[Game Club] Return of the Obra Dinn

Sean and Alon feel safe in the hands of game designer Lucas Pope and his whodunit ghostship of corpses and bones mystery game.

You’re an insurance appraiser playing sudoku by time-traveling (sorta) and transforming (sorta) into a fly on the wall. Discover the stories of the dead crew and passengers through the intense moments of their deaths.

It may not make sense now but it’s going to make sense by the end of this journey.

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Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:18 - Admin stuff

00:01:48 - Game overview

00:03:16 - Beginning of the game

00:06:36 - Simple inputs, complex game

00:07:28 - More of the game’s beginning

00:10:46 - Fly on the wall effect

00:12:49 - Emotional moments of death

00:14:58 - Death snapshots

00:17:58 - The book

00:20:24 - Continuing chronologically

00:21:51 - On-rails in the mid-game

00:25:16 - It’s like a book

00:27:52 - How open or linear is this game?

00:32:06 - Fates and boat knowledge

00:34:37 - SPOILERS from here on

00:34:46 - Knowable vs unknowable information

00:37:03 - Whodunit logic & eureka moments

00:46:47 - Lucas Pope’s “data addiction”

00:53:42 - I’m the insurance appraiser and detachment

00:57:46 - Cascading puzzles & relationships

01:03:35 - Eureka moments outside the game

01:11:38 - Rolling credits before solving all of the fates

01:14:06 - Safe in Lucas Pope’s hands

01:21:16 - Game as a book + the art and aesthetic

01:25:54 - Uninvited and what is the game about?

01:35:38 - Tip of the iceberg game design

01:38:34 - A deluge of information

01:41:33 - “One guy” game design question

Show notes:

• Immortality Game Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiGnIHFYmZQ
• New Cool episode (Amy Henning worked with Lucas Pope at Naughty Dog): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as4NQQPveNQ&t=8s
• Lucas Pope’s other games: https://dukope.com/
• Uninvited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninvited_(video_game)
• Picture of the boat map (”it’s simple you see”): https://i.imgur.com/FCE9Wnb.png
• Lucas Pope on the Noclip podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D81mTaU55MY
• Picross/Nonograms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram