The Return of the Obra Dinn has now landed on PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One and I cannot tell you how much l loved this game. The point and click genre of games was always my favourite growing up, I bloody loved them. I wasn’t always the best at them though (even though I told myself I was.) and there were a good few that often went unfinished.

I also tend to moan a lot that they don’t make as many of them these days and when they do, they don’t get the attention they deserve. So I was bloody overjoyed when this won so many awards, including best art direction, best narrative, artistic achievement and game design to name a few… annnnd that’s not even mentioning the nominations.

I’m definitely not surprised it won artistic achievement because it really does look lovely. I’m not old enough to remember games that looked like this in the past so this art style was pretty new for me, even though I’m aware it emulates games released on platforms like the Macintosh etc. I think what I’m trying to say is don’t let that fact put you off if graphics and how a game looks are important to you , as I was still super impressed by the look and feel, even though they only use like 2 colours the whole way through.

You play as an insurance adjuster (exciting sounding, I know.) tasked with finding out what happened to a ship and it’s crew that has previously gone missing and has recently been found washed up looking a little worse for wear. The only items you get are a log book where you can add notes and cross reference details on each crew member and a “Memento Mortem” which is a fancy compass type thingy which lets you see and hear the last moments of someone’s life just before they die. You have to then figure out from this scene, who the crew member is and how they died. You can also use these scenes to view other crew members in the vicinity and work our who they be be also.

For a game that for the majority of the time you’re just wandering about on your own looking at still images, it’s so interesting and imaginative. It’s definitely not going to be for everyone but I think that’s a good thing. I really enjoy it when someone goes against the grain and makes something that is genuinely interesting to them and not just what they think everyone will like.

In short. Game good. More please!

When I played this, it was just on my crappy old laptop, so I may just download for my Switch also as it will be interesting to see how this transitions over. If someone has already done this then let me know!

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