Tips for Return of the Obra Dinn?

[Montresor]

I just started this game. I'm playing blind and I intend to keep it that way. I really want to solve all the fates on my own. But wow, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed.

It's getting difficult to keep track of who's who. Do I need pen and paper to play this game effectively? I think I need to have, written down on paper, the definition of terms like mate and steward, etc. because I keep forgetting.

You know how the first page of every person's fate has the dialogue that occurred during their memory and then a picture showing their fate? I wish I could zoom into that picture, and listen to that dialogue's audio again, without having to physically go to that person's corpse and re-load that memory with the stopwatch.

So far I am very impressed with the game but I feel out of my element. I love puzzle games but I've never been so overwhelmed by a puzzle game before.

 

[Mike Rambo]

Honestly the best advice I can give you is to just keep finding new fates! You will get many clues over time, but it will not be like right next to each other, just keep relationships in mind as best you can and pay attention to who is working for who

 

[Deleted member 4494]

The best advice I can give, from my recollection, is to avoid the desire to immediately 'solve' things -- try to get a good idea of what is going on in each scene, and realize that the game won't really all click and make sense until you've made it reasonably far. You can go a while without a lot of progress, and then get a lot of things right back-to-back. Don't try and force things -- if you get stuck, explore other characters / scenes.

Names, terms, and the purposeful occlusion of the environments are confusing but everything in the game is *very* nuanced and purposeful.

Most importantly: don't let yourself get depressed over it. The answers will come if you give yourself time and slow down and be observant.

 

[sheaaaa]

it can feel overwhelming very quickly but just ride the roller coaster and keep seeing fates and what the game presents you. The pace of new stuff will slow down and you'll start to piece things together.

 

[LordHuffnPuff]

There should be an in-game glossary for terms, but writing it down may be helpful if you don't want to keep flipping to it.

A lot of the faces and names will not be solvable immediately. The best advice is to treat it like you're Sherlock Holmes - observe not only the people but the environments they're in, what they're doing, their accents, what they're wearing, and so forth. For example, a person up in the rigging is obviously going to be one of the topmen because that's how ships like this work, which means you're now working to identify them from a set of six or eight names instead of dozens.

 

[Pascal]

Pay attention to peoples belongings/clothing.

 

[RedSwirl]

What worked for me was breaking down characters into small groups based on things like their rank (shown by how they dress), what languages they speak, and so-on.

 

[Ionic]

I think it's best just to find most of the memories, then to just pick a guy and look through the memories involving them and solve it from there. Also, the Seaman hammocks have tags on them I found quite helpful the few times they show up.

 

[TheYanger]

Just remember that EVERYTHING has meaning. Even little things will help you solve SOMEONE's fate.

 

[N64Controller]

It's just a case of paying attention to everything. Nothing is there without purpose, no scene is without purpose. Pay attention to everything, and don't be afraid to come back and challenge your preconceived idea of who this guy or woman is. And sometimes it's right in front of you but you don't see it until something happens.

Everything has meaning, from the pictures, to the names, to the dialogue in the scenes, to what happens in the scene.

 

[Ocirus]

You might want to consider coming back here once you feel like you've exhausted all options and ask for non-spoiler hints for specific people (you could take a screenshot and circle who you'd like a hint for). I'd say you can easily get around half without much trouble, using some reason and deduction. After that you can probably get around 3/4 with a good amount of frustration and maybe even some process of elimination. You'll eventually get to some people where the only way of genuinely identifying them is kinda absurd. I would definitely say it's a very small amount though (3, perhaps 4) that I'd call absurd.

Most of all: take your time, use all parts of your journal, and enjoy the ride! You can revisit any "sequence" as many times as you need. It's such a beautiful game, and definitely one I'd be happy to magically forget everything about to experience it again!

 

[Herr Starr]

It's worth noting that the game doesn't expect you to have any previous knowledge of terminology or accents. That knowledge will open up alternate ways of identifying some of the crew, but there will always be another way that doesn't require anything other than what is in the game itself.

 

[Deleted member 20852]

I didn't take notes, but took screenshots of relevant things I didn't yet know enough about. I played it on Switch and at least there it was really convenient.

 

[sosainas]

Does it play well on Switch?

 

[MoosetheMark]

Don't be afraid to make educated guesses. You can use the "locking in" mechanism in the book for this. Every time you have three correct entries it locks them in. If you've narrowed someone down to two, or even three possibilities, wait until you've two clues in the bag and take your best guess.

I can give one specific note that may be somewhat of a spoiler, but it points out a good resource for identifying people without giving things away.

Spoiler

The hammocks proved immensely valuable. Specifically the numbers. Whenever I was in doubt, I would go to the hammocks and check the tags and clues around them. That section of the ship is a deductive goldmine.

 

[Olinad]

I didn't take notes, but took screenshots of relevant things I didn't yet know enough about. I played it on Switch and at least there it was really convenient.

Click to shrink...

If you're on windows, Shift + Win + S is your friend 😊

 

[Xbro]

A bit of a cheese strat, but solve two people you know who they are, then try to solve an uncertain identity. Every third person solved will let you know if you got it correct.

 

[T.Rex In F-14]

Does it play well on Switch?

Click to shrink...

Worked perfectly for me.

 

[Cantaim]

If you are still early on and you feel like you still have some "easy to identify deaths" use those deaths strategically to help you solve harder deaths. The game is consistent in only telling if you were right in blocks. So if you are absolutely positive on how two people died. Save that third spot for someone who you are very unsure about. This strategy helped me get a few hard deaths that I couldn't have gotten otherwise

 

[Champy99]

I found a pen and paper helpful in a few sections to plot where everyone was as they moved from scene to scene, but for the most part, you can get by without. I also found it helpful to give everyone memorable nicknames as they appeared (this guy is Tall Hat Man, Lt. Muscles, etc.), so they would immediately pop out to me if they reappeared later.

 

[xyla]

Enjoy the ride - it's a great game!

And at some point I had a txt file open where I would write down some guesses while playing and then later on tried to verify them when it was at the time to solve. You're gonna have a lot of unsolved ones in the book at the same time. But the feeling when it all comes together is gonna be great.

Small tip with maybe little puzzle spoiler

Spoiler

Pay attention to whatever little detail you can make out in the hammocks. You may have to pay attention to specific parts of peoples clothing at one point.

 

[Deleted member 37928]

A good thing to note is that some individuals can have several options for cause of death, so don't get too caught up in how they died specifically.

 

[Jokerman]

Yes I found the method of death actually one of the more puzzling areas as they aren't always what you might think.

 

[TheYanger]

Yes I found the method of death actually one of the more puzzling areas as they aren't always what you might think.

Click to shrink...

As the post above you notes, they each accept multiple causes of death, if anything it's fairly generous.

 

[Jokerman]

As the post above you notes, they each accept multiple causes of death, if anything it's fairly generous.

Click to shrink...

Weird. I seem to recall having trouble with certain verbs, such as speared and stabbed. Maybe they changed it to be more forgiving.

 

[FaceHugger]

Whoa, I didn't know this existed. Just watched the videos on Steam. Sounds like my kind of game. I'll gladly jot notes down in a log. Taking the tips from the thread as well.

 

[Oinone]

Weird. I seem to recall having trouble with certain verbs, such as speared and stabbed. Maybe they changed it to be more forgiving.

Click to shrink...

Nah, I just bought and played it this year, and I'm with you on that. The game is said to not argue about semantics, but I struggled in some cases as well and had to try around a bit with the verbs.

 

[Unclebenny]

I'd only say, once you get towards the end game, don't be afraid to make some "educated guesses". I'm pretty sure I aw an interview with the developer, Lucas Pope, and he said the game expects you to do that at a certain point. Of course, for the life of me I can't find i now and I might be totally making it up.

As in, it gives you just about enough info to narrow it down but not enough to completely identify certain characters. That's certainly how I got through the last few characters, although I did also miss a fairly major clue that only occurred to me during the epilogue.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

You know how the first page of every person's fate has the dialogue that occurred during their memory and then a picture showing their fate? I wish I could zoom into that picture, and listen to that dialogue's audio again, without having to physically go to that person's corpse and re-load that memory with the stopwatch.

Click to shrink...

Me too. The game is a masterpiece (in the real sens of it, something crafted with all talents of the maker) but navigation can be tedious. About advices, check carefully grades, professions and roles in it, accents, nationalities, ethnicities, family ties, individual habits like drinking or smoking. Than visually you can find hints about all this, like names on books, grades on uniform, numbers on doors etc.

 

[Tygre]

It's getting difficult to keep track of who's who. Do I need pen and paper to play this game effectively? I think I need to have, written down on paper, the definition of terms like mate and steward, etc. because I keep forgetting.

Click to shrink...

Yes. Or at least I certainly did.

I ended up with a little notebook full of scribbles as I was working through stuff.

 

[bes.gen]

because the game works on a process of elimination, difficulty increases after you do some obvious fates, so its most difficult around the middle portions, then gets easier and easier towards the end with huge satisfaction.
so stay with it.
also use the group picture for visual aids, that helps tremendously and i think its a must for some of the stuff.

 

[Cass_Se]

Echoing what others have said, patience. The game starts with an interesting hook and then dumps a lot of fates one after another which can overwhelm you. I certainly felt that I was completely lost for a long time after the first few initial fates but at a certain point it just clicks and everything starts coming together. Don't be afraid of guessing and noting down your hunches too, it was one of rare games for which I using a notebook came in handy

 

[Otherist]

The crew illustration at the start of the book is your friend.

 

[Montresor]

Excellent advice... it makes me feel a lot better to read all of this.

Given what everyone has said, I know that I should just keep witnessing fates/memories and then piece together clues one at a time. Paying close attention to people/relationships.

When I go shopping today, I'm going to buy myself a notebook, because I think scribbling notes is going to help tremendously.

 

[Rover_]

enjoy this masterpiece! there's nothing like the first time :b

 

[dep9000]

Great game! I did have to cheat a bit as it got pretty difficult. Enjoy the ride!

 

[Pirateluigi]

I definitely used pen and paper. For some crew members, it helped me to essentially jot down their journey through the ship, or as much as I could piece together.

 

[PeterVenkman]

It's been a minute since I played, but I remember an easy way to get through is to game the 3 fates system - basically, when you know for sure the fates of 2 people, you can pretty easily guess the fate of a more obscure 3rd crewmember. Since the game locks your solution in when you guess it right, eliminating 2 variables means you can even use process of elimination at that point if you had to - but usually by then you've got a few fates that you're expecting.

 

[Vlad]

Ok, I've got to throw in an opposing opinion and say that it's just not worth it to abuse the "groups of three" system by guessing at the third person when you're really sure about the first two.

Sure, it'll get you to the end of the game, but you're pretty much just cheating yourself at that point. It's entirely possible to get everybody's identity and fates without any sort of guessing. I know there were a few parts where I was super stuck, and there's a couple identities where you know that person X is one of two people, so I definitely could have just cycled through those when I had two others I was super-sure about, but I'm really glad that I didn't.

It's way more satisfying to figure things out the correct way, and you never have to "guess". The only time I was wrong about any of my inputs is when I was misinterpreting the clues the game had given me, but otherwise everything's super fair.

 

[blueredandgold]

I think I will have another do-over of the game, as the initial 'wow wee' factor that I do love about it dissipates I find myself getting frustrated.

There was some sort of mechanical "walk in new room/etc, examine, deduce" sequence of player input that I don't think I understood. It was just 'well done etc etc' when I stumbled upon the right answer. I need to read what the game is telling me and focus on the ship manifest when I start again.

 

[momerath]

Become very good friends with the "Life at Sea" sketch.

Pay attention to what people are wearing in the picture, and think about what it might suggest about what they do. And while you're there, also pay attention to who they're hanging out with, and what that might suggest. You'd be surprised how far a reasonable / educated guess can take you when it comes to identifying people.

 

[Montresor]

Yikes I'm about ready to quit this game. I consider myself a huge fan puzzle games. It's rare for me to be this frustrated.

I absolutely despise how long it takes to travel between memories. I'm SICK and TIRED of being in a memory, realizing I want to quickly re-listen to the dialogue of my memory, or go to some other memory, and then realizing I have to exit that memory by walking through the black door, then walk up to some other corpse, and then activate that other memory. And then if I want to listen to the dialogue again I'm fucked. I have to exit and re-enter the memory.

There is a guy with a deduction rating of 1, with six different memories. It's so unbelievably tedious going through the six memories. I wish I could quickly load them / re-load them one after the other.

I think I will feel less frustrated once I've solved more fates. I'm only at 3 solved fates though and I've just tried everything I can think of. Looking at the manifest, at the sea life picture, at memories and trying to listen to people's accents and dialogue, etc. I'm getting nowhere at this point.

 

[Vlad]

Yikes I'm about ready to quit this game. I consider myself a huge fan puzzle games. It's rare for me to be this frustrated.

I absolutely despise how long it takes to travel between memories. I'm SICK and TIRED of being in a memory, realizing I want to quickly re-listen to the dialogue of my memory, or go to some other memory, and then realizing I have to exit that memory by walking through the black door, then walk up to some other corpse, and then activate that other memory. And then if I want to listen to the dialogue again I'm fucked. I have to exit and re-enter the memory.

There is a guy with a deduction rating of 1, with six different memories. It's so unbelievably tedious going through the six memories. I wish I could quickly load them / re-load them one after the other.

I think I will feel less frustrated once I've solved more fates. I'm only at 3 solved fates though and I've just tried everything I can think of. Looking at the manifest, at the sea life picture, at memories and trying to listen to people's accents and dialogue, etc. I'm getting nowhere at this point.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't worry too much about the deduction ratings, honestly. Similarly, don't feel too obligated to solve a person's fate as soon as they un-blur.

Actually, if you've only got 3 correct answers so far, you're probably pretty early anyway. I'd suggest just wandering around the boat and finding all the memories you can. I certainly wouldn't focus too much on trying to solve any individual person at this point. Just wander around and look for clues to anybody, as opposed to trying to identify a given person. I wasn't doing that until maybe the last 1/4 of the game. There's definitely some clues that are way easier than others.

While people in this thread have mentioned listening to accents, I never found it super-necessary. Given that, you can always just re-read the dialogue for a given memory in the book instead of restarting the memory again. I always found what people were saying to be way more useful than the accents.

Don't be too hung up on making steady progress, either. I had several stretches where I"d sit down and play for an hour and make zero progress. It's one of those games where you'll regularly come back to it after a break and have a huge epiphany, and I even had a few "a-ha!" moments when I wasn't even playing the game, but just remembered something that I had seen and realized its relevance.

 

[Deleted member 4494]

Yikes I'm about ready to quit this game. I consider myself a huge fan puzzle games. It's rare for me to be this frustrated.

I absolutely despise how long it takes to travel between memories. I'm SICK and TIRED of being in a memory, realizing I want to quickly re-listen to the dialogue of my memory, or go to some other memory, and then realizing I have to exit that memory by walking through the black door, then walk up to some other corpse, and then activate that other memory. And then if I want to listen to the dialogue again I'm fucked. I have to exit and re-enter the memory.

There is a guy with a deduction rating of 1, with six different memories. It's so unbelievably tedious going through the six memories. I wish I could quickly load them / re-load them one after the other.

I think I will feel less frustrated once I've solved more fates. I'm only at 3 solved fates though and I've just tried everything I can think of. Looking at the manifest, at the sea life picture, at memories and trying to listen to people's accents and dialogue, etc. I'm getting nowhere at this point.

Click to shrink...

Focus on the story, and moving through it. There's a really big, implicit puzzle at the center of everything, and it helps to be able to move through it and start piecing things together on a larger scale.

As far as the painful 'processes' that are involved with the game -- yeah, that shit sucks. No two ways about it, it will become frustrating from time to time, especially when you're not making progress.

As others have said: do not get caught in the local minima of this game trying to solve every little thing as you come to it. The game is designed in such a way where some of the earliest people you run into you may be unable to identify until the very end of the game!

Do not let your current frustration ruin the game for you. Take a break if you need to, that's aok. But come back and be willing to just slow down and lean in and push forward. The other stuff comes as a side-effect of engagement.

 

[Montresor]

I'm a mess. I believe I was stuck because I thought no more memories were available. I just realized the stairs to the orlop (second lowest deck) were available. 😅 So I've calmed down a bit and I realize I just need to be patient and continue going through new memories.

 

[Mirage]

There should be an in-game glossary for terms, but writing it down may be helpful if you don't want to keep flipping to it.

A lot of the faces and names will not be solvable immediately. The best advice is to treat it like you're Sherlock Holmes - observe not only the people but the environments they're in, what they're doing, their accents, what they're wearing, and so forth. For example, a person up in the rigging is obviously going to be one of the topmen because that's how ships like this work, which means you're now working to identify them from a set of six or eight names instead of dozens.

Click to shrink...

Also can narrow it down by seeing what rooms people are staying in on the map.

 

[Lowrys]

Take your time, you can't get locked out of anything and there's no rush. Just explore. You will need to view most of the events before you can start properly identifying people.

The tutorial intro allows you to identify someone early, but for most of the game you won't be able to identify people rightaway. Get a sense of the story and what's happened, and then start making notes and going back.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in here: I would strongly suggest that you don't try to brute-force solutions. Because you get a progress mark when you solve three fates, it is possible to have two right and then brute-force the third. E.g. the third person you know is a topman, so you can cycle through the topmen names until the game tells you you've got three fates right (the first two you were sure of, plus the one you brute-forced).

It's a perfectly legitimate tactic, and the game is clearly designed to allow that option where you have narrowed down the field but can't quite pin down the exact name. But every single fate in the game is deducible using the clues in the story. You never, ever need to guess at anything unless you've missed a clue. In that case, retrace your steps, because you've definitely missed something.

As with all things in life, you can only experience it once the first time, so I would enjoy the experience and not stress about getting it done quickly. It's a one-of-a-kind game ATM.

 

[Montresor]

Welp, I'm glad I stuck with it. I'm up to 15 solved fates and I've made what I believe to be relatively educated guesses for all 15 of those fates. I echo the echo the sentiment that you should simply go through all memories before really trying to hunker down and deduce fates.

My question: I am curious to know what the missable achievements are. But I don't want to look them up in case I spoil the game. If there's no way to know about the missable achievements without spoiling something about the game (whether it's the puzzle solving or the story) then I'd rather just keep playing completely blind.

 

[Stat]

Ugh, I feel a little lost :( Im never overly confident in my fates (I've only done 6 successfully). Im also not sure how to "exit" the death scenes.

But what really makes me sad is that playing this game makes me incredibly nauseous :( I really like the idea of a 3-d puzzle detective game but I cant play for more than 20 minutes

Any tips for well - solving better? And I guess the not feeling sick part.

 

[Vlad]

Ugh, I feel a little lost :( Im never overly confident in my fates (I've only done 6 successfully). Im also not sure how to "exit" the death scenes.

But what really makes me sad is that playing this game makes me incredibly nauseous :( I really like the idea of a 3-d puzzle detective game but I cant play for more than 20 minutes

Any tips for well - solving better? And I guess the not feeling sick part.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't worry too much about solving them as you find them. Just look around and find the dead bodies and solve what you can.

Don't worry too much about the whole "blurring/unblurring of the portraits" mechanic and the business with the different triangles indicating how easy people are to figure out. I had a much better time just wandering around and looking for the ah-ha moments.