I played through Return of the Obra Dinn during the weekend. Took me about 11 hours which I felt was a perfect length for this kind of game. There’s so many puzzles to solve that there’s always another one to switch to if you become stuck. And by the nature of the game, solving one puzzle (figuring out a person’s fate), often makes figuring out the remaining puzzles simpler.
I was amazed how well the 1 bit graphics worked. It’s a really atmospheric game, not just because of the graphics, but also due to excellent sound design and voice work.
The puzzles were pretty clever and varied - be prepared to take notes! The game assists you a bit with keeping track of things, but I ended up with several pages of written notes. I was able to solve the fate of all 60 passengers even if I didn’t find all clues. The game will tell you every time you get three fates correct, so if you have two that you are sure of, you can brute-force the third… But this kept it from being frustratingly difficult (see: The Witness). The playing area is quite small, so there’s not a lot of running back and forth.
And the overall story is quite good as well, even if it’s a bit excessive how unlucky the ship and crew was.
Minor story spoiler: This could very well have been a H.P. Lovecraft short story.
Big thumbs up!