Insurance fraud inspection has never been so fun!
I love detective games. The type of game that asks you to meticulously snoop through rooms and piece the puzzle together. What we in my humble apartment refer to as “Snoopy Susan Simulators.” My most recent discovery in this genre—and if you follow me on Twitter you likely already know where this is going—is The Return Of The Obra Dinn. A Snoopy Susan Simulator, masquerading as an Insurance Fraud Inspector Simulator, masquerading as 60 murder mysteries and whodunits. A game that begs for an 100 percent complete status, and if you want that 100 percent, buddy you best get to snooping.
“Your presence on the Obra Dinn is critical. I leave the discovery of its fate and the completion of this book in your hands. The next few pages will seem bewildering at first. All will make sense in time.”
You’re given a book of events that needs filling and a pocket watch that allows you to relive the final moments of a corpse’s life before their death. Climb aboard The Good Ship Obra Dinn to find a single skeleton, and no crew. You’re the insurance inspector, so it’s your job to determine where they all went, where the Obra Dinn has been for the last five years, and who will pay for the East India Company’s lost profits. With your pocket watch acting as a corpse dousing rod, you’re led from body to body, unlocking doors and the truth along the way. Soon, you’re running through death memories, scribbling notes in and out of game, and redrawing crew members’ tattoos for identification later.
As you and your ghostwriter pocket watch stroll through the death scenes like inception dreams, you’ll notice new details with every visit. This game rewards you for taking your time. Look behind objects and up at the skies. Look over board as often as possible. You’ll need to put a name and a fate (Alive or dead? Suicide or murder?) to all 60 souls that left London in 1803 aboard the Obra Dinn. I spent a decent amount of time googling sailing terms and hierarchies to get over a sleuthing slump around 60 percent completion.
The Return Of The Obra Dinn is essentially a two-toned, point and click, self-driven horror. You’re in control of the camera and will choose to stare into the abyss in order to complete your insurance claim report. Sometimes the horror is an unfair trial at sea, other times it’s being eye-to-eye with the monsters of the deep. You’re putting together a tragic tale you won’t be able to change. It’s already happened. You’re just documenting the tragedy so your company knows who to blame in their report. The psychological horror of being a cog in an uncaring system.
My biggest frustration was with my partner, the pocket watch. Sometimes it really just wanted to perform an interpretive dance before uncovering the next body. It forced me to slow down when I was ready to quicken the pace. Other than that, my qualms are the results of a well told tale: the East India Company is not honorable, certain characters that shall remain unnamed are rapscallions of the lowest degree, and I lament that I’ll never be able to play for the first time again.
But you can. So I implore you, download this sweet indie game. Grab a pen and paper and get ready to go a little mad, because your presence on the Obra Dinn is critical. I leave the discovery of its fate and the completion of this book in your hands.
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