailors in my journal.

And then I flashed back to the captain's wife's death. I assumed she'd succumbed to sickness on the high seas of some sort, but no. There she was being crushed by a mast of the ship.

And then there was, on the deck of the ship, amidst shouts of pain and thunder and pounding rain, the corpse of a man, torn in half. I looked up from the gory discovery and saw it: the kraken!

It was a twist I did not see coming at all, and I was compelled to continue playing The Return of the Obra Dinn and nothing else until I'd finished it.

The game had so many other wonderful surprises in store for me:
Spoiler: show
solving the death of a man killed by friendly fire as he hid from a monstrous spider crab, the betrayal of Edward Nichols, the captain's final "bargain" with the merpeople, the monkey's paw, and so many more.
By the time I'd solved the last entry in my log, I was both ecstatic to have solved the game's great puzzle and sad to see it end. If only I could erase my memory of the game so that I could start it all over again.
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Alex79
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by Alex79 »

I wish I hadn't read that post :( My own fault, of course this thread is going to be full of spoilers.
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Ordinary Coalscuttle
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by Ordinary Coalscuttle »

I'm struggling, at the moment, to think of anything more satisfying in a game than when you hear that musical stab that tells you you've correctly identified three more passengers. The "walking sim" is often compared to the beloved point 'n click adventure, with that genre's bizarro-logic puzzles swapped out for environmental storytelling, and narrative through exploration.

As much as I love so many of those games, it's great to see a game like this (and I'd say Outer Wilds) that is looking for new ways of experimenting and revitalising aspects of this genre. What's so fascinating about this game is how it never really holds your hand, and yet it's not punishingly stone-faced in its difficulty, either - it encourages you to think like a "real" detective and rewards you for doing so.

I never played 'Papers, Please' because, as interesting as it sounded, I also kind of felt like it seemed like I knew everything about the experience from reading the basic gist of the game. Having played this, I'm definitely willing to admit I was very probably wrong - and should really get to Lucas Pope's previous game at some point.
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The Baboon Baron
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by The Baboon Baron »

The Return of The Obra Dinn will hold a special place in my heart now, for it may well be the game that helped me and my partner through this godawful global pandemic.

Being the conspiracy types, conversation turned to ghost ships. "There's a game on my to play list about ghost ships" I said, and 12 hours and 4 bottles of wine later, we saw the credits.

What a brilliant game, made all the more amazing given that it was the work of nearly one person. the graphical style took a while to get used to, but the minimalist style lent to the detective element. I was gripped by the atmosphere, how Lucas Pope makes such gripping, all consuming games i will never know, but he has a true gift for building tone and mood.

Couple of small points- the moon logic of how exactly someone died did get my back up- when the difference between spiked and speared and clawed and devoured meant the difference between correct and incorrect did need an element of trail and error. Also, i agree with Caliburn M, to close out the book we had to revisit the same scenes again and again, and including that in the book would have made that a lot easier.

But what a game, cannot recommend it enough. I wish i could play it again, perhaps it will inspire a whole new run of detective games.
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ashman86
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by ashman86 »

Alex79uk wrote: April 4th, 2020, 12:39 am I wish I hadn't read that post :( My own fault, of course this thread is going to be full of spoilers.
I'm so sorry, Alex79UK! I just assumed spoilers were free game in these posts, but I should have tagged that.
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Alex79
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by Alex79 »

ashman86 wrote: May 12th, 2020, 5:43 pm
Alex79uk wrote: April 4th, 2020, 12:39 am I wish I hadn't read that post :( My own fault, of course this thread is going to be full of spoilers.
I'm so sorry, Alex79UK! I just assumed spoilers were free game in these posts, but I should have tagged that.
Ah no man, please don't worry! These threads are usually full of spoilers since they're peoples thoughts on the games, and the episode will be full of them too. This is entirely on me for reading about a game I've not played yet but am planning to. Please don't worry, I can't stress enough that this is totally my fault and not yours!
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Toon Scottoon
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Re: 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by Toon Scottoon »

One of the high school students I teach recommended The Return of the Obra Dinn to me after I told him I'd beaten Cuphead. I don't really know why this particular student thought my enjoyment of the first game would make me take pleasure in a point-and-clickish nautical fantasy murder mystery set in the early eighteen hundreds, but I'm glad he did. Obra Dinn was immersive and compelling in a way I just hadn't expected. Though it obviously takes place well before the invention of the microfiche machine, there was something about how it asked me to pore over these grainy images on my Switch that made me feel like I was a detective in the not too long ago pre-internet era, sequestered in the bowels of some college library, sifting through a mostly forgotten backlit text.

I suppose that student, having heard my Cuphead commentary, might have taken a leap of faith not unlike the ones you have to occasionally perform when you are playing Obra Dinn, and assumed I liked a challenge, albeit a very different one in this game than you find in the aforementioned run and gun title. Obra Dinn certainly did tax my brain, and once or twice I succumbed to the siren song of internet guides to solve parts of the puzzle. There's a reason I teach literature and not forensics I suppose. Still when I did sort something out on my own, and the string instruments signaled I'd identified the who and how of three more digital souls, I felt that special, silly thrill of vanity that truly great puzzle games provide.

Three Word Review: Nifty Nautical Notetaker
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The J-Boog
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Re: Our next podcast recording (7.11.20) - 444: The Return of the Obra Dinn

Post by The J-Boog »

A day late, or a couple of hours probably, but just finished the game and it was everything I'd hoped for and more. The game first piqued my interest when I saw it in a Nintendo Direct, and mostly because of its fantastic art style. Absolutely loved the game from start to finish. The story is great and the feeling you get after solving yet another death or disappearance is so addictive. It became tough towards the end once there were only a couple of question marks left, but absolutely wanted to finish this one without a guide and as close to 100% as possible, particularly because this is one of those games you'll not be able to enjoy as much a second time. Safe to say I'm glad I stuck through with it, because the story, the mystery solving, the characters, the sound design: it was all top-notch in my eyes.

One final thought. The game really reminded me of the first Echo Knight game for the Playstation. Wonder if it's served as inspiration or whether it's just a coincidence.
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