The mechanics of Return of the Obra Dinn can be as mysterious as its gruesome deaths.
BOILERPLATE: this video will not show any concrete answers to the game’s puzzles.
We show bits of the game’s first two chapters.
Watch this if you:
• Bounced off Obra Dinn’s opening • Are overwhelmed by the amount of information
• Feel like you missed a tool tip somewhere
We’re not here to give away the answers — just to improve your quality of life,
my friend!
First off, you’ll spend a lot of time examining people in various states of stippled suffering.
Hold the zoom button (which is e on the keyboard) while looking at a person to cut out the noise.
Their face will also be highlighted in the book’s illustration, which you can press
tab to bring up.
Now, the book can be intimidating.
It’s long and empty when you get it, but that’s okay!
It’s your best friend now and you’re going to learn to love it.
It’s also full of useful secrets.
Now, you might look at those deck maps and say THESE ARE USELESS AND CONFUSING like I
did.
I was wrong!
The maps fill out with the location of the corpses, and by the end they’re vital for
understanding the chronology of chapters.
But from the very beginning, knowing who had each cabin and what their belongings look
like is going to be really useful to you.
To put things in as non-spoilery terms as possible, let’s pretend that one crew-member
loves U2.
Every time you see him, there he is wearing a U2 shirt.
And then you find the cabin with U2 propaganda all over the floor and you check your handy
map and realize ah yeah, that’s my dad.
But we still don’t know this dad’s name.
One great thing you can do with the book is mark down a character’s rank without their
name attached.
It will really help you narrow down who it might be, and it’ll also help you later
if you find other characters of the same rank.
Speaking of unknowns: if you’re absolutely certain you’ve solved two characters, it’s
time to get strategic.
This is your best chance to wildly guess the name of that unknown dad, with the confidence
that you’re one right answer away from confirming three kills.
It’s also where the crew manifest is really useful — you can use it to see how close
you are to having three guesses ready to go.
One thing to know from the start is what these dang triangles mean.
Three triangles means it will be difficult to identify a person.
So you may have narrowed them down, but you should probably look for more clues.
But if you’re down to one triangle?
You probably do have enough information.
So if you’re stuck, it’s a good idea to revisit the memories that person appears in,
and look for the obvious clue that you missed, dummy.
The best way to do that is with bookmarks.
The bookmark system is another one that I waved off when it was first introduced, but
once you really understand how it works, it’s such a powerful tool.
When you’re trying to ID someone, bookmark their page.
These markers will flip to earlier and later memories respectively where this person appears.
The tailed marker brings up this page.
You can flip through the person’s entire voyage and look for subtle clues that you
might have missed the first time around.
Even something as simple as knowing who a person is friends with can make everything
come together.
For me, there was one time I revisited a memory and realized a person’s death was clearly
visible, I just wasn’t looking in the right place.
You might not always have an “AHA YOU DUMBASS” moment like that, but you’ll at least get
an idea of where to look next.
Now, say you’re super, super lost!
You may notice certain pages in the book are circled.
If you feel like you’ve run out of bodies but you haven’t reached the point where
the game lets you leave the ship, give some consideration to those circled pages.
They generally tell you locations where you can find fresh corpses.
Hopefully now you’re solving Return of the Obra Dinn like a pro.
If you have a NON-SPOILERY TIP for new players, drop it in the comments.
And don’t forget to subscribe.