How frequently do you play a game that surprises you? You are astounded by the captivating gameplay and original idea and wonder how you have never heard of the game before. This is not unusual in the gaming industry, though, since many fantastic titles suffer from subpar promotion and marketing.
They fail to connect with the audience effectively and, in the end, come to be regarded as hidden jewels. Return of the Obra Dinn is one such undiscovered gem from 2018 that we will be sharing with you today.
Lucas Pope, a well-known video game creator, created this puzzle and adventure game, which Japanese Studio 3909 released. It was first made available for Microsoft Windows and macOS, then a year later it was made available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. We will walk you through the memorable experience of this game in this video, which should be enough to convince you to give it a shot!
You could make a movie out of the incredible story: Plot and Gameplay
It wouldn’t be fair to commence any discussion on this wonderful game without a few words on the greatness of the designer Lucas Pope. He has done his bit exploring the nature of human fallibility and the creator of Papers, Please is back with his brand of brilliance yet again. If he could make something as mundane as a border crossing kiosk interesting, you can imagine the magic he is capable of with an adventure-themed mystery. The Obra Dinn is a ship belonging to the East India Company and the narrative is premised around 1802.
The ship left for Orient from Falmouth with several crew members and passengers on board. However, it was soon declared lost and five years later, it reappears mysteriously off the coast of England. All those on board are either dead or missing and the East India Company has sent its Chief Inspector to investigate the matter, mainly for insurance purposes.
Lucas Pope spent four years developing this game, and the insurance adventure on the high seas captures the subtle romance associated with seafarers. Once the ship is back with all members lost at sea, there must be an audit and investigation. Your task is to board the creaking abandoned ship and figure out all that happened out there.
But such an investigation ought to be tricky, isn’t it! Since there is no one alive to hand you clues it must be an uphill task to find out the truth. Luckily, you have some crucial clues, and a little bit of magic to help you out! One of the first tools that make your job easier is a magical pocket watch, and it enables you to interrogate any of the skeletons that you find on board. Basically, you can revisit the moment of the death and explore the diorama that you can walk around.
However, the flashbacks can only be heard and not seen. The brief dialogues sometimes have names or other minor clues that you must take note of for your investigation. The second tool that you have at your disposal is a magical book that breaks the voyage down into several chapters. The pages are all blank at the beginning, and slowly, as you go on solving each death, the pages get filled.
It would be criminal to spoil much in terms of the story, but let’s just give you a brief glance at the things that take place. It turns out that the Obra Dinn set out with a treasure chest, and a group of the crew planned to steal the chest from the guards. They faced an attack by mermaids, various sea monsters, and even a gigantic Kraken – one of the most feared sea monsters. After lots of deaths, fights, and murders, the ship finally ended up without a soul alive on board.
What makes it such a special experience!
We have often encountered a long-standing problem with investigative games. They end up feeling very artificial and you are almost at the mercy of the set formula. Here, it never for once feels like a fake investigation. In fact, the gameplay empowers you to hunt for clues and seek out answers as if you are Sherlock Holmes with a complicated case! There are plenty of video games out there, that cast us in the role of detectives, but there are none that make the laborious task so rewarding as Return of the Obra Dinn.
One of the best things about the game is how effortlessly it manages to tread the lines between an adventure game with a few supernatural elements and a puzzle game. Your job might be made easier by some of the magical tools, but make no mistake, it will not be a cakewalk. Nothing is highlighted and you will not get clear hints in Return of the Obra Dinn, and this makes the task challenging and satisfying at the same time.
So, what is your ultimate goal? You have to fill out the book with the identities and fate of all those on board, and it will take some serious critical thinking and putting together bits of information to get the job done. The game is arduous but captivating, and you wouldn’t mind as hours go by unraveling the mysteries. You go about reconstructing the journey of the ship, and evaluating the precise fate of all those on board, and the game is so meticulously constructed that the ingenuity of the grand puzzle is revealed in the end.
Marvelous Verdict
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that this game has one of the most fascinating concepts and one of the finest executions we have ever seen. After impressing gamers around the world with his work in Papers, Please, Lucas Pope once again crafts out an adventure that has one of the most unusual settings. He ensures that you get to witness an engrossing experience, and it certainly helps that the game is a visual delight.
The retro graphics are bright with some elegant simplicity, and more importantly, it seems functional to the story. Lucas Pope describes the art style as 1-bit, and indeed, there are only two colors on screen at any time. What blew our mind was the expressive nature of the detailing, which looks so appealing on screen! It is almost like a painting has come to life, but the art style does bring a few problems as well. For instance, it can get difficult to see things at times, and while you are hunting for some of the difficult clues, this can get frustrating.
One of the engaging drawing points for this game is the exceptional voice acting. It is so perfect that as a player you can choose to rely on a character’s intonation and expression as vital clues. Besides the impeccable art style and voice acting, the game is also supported by some out-of-the-world sound effects and music.
Even the non-verbal sounds seem lifelike, and we cannot stress enough on the importance of such complete gameplay in such games. Could some things be done differently in this perfect game? Well, maybe it would be nice to be able to move quicker. You do not have an option to sprint, and things can get tedious after a while. Make sure that you remember every little thing because there is a lot to take in and sort through in this game.
Our Final Words
Overall, we have to say that this is the finest detective game that we have ever experienced. It is so satisfying to understand the mysteries and realize how the various parts of the ship come together. As the clues mount up, the images in the book become clearer, and you are exploring the ship better with time. This is simply an unforgettable, astonishing experience! We just hope that we continue being blessed with many more of such works of art!