Fantastic video! Very well put together, I watched the whole thing right after I finished the game. My mind was blown as soon as you started talking about the hammocks. Somehow I missed every one, would have saved a lot of guesswork. One thing, the term "chinaman" which you say once or twice is considered fairly derogatory. Although it sounded like you were just accidentally portmanteau-ing "Chinese topmen." Otherwise, though, no complaints. One question I had that you may or may not be able to answer, why does the game include many extra death options like "expired", "froze", "shot by arrow", etc. that are never used? I'm not even sure they count as red herrings since for most of them there is no point in the game where you would even consider them for a second.
Thanks for commenting! I sincerely apologize if you or anyone else was offended by my use of Chinamen. I was indeed shortening "Chinese men", just as I did with "Scotsman", "Dutchman", and "Frenchman". I think the reason there are multiple death possibilities in the list that never get used is insight into the mind of the adjuster that you as the player are role-playing as. All the things on the list are conceivably some of the more common ways for a sailor in the 1800s to perish, and so would be the ones in the forefront of the mind of someone looking to explain how another was likely to have perished. The reason I think this is that there is no exact match for the two deaths involving the Formosan box. The adjuster just can't rationally explain their supernatural deaths accurately. Fun fact: the deaths you pick have an effect on the outcome (and the payout per individual) during the summary at the end of the game. There's been some joking around about maybe creating a speedrun where you make the selections which result in the largest payout.
I assume it's because you are an Inspector and are supposed to find out the fates/deaths of people for insurance purposes they have listed a lot of extra deaths that can all happen on ships, freezing, arrows (considering it's the 1800s bow and arrows isn't that unlikely) Expiration (like death from overheating/overworking/heart attack) is just a general go to death that can all happen on a ship voyage.
@@Bellisarius The line in the book if you choose "expired" says they died of old age. And to the OP's question: They _are_ red herrings. They're not there to make you wonder "Was this person frozen, or burned?" or "Is that a spike, or an arrow?"; the game is (mostly) designed so you don't have to worry about that kind of thing. Fifty-nine times out of sixty, give or take, the cause of death is exactly what it looks like. It's there partly to make it harder to guess a cause of death without seeing it, and partly to make it harder to guess what's going on in the story from the available causes of death. That's why "foreign enemy" is an option for murderers even though there aren't any 'foreign enemies" in the game (just crew, passengers, and terrible beasts). If only the deaths used in the game were selectable, it would be a lot easier to figure out things ahead of time by looking at the list of names. Think of it this way: Imagine if, when selecting who shot/clubbed/spiked/etc someone, you could only select actual murderers (ie, not crew members who never killed anyone). There's no point at which it seems like, say, Abigail kills someone, yet you can select her as a murderer. Why? Same reason you can pick "Shot by arrow by a foreign enemy".
The extra death options are not red herrings for the individual deaths, but red herrings for the story as a whole. By adding in extra options, it’s much harder to predict what future deaths will be like.
58:00 Fun fact: This is one of the cases where your decision affects the outcome of your final insurance evaluation, and thus the families of the deceased. As part of the claims, the Company gives bonuses and fines. Those who die taking heroic action or who suffer cruel fates through no fault of their own earn bonuses, paid by the Company to the deceased's next-of-kin. Those who commit crimes, anywhere from abandoning ship to mutiny to murder, get _fines,_ paid by either the survivors themselves or the deceased's next-of-kin. If you judge that Wolff and Shirley were "shot with a cannon by a terrible beast" or "blasted by an explosion", Abraham Akbar, the man who lit the cannon before the kraken grabbed it, is praised by the Company for his exceptional performance of his duties and his estate is awarded 25 Pounds (equivalent in 1807, the year of your investigation, to $2,791.58 modern dollars) in outstanding wages and bonus pay. If you judge instead that Wolff and Shirley were "shot with a cannon by _Abraham Akbar,"_ the Company, trusting in your judgement and having no further context, instead sends Akbar's family a _bill_ for his 40 Pound ($4,466.52) fine for the murder of two crewmen. Personally, "by Abraham Akbar" may take a bit more thought, but I feel like "by a beast" is _technically_ the _most_ correct of the options. And for a bureaucrat, "technically" is _the best kind_ of correct!
But you can _blame_ Milroy for the death of Charlie Hershtik (by sword, while recklessly thrusting at some sea beast). And as a Company bureaucrat, the best kind of correct is the kind that best protects the Company's bottom line; that is, finding the ones responsible and charging them for their crimes. Our character didn't become Chief Inspector by giving away Company money, after all.
Cool video! One thing I wanted to note because I haven't seen it pointed out anywhere else: Captain Witterel says that Hok-Seng Lau was found guilty of murder "by self-confession." Why would he confess to a murder he didn't commit? He didn't -- Nichols had one of the Chinese topmen, Li Hong, in on the mutiny. Presumably, Li Hong was asked to translate Hok-Seng Lau's testimony and framed him.
Being that Galligan was on the other boat it's hard to see with the waves. Busy with all the 'mermaid' action going on. It's easy for the player to see in freeze time but hard for him.
Me playing this: That guy has a striped top so he must be French... no wait that's stupid it's too obvious 8 hours later and it's Charles Miner confirmed: I KNEW IT!
I did this too! It was one of the first things i guessed then decided it was too silly to assume that. I ended up getting who he was as one of the last few people and I was fuming 😂😂
le frenchman... is le frenchman... Seriously, it's staggering how many people pin the frenchman on the guy with the concentric circle tattoos instead of the guy in the french navy outfit who follows the bosun around.
On Hok-Seng Lau's death, I actually got the cause of death by accident. I was playing through the game, and kept seeing the same seaman, Henry Brennan, come up. He attempts to mutiny against the captain at the start, he kills someone in the gun deck and at this point I'm starting to think that this guy is trouble and I'm starting to have a vendetta against him. So when I get to the scene where Hok-Seng Lau is executed, I see Brennan amongst the shooters and immediately think "Well, it's got to be impossible to tell who shot this guy, so I'm just going to have to pick one of them and hope that the game allows any of them as an option. Fuck it, I hate Brennan. I'm pinning it on him." And what do you know, it actually worked. I go back to the scene later to see if I can find any hints for others that are in the scene, and notice that only one shot actually hits, and it was none other than Henry Brennan's. I had a good laugh at how I picked him entirely based on a gut reaction, and I managed to get it dead on the money.
The way I identified Henry Brennan is that in the few memories just prior to Thomas Lanke's death, he was going down the stairs with Hoscutt, so he's the one that Hoscutt would know for sure was nearby and would call out to
Love the video, thanks so much. Am stumped that nobody has mentioned this, though; I identified Charles Miner in Unholy Captives. When the mermaid is being lifted up onto the ship it is done so by a line of seamen and one person directing the lifting of the mermaid that spikes Hamadou and Chioh Tan. In the background of the audio you can hear someone with a French accent shout 'HEAVE', 'HEAVE TOGETHA' "HEEEEAVE'. Once you notice that and see the vignette shortly after, it is incredibly obvious that Charles Miner is commanding the seamen to heave up the mermaid and that he is French, and therefore must be Charles Miner.
Dude this is EXACTLY the sort of video I wanted to find now that I’m done with the game for the first time and can watch all the content about it. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this.
I am in deep shock after Finding out, that Olus Wiater's voice actor is Piotr Adamczyk. He's one of the most popular actor in poland. He actually played in Hawkeye about half year ago. I just love that guy
He's a great actor and especially terrific voice actor. He's the kind of VA you only hear once he's been pointed out - like the only reason I didn't feel as shocked when I found out he voiced Wiater was because I had already been deeply shocked he dubbed Lightning McQueen in Cars and Syndrome in Incredibles. Man, he's good
Another death within the ship to help ID Wallace would be the killing of the cow in The Bitter Cold part three where Wallace can be seen cleaning up the bed after the corpse is moved out, a menial task one would not expect a doctor to do but the assistant.
It was crazy how some of them became so obvious once you know it. Wallace always hanging out with the Surgeon, and Miner with the Bosun, both were ones I ended up getting through process of elimination and manipulating the rule of three, then getting mad once I realized how “easy” they should have been.
Also when you already found out who the Bosun is you can figure out Miner because the Bosun asks "Where is my Frenchman?" in Escape 1, thus knowing Miner must be the Bosuns Mate because he is the only French Person on the ship
The Bitter Cold scene where everyone one is sleeping had already been deemed useless by me when i figured out there are only faces of Indians and Russins that are shown. I couldn't identify people sleeping with their faces covered so i just gave up and started doing educated guessing. I have no idea you can confirm them with numbers, weapons, tattoo and even shoes. What an amazing video
There's also a similar scene later in the game, in Chapter 7 I think, where you can similarly check the hammocks. The hammocks of any deceased men are taken down. So if you compare Bitter Cold to the later scene, you can deduce everyone who sleeps in a hammock who dies between those two scenes.
I'd certainly like to see this game get a follow-up although not a direct sequel but more so just expanding on the world that these games exist in. Rather than re-using the sea monsters it'd be interesting to see other supernatural entities although you'd have to come up with another enclosed environment like the Obra Dinn so perhaps a prison or an island or something like that.
Fun fact: in the office scene, there is a small timeskip, and you.can see that originally the book that is used on this game is alone in its section of the shelf, but after the small timeskip, it is placed beside an identical book (shorter and twice as thick, but having the same colours and style); all hinting that in the timeskip between the book making it to doctor Evans, and it coming back, the protagonist has solved another inquiry similar to the Obra Dinn (AKA a hint to a sequel, but who knows)
I think this game design engine should be re-used by other games. Maybe another investigation but like set on a space ship, and it doesn't always have to be the moment of death, just like random "3d scans" the ship took of various moments.
@@esotericVideos I could see a great murder mystery/horror game come out of this, imagine coming across a dead body in a mansion and watching its death scene, only to realize you were part of the scene, and a shadowy figure was just over your shoulder
There's actually something really obvious you missed about William Hoscut: You can see him leaving the 1st Mate's cabin in Chapter IX during the Bosun's death.
1:00:25, in regard to the association with a gun stipulation. You CAN confirm that it is in fact Olus' gun if you look at the previous scenes in which you can see the lower deck, you can actually see him with the gun, holstered of course.
Dude, love the video! As far as the logic of the video, and of your solve, here were a couple things that I learned from Patrick O'Brian, that helped me in my (weak sauce) incomplete solve. 1) Charles Miner was bosun's mate, which meant that he would have been in charge of the physical discipline of the ship. That's why he's guarding the Formosans during the execution, and would not have been involved in slaughtering the cow, it just wasn't his role. Any bosun's mate was an enforcer, not a reedy midshipman. 2) The death of the midshipman who overhears the mutineers I smoked as a midshipman. Not only does the audio sound younger, but a midshipman would have been on the officers' side of such a conflict, not on the hands' side, leading to his singing canary. 3) Axes had multiple uses in ships of this era, but the only person who would be stereotyped with such a tool would be a carpenter or a carpenter's mate. The game drops you a good clue with that stereotype, as the carpenter's mate throws one at the crabrider.
Hilariously enough, I found the captain's body after I had gone almost completely through the ship. I saw the body in the bed the next room over and completely missed the one on the floor. xD
For Zungi Sathi, the method to identify him is straightfoward, in his death you can assume that he was running away and wounded, and you can see the blood trail that he was leaving; you only need to follow him and the blood trail on the earlyer deaths (cronologycally) and you can see that he started just outside his office/room
i’d be very interested in a sequel, something along the lines of “due to your exceptional work investigating the obra dinn, you have been tasked with [insert setting here]” maybe give that the pocketwatch is a unique artefact, something evans gave you because he wanted the full story of his ship without being arrested for treason after returning to investigate himself, and that the east india company has decided to put you on a particularly difficult case no other adjuster can even begin to decipher another ship would work, but also i like the idea of a poorly-managed, company-owned port coming under attack, and you have to assess both the damages from the final attack and make sense of everything in the weeks or months prior that went unreported and still needs to be settled. you’d have both recurring characters, (locals, people working the docks or a ship or two that come in and out often) and one-offs from ships passing through, which would be an interesting challenge
I just now realized that if Edward Nichols didn't try to steal the treasure, the entire story of the Obra Dinn wouldn't have happened, man his fate was way too kind for what he deserved
@oldschooloverlord The lazerette is usually (not always) used to store materials for the bosun, but the Obra Dinn has a separate bosun's store on the cargo deck, and considering the amount of livestock on board it isn't inconceivable that the Obra Dinn would sometimes haul live fish. I don't think the formosans were planning on attracting sierens; they know how powerful they are and try at every turn to not let the shells leave the box unless absolutely necessary.
Just finished Obra Dinn a few days ago (my last 12 or so fates determined by guess and check). This guide was fantastic for pointing out what I missed. Thank you so much for making this!
For Lewis Walker(Topman), there is a VERY easy way to id him. on the destroyed ship(not a memory) there is only 1 hammock left, and it is his. To me that's not stretching at all, it is the main and easiest way to ID him. we know the other 3 present there already too. (could be mixed with Brendon, but that's another easy ID so) You also have to think that most events happens on different nights, and on the day they take the hammocks down, and put them back up for sleeping. So the dead would not have theirs put back up after they died or disappeared. You never see hammock when they aren't sleeping, or even fighting. And since you see the ship as it was after the captain suicided(including the last 5 corpses not cleared from the ship and still present), you can also assume the hammock that was left up is one of the 4 man left alive, it can't be the captain's or the first mate, and we id Brendon elsewhere. so it has to be the unknown man. Same thing with Nathan. It's not a long shot, but the intended way.
I thought I was crazy for trying to use the "shoes" method to differentiate between the Chinese Topman... I think I accidentally mixed up two of them doing this, so just assumed it was too much of a stretch and couldn't be the intended method. Good to know now that I'm not actually insane :)
I figured out the survivors in Africa cuz I got frustrated and ended the game and got the letter from Jane saying "the 4 of us that escaped to Africa" and I was like oh, well just let me reload now! LOL
I felt really stupid at first, like I was asking: "How do you expect me to figure where these people went? It's not like they told me!" Then, at the end, when I found out that yeah, I HAD to find out ALL the fates before I left, I remembered it was Evans who sent me the book, with a preface. Maybe there he told me where he is, right? So I checked and... yeah, Morocco. I felt immensely stupid :D
Lmao I chose Africa as a frustrated guess and then checked the prologue after I was confirmed right, I had previously guessed them to be in Azores since their boat was on the left side of the ship as it was turning back.
I knew Evans, Bird and Willis went to Africa because in the mutiny scene an old guy says "We should take the shells and sail east" or something like that. At that point the ship was west of Northern Africa, so I I guessed other survivors would go there as well because it's logical.
I would like to point out that there is one other scene where Finley Dalton appears that did not get mentioned in this video which could help you identify him as the helmsman, if his appearance in Abigail's death scene goes unnoticed. He also appears during Murder, Part 3 - the death of Scottish topman Timothy Butement. In this scene, Finley can be found wounded by a spear on the ground right next to the helm, undoubtedly caused by one of the mutineers. Additionally, the Russian Aleksei Toporov can have his identity deduced in that same scene. Using the logic of attributing the satchel and pipe on his hammock to him earlier in Part 1 of A Bitter Cold, Alexei can be seen lowering one of the life boats, with his satchel slung on his shoulder.
This game deserves all the love it gets and more, and the same goes to this video, it's so fun as it's informative, i just hope more people play this game, it's really a master piece
Thank you for that, you must have put in an extraordinary amount of work! I really love this game and it's very satisfying to see it all laid out (and to see that some of my leaps of logic were actually correct haha)
Yeah, I think the reason why he isn't unblurred before then is because you can't lock Martin. If you could lock Martin that would make it possible to use exclusion for unblurring, at least that's how I've understood the exclusion unblurring works.
For the people on the boat that leaves for Africa in escape there's another way to know where they're going, if you don't know what country Morocco is in. You can look at the ships journey on a map near the beginning of the book and at the start of every chapter. During the events of escape, Africa is the nearest landmass to the ship and the only feasible place you could escape to.
@@lalehiandeity1649 My bad, I don't know my geography very well. Hence why I used the logic based reasoning rather than the knowledge based option. Although if Morocco is a country why isn't it accepted as an answer? Or is it, I honestly forgor, it's been ages lol.
@@lalehiandeity1649 I see. Perhaps you're supposed to assume that they all arrived at a port in Africa and only Henry moved further from there. Perhaps because he was a doctor and had more/was more capable of making money than the others who settled closer to port for financial reasons.
The people down inside the ship also say they're going to take the ship and "Head east", and of course that would be towards Africa. It's reasonable to guess that the four on the boat would try to do the same.
The wedding ring on Emily Jackson's left hand is also (and I think much more clearly) visible in Paul Moss's death scene (the one right before Volkov's). She's standing on the railing with her left hand clearly in shot holding on to a rope.
I know it was probably a ton of work to put this together and that I'm about three years late to this video. Just finished Return of the Obra Dinn and wanted to watch other people's videos about it. This was extremely cool to watch and a huge thanks for putting this all together. I am surprised that you don't bring up the positioning of people in the pictures at the front of the book. While not particularly definitive it was definitely a tool I used a lot. Regardless seeing all the various scattered hints was really cool! The amount of work that went into this game is absolutely incredible and it's also incredible to see it all laid out like this.
Something of note for anyone who may be struggling and may see this comment: you find Samuel Peters's corpse/ghost through a barrel in the back of the cargo hold. A stowaway hid in a barrel that fell on Samuel's head, but the barrel then hit the ground and the stowaway inside died on impact. After the scene, Samuel's ghost corpse is directly accessable, like with the other ghost corpses, after finding that chain of deaths. I was a little stumped trying to find it myself, so I though it was worth mentioning.
Another clue that George Shirley is friends with the chinese topmen and thus is likely to be the person sharing a drink with the last remaining one in Edward Spratt's death is that he's playing a dice game with them in the drawing.
This is true, but less useful because both Alaxander Booth and Hamadou Diom - the two characters you are likely to be stuck with Shirley on - are present and playing as well.
1 Miss Lim is also named in the execution scene when she tries to speak out. 2 Maba's biggest clue is that his face gets unblurred as soon as you see his death - meaning the tattoos are supposed to be a sufficient clue. 3 Lewis Walker is identified as a topman as early as his death scene - no other kind of crewman would think to get into captain's quarters by climbing down onto the balcony, and Walker is seen jumping or climbing in nearly all his scenes (this also identifies Brennen by process of elimination in the midshipman's death scene) 4 A bosun's job can be summed up as "shouting at seamen." If you look down during the lightning strike scene, the bosun isn't there, but Charles Miner is, and he's the only one not pulling the rope - presumably, he is the one we hear giving commands. 5 Apart from being named in the execution scene, the gunner can be heard commanding the cannon that he later dies from.
When I realized the hammocks were numbered, and it was a direct referral to the ship's charter, I knew the 2 main scene with the whole lot of them was the treasure trove of info to id just about everyone of them. I started looking at anything that differentiate each one, and it led me to checking shoes and socks. But it can be hard to see with certain color scheme... Still it worked for nearly all of them :D(along with the numbers gone between a bitter cold and the start of the doom, to eliminate names in between those two event..)
Another fun fact is that you can actually be a FEMALE inspector as well, it is randomly picked at the start. You can only hear it in the voicelines at the start. (as can be seen in this video here: ua-cam.com/video/51OYs3wtZ78/v-deo.html ) Anyway thank you for this video, I would've never guessed the bit with the chinese topmen and their shoes I assumed you were just expected to guess, but from Uniforms to grouping up together in the Pictures to being, coming out of or fleeing to their respective rooms it has a lot of miniscule details that are very interesting to know and I would love another riddle like game like that, the Memento Mortem is a pretty cool concept. Maybe with some added variability to make replays more possible as if you played the Obra Dinn once, that's kind of it unless you want to revisit it for the great aesthetics. Lets see what Lucas Pope will cook up next, the Indi market seems to certainly have great gems.
Yeah I was so surprised when I start a game again to play with my friends (I just end chapter 10) and I swear I heard our character voice was male the first time. My friend don’t really care though lol
One thing you didn’t mention about the gunner’s death is that you can say he was shot by the beast. I just think it’s funny to say that he was “shot by a terrible beast”.
This was a brilliant video! I finished the game and was so curious as to what clues I missed and how I was supposed to figure out certain people that I had guessed at. This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!
Great video, it took me 15 hours but i ended up deducing them all. I was so fascinated with the game i thought i'd check out your video to pick up any clues that i had missed. I had missed a few like the 4th Mate in the cabin when the 2nd mate gets shot.
The number of times you have to listen to that poor artist guy almost literally shit himself to death in order to find all the clues and whatever in that particular scene has to be some kind of cruel joke on the players by the devs. The audio for that is so extensive and detailed and you have to revisit that scene so many times that I really cannot fathom that it's not intentional.
I'm sure I saw an interview with Lucas Pope and he said that the ship should have like double the number of people, but he had to cut it off at some point for his own sanity and not to overwhelm the player
@@Bus_Driver_Jay very true, especially when you consider how many of them would just be some form of seamen or topmen, it would definitely get repetitive very quickly
"Lascar houses" were specifically places where British companies could get cheap foreign labor. Even in their time they were criticised as very exploitative. No wonder Syed got sick.
I don’t think “Obra Dinn” should get a sequel necessarily but I do believe that the concept and gameplay loop of Obra Dinn would be really cool to see for another story or mystery
This looked like so much fun to play! I would love to get another mystery type game set in a different time period. I agree, the overwhelming majority of this catastrophe was Nichols' fault. Who would have died regardless? Rujab, Syed, and maybe Sam Peters.
Wasn't it the Formosans' fault for bringing a cursed treasure on board without warning anyone? (it seems the chest uses the shells' magic as a weapon. Perhaps they were royalty in exile and wanted to use the treasure to get back to power?)
I just finished the game for the first time a few days ago and holy shit the level of dopamine I got from it was insane. It felt so good. You really had to use alot of deductive reasoning to figure out who everyone was but the neat thing was that alot of scenes, while not based on them, referenced the kind of jobs they had which saved me alot of time.
You can figure out that Thomas was knifed on his death diorama by the bloody knife right outside door in the pool of blood (it might also be there in the present as well)
Part of my deduction process with botb Hamadou and Mabu was that both of them are not really involved with a group, are not interacted with and dont speak. I deduced that, taking the era in mind, noone either cared nor spoke their language and so they are isolated as the only ones of their respective homelands on the whole ship.
Damn the hammock thing is way bigger than I thought. I found out about the hammock numbers throughout the game and actively used them but I didn’t catch that they were taken down after people died
Something I like about this game is that, while it does lean a little hard into ethnic stereotypes in spots, it does at least make sure that you can confirm them - e.g. with Omid Ghul's sword, you can make the assumption based on his ethnicity, but you can confirm it using evidence, even if most players probably wouldn't need to. To me the most frustrating thing about guesswork is not knowing how you were *supposed* to do the solve =/
I like that it doesn't treat you like a child that can't see the difference between a Chinese person and an English one. The stereotypes are damn correct though, in 1807 traditional clothing and things like polynesian tattoos were far more common.
You can actually tell who the captain is just from his death scene, he refers to the woman as Abigail. There's no other crewmate or passenger named Abigail, and they both have the same last names. From that you can tell they're husband and wife or at the very least close to each other.
I just completed this game again for the 2nd time. The last time I played it was 2 years ago so long enough that it was pretty fresh for me and I couldn't remember any of the names or fates. The 2nd playthrough just confirmed for me that the game's a masterpiece. Its a shame none of my friends would play it as they are put off by the graphics, but I'd take this over any of the CoD shite they play any day.
I think you forgot to mention being shot from a cannon by the beast as a possible death cause for Christian Wolff, even though You listed it as George's Shirley's death. I think it's the most hardcore death cause in the whole game. I imagine someone reading it later and going "So those two were shot from a cannon by a fucking kraken!?" Also, being Polish I need to say a few words about Olus Wiater. When I played the game for the first time his accent didn't help at all. Partly because it was muffled as being heard from another room, and partly, because his accent is not really audible. And I think that this is because the actor they cast for his role is a prominent Polish actor, and his english is really good, even compared to other Polish actors. Funny thing is, at first I didn't even recognize his voice, and I was shocked seeing his name in the credits! And at first I thought it might have been just a coincidence. Only after replaying the game and listening very hard I noticed a hint of polish accent and realized it really did sound like him.
That was a pretty good video, a bit on the long run, but you did go into a fair bit of detail for pretty much everyone, and mentioned stuff I probably wouldn't have even considered (the smoking pipe for one)
The quicksilver line (mercury, poisonous via inhalation or touch) from Filip Dahl is why I chose poisoned as his manner of death rather than burned for the other victims of the mystical box. I was delighted when it was accepted. Electrocuted is a fun interpretation though. I will say that both Li Hong and Wei Lee have white socks and black shoes with black soles, but similar to the deduction for Lewis Walker, Wei Lee is solvable first and Li Hong is left by process of elimination. I would love to play a sequel (or more accurately a prequel) - we know that the Chief Inspector has at least one other casebook on the shelf when she puts it away.
Great video! The only clue I missed was that Lewis Walker's hammock is still up in present-day (though I got his identity by eliminating other topmen). A small note on figuring Alexander Booth's identity from Doom 2: you used his remaining hammock to distinguish him from Hamadou (which requires that he's one of the last guesses), but there's another similar way. Iirc, in the same scene the only hammocks that are up but empty belong to A. Booth, N. Peters and L. Linde - which happen to be the 3 non-special-role guys that are up and trying to escape in the previous scene. So if you figured out Nathan and Lars, you can get Alexander by elimination.
I actually found Hamadou Diom’s identity right away during his death scene because as I was looking through the manifest on him I saw that someone was from Sierra Leona was on the ship. It made me think of the song “Woman” by Little Simz where she mentions multiple African countries and the line “Miss Sierra Leona looking like a gem” got stuck in my head, so I clicked on Hammadou’s name and since I had two other fates correct it got typed into the book right away. Quite the lucky break for me
Great Analysis - When I played it I never knew you could press E to zoom in and match up with the drawings - so I was playing it at a much higher level - so many scenes where you dont see the face so you have to make some guesses. It took me about 9 hours to beat it. Very good game I hope there is a sequel.
If anyone is wondering how I did it. The map of the ship was more needed for me; you can go into the mates quarters and see the type of shirt on a coat hanger. Then there is a lot of weight put into assuming the roles based on who is standing next to each other - then tools and hats, and stuff. For some reason I thought the tattooed topman must be scottish - the most difficult was the bosemans.
Great video! I just finished my (admittedly terrible) playthough of the game with like ~30% of the crew correctly identified, and, while I saw the amazing potential underneath, I knew right there and then that I'd get more frustrated than I'd enjoy finishing the game. After watching this, I know that there's a solid 25% of the crew I'd never have been able to get right, mostly because I don't like guessing at these things, and wouldn't have (although designed for that purpose) used/abused the "Once you know 2, guess at a 3rd" feature. Thanks again for not only giving the answers, but how to get there as well!
I watched a blind play through by a German UA-camr many months ago. He found out all the fates correctly, but I still love to watch this explanation video, because he sometimes missed clues that I saw and now I am curious about what else he missed. Furthermore the accents are not very helpful, because in the German version they did not choose speakers with fitting accents, so you couldn't even base guesses on that.
Just wanted to say how valuable I'm finding this video! (And don't be so hard on yourself in the comments!) I solved the game on my own, but going back to review all the clues I missed has been very illuminating. I totally missed many of them and was just guessing in a couple of places! Okay, but I've gotta ask -- how does one speed run Obra Dinn? Because shouldn't it be trivial to speed run once you know all the fates?
I figured out Charles because in one scene (I can’t remember which one - one of the monster attacks on the lower decks) the Gunner throws a gun to him and the Bosun is running ahead - so I figured they must be a pair. I love how many subtle hints there are!
Oh how interesting. You didn’t mention it, but for Wolff on my first play through I put his death down as shot with a cannon by a beast. Because I interpreted the situation as the kraken disturbed the cannon, and held it and him together. And kaboom. And it worked! Game has more options than even speed runners know about, it seems.
And if you blame the kraken for shooting the cannon; Abraham, instead of getting fined for the murder of his fellow crewmates, gets commended for his bravery and given a bonus
@@fwenny yep, same thing with Minier, he can get blamed and fined for the death of the steward, even though the shot went through a wall. And depending on your answer for fates for the disapeared (drowned, fell overboard, killed by a beast) they recieve different ammount of compensation (if they died by a beast they will get commended and have a bonus, if fell overboard just outstanding wages, if fell drowned or left the ship they get fined fined for leaving their post - all survivors get fined for leaving their post and the passengers get no refunds as leaving the boat forfeit their tickets) There is also a way to find the identity of that steward; as he is leaving a trail of blood, when you go back in time through the death scenes, you can follow his trail of blood and find that he was leaving his office
For Leonid, during the action on the gun deck in the Doom you can also see that his Hammock is still up and he is actually moving the cannon under the hammock
Neat video! I used some different information to unravel 8. Henry Evans, 21.Emily Jackson and 22. Jane Bird, so I thought I would mention it here, since it isn't mentioned in the video. All three ending letters mention Dr. Evans by name and are signed Jane Bird. In letter number 2 she writes that they are content with their situation in Morocco. This was how I deduced their location.
The way i identified A. Akbar, Renfred Rajib, and William Wassim was by alphabetical order in relation to their positioning in the sketch. From left to right it's A. Akbar, Renfred Rajib, William Wassim. I also asssumed the top row of people in the upper sketch were all topmen, and was able to deduce Omid Gul's identity due to the fact that he was the only person in that row who resembled a Persian person.
There's another scene that determines that James Wallace was the sergeant's mate. In the artist's memory (I believe) where you see two seamen carrying a patient downstairs while Henry watches with a monkey on his shoulder, in the sergeant's room you can see Wallace preparing the bed.
if they ever make a follow up, I'd like the option to put in multiple names or a note feature to save things you have learned such as ethnicity/tatoss etc.
Nice video. I never knew that about the chinese topmen, I had to guess for them. With regard to 24: I believe there was a death scene involving him opening up the chest and lightning going out in all directions and hitting the merfolk. That's where electrocution comes from IMO.
While I missed all of the ways to identify the gunner's mate as listed in the video, he can also be seen handling multiple guns during the midshipman Peter's death (the explosion death), going upstairs towards the main deck (and falling over, lol).
I correctly identified Zungi as Indian by his facial features, then got hopelessly stuck on his death, because i listened for a gunshot sound and didn't hear any - only splattering blood and breaking wood... (even when you do see the person who shot him, he is too far to be highlighted - you need to watch previous fight scenes to see which crewmen were given rifles.)
If you peek through the window slots you can see Charles Miner on the far side of the crab beast, and his shot lines up past the creature and into Zungi through the wall.
Fantastic video! Very well put together, I watched the whole thing right after I finished the game. My mind was blown as soon as you started talking about the hammocks. Somehow I missed every one, would have saved a lot of guesswork.
One thing, the term "chinaman" which you say once or twice is considered fairly derogatory. Although it sounded like you were just accidentally portmanteau-ing "Chinese topmen." Otherwise, though, no complaints. One question I had that you may or may not be able to answer, why does the game include many extra death options like "expired", "froze", "shot by arrow", etc. that are never used? I'm not even sure they count as red herrings since for most of them there is no point in the game where you would even consider them for a second.
Thanks for commenting! I sincerely apologize if you or anyone else was offended by my use of Chinamen. I was indeed shortening "Chinese men", just as I did with "Scotsman", "Dutchman", and "Frenchman".
I think the reason there are multiple death possibilities in the list that never get used is insight into the mind of the adjuster that you as the player are role-playing as. All the things on the list are conceivably some of the more common ways for a sailor in the 1800s to perish, and so would be the ones in the forefront of the mind of someone looking to explain how another was likely to have perished. The reason I think this is that there is no exact match for the two deaths involving the Formosan box. The adjuster just can't rationally explain their supernatural deaths accurately.
Fun fact: the deaths you pick have an effect on the outcome (and the payout per individual) during the summary at the end of the game. There's been some joking around about maybe creating a speedrun where you make the selections which result in the largest payout.
I assume it's because you are an Inspector and are supposed to find out the fates/deaths of people for insurance purposes they have listed a lot of extra deaths that can all happen on ships, freezing, arrows (considering it's the 1800s bow and arrows isn't that unlikely) Expiration (like death from overheating/overworking/heart attack) is just a general go to death that can all happen on a ship voyage.
@@Bellisarius The line in the book if you choose "expired" says they died of old age.
And to the OP's question: They _are_ red herrings. They're not there to make you wonder "Was this person frozen, or burned?" or "Is that a spike, or an arrow?"; the game is (mostly) designed so you don't have to worry about that kind of thing. Fifty-nine times out of sixty, give or take, the cause of death is exactly what it looks like. It's there partly to make it harder to guess a cause of death without seeing it, and partly to make it harder to guess what's going on in the story from the available causes of death. That's why "foreign enemy" is an option for murderers even though there aren't any 'foreign enemies" in the game (just crew, passengers, and terrible beasts). If only the deaths used in the game were selectable, it would be a lot easier to figure out things ahead of time by looking at the list of names.
Think of it this way: Imagine if, when selecting who shot/clubbed/spiked/etc someone, you could only select actual murderers (ie, not crew members who never killed anyone). There's no point at which it seems like, say, Abigail kills someone, yet you can select her as a murderer. Why? Same reason you can pick "Shot by arrow by a foreign enemy".
Oh brother, get over it
The extra death options are not red herrings for the individual deaths, but red herrings for the story as a whole. By adding in extra options, it’s much harder to predict what future deaths will be like.
58:00 Fun fact: This is one of the cases where your decision affects the outcome of your final insurance evaluation, and thus the families of the deceased. As part of the claims, the Company gives bonuses and fines. Those who die taking heroic action or who suffer cruel fates through no fault of their own earn bonuses, paid by the Company to the deceased's next-of-kin. Those who commit crimes, anywhere from abandoning ship to mutiny to murder, get _fines,_ paid by either the survivors themselves or the deceased's next-of-kin.
If you judge that Wolff and Shirley were "shot with a cannon by a terrible beast" or "blasted by an explosion", Abraham Akbar, the man who lit the cannon before the kraken grabbed it, is praised by the Company for his exceptional performance of his duties and his estate is awarded 25 Pounds (equivalent in 1807, the year of your investigation, to $2,791.58 modern dollars) in outstanding wages and bonus pay. If you judge instead that Wolff and Shirley were "shot with a cannon by _Abraham Akbar,"_ the Company, trusting in your judgement and having no further context, instead sends Akbar's family a _bill_ for his 40 Pound ($4,466.52) fine for the murder of two crewmen.
Personally, "by Abraham Akbar" may take a bit more thought, but I feel like "by a beast" is _technically_ the _most_ correct of the options. And for a bureaucrat, "technically" is _the best kind_ of correct!
Also Peter Milroy
@@_-_-Sipita-_-_ wdym also him, can you decide he was blown up by someone?
@@limitlesscord7319 nvm he sacrificed himself
But you can _blame_ Milroy for the death of Charlie Hershtik (by sword, while recklessly thrusting at some sea beast).
And as a Company bureaucrat, the best kind of correct is the kind that best protects the Company's bottom line; that is, finding the ones responsible and charging them for their crimes. Our character didn't become Chief Inspector by giving away Company money, after all.
Yeah it definitely wasn't Abraham's fault. Dude was crushed after lighting the cannon, he physically couldn't stop it from firing
Cool video! One thing I wanted to note because I haven't seen it pointed out anywhere else: Captain Witterel says that Hok-Seng Lau was found guilty of murder "by self-confession." Why would he confess to a murder he didn't commit? He didn't -- Nichols had one of the Chinese topmen, Li Hong, in on the mutiny. Presumably, Li Hong was asked to translate Hok-Seng Lau's testimony and framed him.
Mind blown, I had never considered this!
This is the correct answer. Very well done. This seems to have only been noticed in the last year by the community at large.
I was wondering why one of the Chinese topmen were included while the rest were left behind. This clarifies it, holy shit the detail in this game.
That is super deep
O'Hagan gets speared/spiked by a terrible beast through his neck.
Galligan: "O'Hagan, are you still breathing? Can you row"".
O'Hagan: ✖👄✖
Being that Galligan was on the other boat it's hard to see with the waves. Busy with all the 'mermaid' action going on. It's easy for the player to see in freeze time but hard for him.
Hamadou is also noticeably very tall, in the bitter cold you can see one very tall person REALLY weighing down a hammock, that's him
Me playing this: That guy has a striped top so he must be French... no wait that's stupid it's too obvious
8 hours later and it's Charles Miner confirmed: I KNEW IT!
You'd be amazed how many stereotypes are from the few centuries around when this game is set
I did this too! It was one of the first things i guessed then decided it was too silly to assume that. I ended up getting who he was as one of the last few people and I was fuming 😂😂
le frenchman... is le frenchman...
Seriously, it's staggering how many people pin the frenchman on the guy with the concentric circle tattoos instead of the guy in the french navy outfit who follows the bosun around.
On Hok-Seng Lau's death, I actually got the cause of death by accident.
I was playing through the game, and kept seeing the same seaman, Henry Brennan, come up. He attempts to mutiny against the captain at the start, he kills someone in the gun deck and at this point I'm starting to think that this guy is trouble and I'm starting to have a vendetta against him. So when I get to the scene where Hok-Seng Lau is executed, I see Brennan amongst the shooters and immediately think "Well, it's got to be impossible to tell who shot this guy, so I'm just going to have to pick one of them and hope that the game allows any of them as an option. Fuck it, I hate Brennan. I'm pinning it on him."
And what do you know, it actually worked. I go back to the scene later to see if I can find any hints for others that are in the scene, and notice that only one shot actually hits, and it was none other than Henry Brennan's. I had a good laugh at how I picked him entirely based on a gut reaction, and I managed to get it dead on the money.
"I think he did it."
"What makes you say that?"
"I don't like him."
Figuring out the identities of the Chinese topmen was soooo satisfying. I felt like a genius.
I wondered with the Chinese crew, if it's possible to deduce which is which based on the number of memories they appear in?
The way I identified Henry Brennan is that in the few memories just prior to Thomas Lanke's death, he was going down the stairs with Hoscutt, so he's the one that Hoscutt would know for sure was nearby and would call out to
Nice. That's smart.
Love the video, thanks so much.
Am stumped that nobody has mentioned this, though;
I identified Charles Miner in Unholy Captives. When the mermaid is being lifted up onto the ship it is done so by a line of seamen and one person directing the lifting of the mermaid that spikes Hamadou and Chioh Tan. In the background of the audio you can hear someone with a French accent shout 'HEAVE', 'HEAVE TOGETHA' "HEEEEAVE'. Once you notice that and see the vignette shortly after, it is incredibly obvious that Charles Miner is commanding the seamen to heave up the mermaid and that he is French, and therefore must be Charles Miner.
He does something similar in Soldiers of the Sea. He's yelling at the sailors to get the rigging and sails up.
Dude this is EXACTLY the sort of video I wanted to find now that I’m done with the game for the first time and can watch all the content about it. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this.
I am in deep shock after Finding out, that Olus Wiater's voice actor is Piotr Adamczyk. He's one of the most popular actor in poland. He actually played in Hawkeye about half year ago. I just love that guy
He's a great actor and especially terrific voice actor. He's the kind of VA you only hear once he's been pointed out - like the only reason I didn't feel as shocked when I found out he voiced Wiater was because I had already been deeply shocked he dubbed Lightning McQueen in Cars and Syndrome in Incredibles.
Man, he's good
Another death within the ship to help ID Wallace would be the killing of the cow in The Bitter Cold part three where Wallace can be seen cleaning up the bed after the corpse is moved out, a menial task one would not expect a doctor to do but the assistant.
It was crazy how some of them became so obvious once you know it. Wallace always hanging out with the Surgeon, and Miner with the Bosun, both were ones I ended up getting through process of elimination and manipulating the rule of three, then getting mad once I realized how “easy” they should have been.
Same.
Also when you already found out who the Bosun is you can figure out Miner because the Bosun asks "Where is my Frenchman?" in Escape 1, thus knowing Miner must be the Bosuns Mate because he is the only French Person on the ship
The Bitter Cold scene where everyone one is sleeping had already been deemed useless by me when i figured out there are only faces of Indians and Russins that are shown. I couldn't identify people sleeping with their faces covered so i just gave up and started doing educated guessing. I have no idea you can confirm them with numbers, weapons, tattoo and even shoes. What an amazing video
Tons of people wrote off that scene as useless. When ironically it's one of the most important scenes in the whole game.
There's also a similar scene later in the game, in Chapter 7 I think, where you can similarly check the hammocks. The hammocks of any deceased men are taken down. So if you compare Bitter Cold to the later scene, you can deduce everyone who sleeps in a hammock who dies between those two scenes.
I'd certainly like to see this game get a follow-up although not a direct sequel but more so just expanding on the world that these games exist in. Rather than re-using the sea monsters it'd be interesting to see other supernatural entities although you'd have to come up with another enclosed environment like the Obra Dinn so perhaps a prison or an island or something like that.
If there were a way to make another game like this and not have it live in the shadow of the previous game, I'd be so stoked to play that.
Fun fact: in the office scene, there is a small timeskip, and you.can see that originally the book that is used on this game is alone in its section of the shelf, but after the small timeskip, it is placed beside an identical book (shorter and twice as thick, but having the same colours and style); all hinting that in the timeskip between the book making it to doctor Evans, and it coming back, the protagonist has solved another inquiry similar to the Obra Dinn (AKA a hint to a sequel, but who knows)
I think this game design engine should be re-used by other games. Maybe another investigation but like set on a space ship, and it doesn't always have to be the moment of death, just like random "3d scans" the ship took of various moments.
@@esotericVideos I could see a great murder mystery/horror game come out of this, imagine coming across a dead body in a mansion and watching its death scene, only to realize you were part of the scene, and a shadowy figure was just over your shoulder
@@esotericVideos isn't this Tacoma?
There's actually something really obvious you missed about William Hoscut: You can see him leaving the 1st Mate's cabin in Chapter IX during the Bosun's death.
With a rather "There's a dead man that just flopped outside of my window" expression.
@@DanielTaber-p7f I think that's just his "I am William Hoscut" expression. Does he ever change it?
@JaneXemylixa I will now refer to the default facial expression as the 'William Hoscut' expression from now on, thank you
@@unoriginal_5 They all look like post mortem photography lol... appropriately enough
1:00:25, in regard to the association with a gun stipulation. You CAN confirm that it is in fact Olus' gun if you look at the previous scenes in which you can see the lower deck, you can actually see him with the gun, holstered of course.
Dude, love the video! As far as the logic of the video, and of your solve, here were a couple things that I learned from Patrick O'Brian, that helped me in my (weak sauce) incomplete solve. 1) Charles Miner was bosun's mate, which meant that he would have been in charge of the physical discipline of the ship. That's why he's guarding the Formosans during the execution, and would not have been involved in slaughtering the cow, it just wasn't his role. Any bosun's mate was an enforcer, not a reedy midshipman. 2) The death of the midshipman who overhears the mutineers I smoked as a midshipman. Not only does the audio sound younger, but a midshipman would have been on the officers' side of such a conflict, not on the hands' side, leading to his singing canary. 3) Axes had multiple uses in ships of this era, but the only person who would be stereotyped with such a tool would be a carpenter or a carpenter's mate. The game drops you a good clue with that stereotype, as the carpenter's mate throws one at the crabrider.
Hilariously enough, I found the captain's body after I had gone almost completely through the ship. I saw the body in the bed the next room over and completely missed the one on the floor. xD
For Zungi Sathi, the method to identify him is straightfoward, in his death you can assume that he was running away and wounded, and you can see the blood trail that he was leaving; you only need to follow him and the blood trail on the earlyer deaths (cronologycally) and you can see that he started just outside his office/room
In Execution scene you can also see him in different location, talking to the ear of one of the mates.
i’d be very interested in a sequel, something along the lines of “due to your exceptional work investigating the obra dinn, you have been tasked with [insert setting here]”
maybe give that the pocketwatch is a unique artefact, something evans gave you because he wanted the full story of his ship without being arrested for treason after returning to investigate himself, and that the east india company has decided to put you on a particularly difficult case no other adjuster can even begin to decipher
another ship would work, but also i like the idea of a poorly-managed, company-owned port coming under attack, and you have to assess both the damages from the final attack and make sense of everything in the weeks or months prior that went unreported and still needs to be settled. you’d have both recurring characters, (locals, people working the docks or a ship or two that come in and out often) and one-offs from ships passing through, which would be an interesting challenge
I was thinking something like an archaological dig that went wrong due to supernatural biz would work well too
Could also be more like a traditional detective game where you're trying to catch a serial killer or smth!
@@manaman9625
Wow-no replies in over 2 years, and then we both reply hours apart lol
I just now realized that if Edward Nichols didn't try to steal the treasure, the entire story of the Obra Dinn wouldn't have happened, man his fate was way too kind for what he deserved
Keep in mind that the rest of the crew decided to keep the mermaids on board, which is what attracted the monsters.
@@lalehiandeity1649 the ship has 3 custom made mermaid prisons built into the cargo deck - this was always it's mission on behalf of the Formosans.
@oldschooloverlord The lazerette is usually (not always) used to store materials for the bosun, but the Obra Dinn has a separate bosun's store on the cargo deck, and considering the amount of livestock on board it isn't inconceivable that the Obra Dinn would sometimes haul live fish. I don't think the formosans were planning on attracting sierens; they know how powerful they are and try at every turn to not let the shells leave the box unless absolutely necessary.
Just finished Obra Dinn a few days ago (my last 12 or so fates determined by guess and check). This guide was fantastic for pointing out what I missed. Thank you so much for making this!
For Lewis Walker(Topman), there is a VERY easy way to id him. on the destroyed ship(not a memory) there is only 1 hammock left, and it is his.
To me that's not stretching at all, it is the main and easiest way to ID him. we know the other 3 present there already too. (could be mixed with Brendon, but that's another easy ID so)
You also have to think that most events happens on different nights, and on the day they take the hammocks down, and put them back up for sleeping. So the dead would not have theirs put back up after they died or disappeared.
You never see hammock when they aren't sleeping, or even fighting.
And since you see the ship as it was after the captain suicided(including the last 5 corpses not cleared from the ship and still present), you can also assume the hammock that was left up is one of the 4 man left alive, it can't be the captain's or the first mate, and we id Brendon elsewhere. so it has to be the unknown man.
Same thing with Nathan. It's not a long shot, but the intended way.
At 30:18 the Bosun is coming out of the Bosun's store, which is another hint to point out he is the Bosun
My personal favourite solve for me was Aleskei's pipe, but that's nothing compared to the way the Chinese Topmen are found out here, great video.
Just finished playing this game and I actually shouted “pipe” at the top of my lungs when I put this together.
I thought I was crazy for trying to use the "shoes" method to differentiate between the Chinese Topman... I think I accidentally mixed up two of them doing this, so just assumed it was too much of a stretch and couldn't be the intended method. Good to know now that I'm not actually insane :)
I figured out the survivors in Africa cuz I got frustrated and ended the game and got the letter from Jane saying "the 4 of us that escaped to Africa" and I was like oh, well just let me reload now! LOL
I felt really stupid at first, like I was asking: "How do you expect me to figure where these people went? It's not like they told me!"
Then, at the end, when I found out that yeah, I HAD to find out ALL the fates before I left, I remembered it was Evans who sent me the book, with a preface. Maybe there he told me where he is, right?
So I checked and... yeah, Morocco. I felt immensely stupid :D
Lmao I chose Africa as a frustrated guess and then checked the prologue after I was confirmed right, I had previously guessed them to be in Azores since their boat was on the left side of the ship as it was turning back.
There are 3 people on board, so you can just go ovex each location nearby to the ship, until the game accepts it :P
I knew Evans, Bird and Willis went to Africa because in the mutiny scene an old guy says "We should take the shells and sail east" or something like that. At that point the ship was west of Northern Africa, so I I guessed other survivors would go there as well because it's logical.
I would like to point out that there is one other scene where Finley Dalton appears that did not get mentioned in this video which could help you identify him as the helmsman, if his appearance in Abigail's death scene goes unnoticed.
He also appears during Murder, Part 3 - the death of Scottish topman Timothy Butement. In this scene, Finley can be found wounded by a spear on the ground right next to the helm, undoubtedly caused by one of the mutineers.
Additionally, the Russian Aleksei Toporov can have his identity deduced in that same scene. Using the logic of attributing the satchel and pipe on his hammock to him earlier in Part 1 of A Bitter Cold, Alexei can be seen lowering one of the life boats, with his satchel slung on his shoulder.
This game deserves all the love it gets and more, and the same goes to this video, it's so fun as it's informative, i just hope more people play this game, it's really a master piece
This is nice. Way less stressful than watching someone solve it in real time.
Thank you for that, you must have put in an extraordinary amount of work! I really love this game and it's very satisfying to see it all laid out (and to see that some of my leaps of logic were actually correct haha)
I'm glad that I finished the game before watching this video because it makes me feel like a genius for finding all the same clues.
Lol I figured out Davies only by exclusion. Would NEVER have guessed I needed to check which window he was leaning out of during Nichols's return.
Yeah, I think the reason why he isn't unblurred before then is because you can't lock Martin. If you could lock Martin that would make it possible to use exclusion for unblurring, at least that's how I've understood the exclusion unblurring works.
Then there's me playing the whole damn game without noticing the "x" in the dialogue text
What is X for in the texts ?
If there's an x in front of the line it means that it was spoken by the person whose death scene you are in
For the people on the boat that leaves for Africa in escape there's another way to know where they're going, if you don't know what country Morocco is in. You can look at the ships journey on a map near the beginning of the book and at the start of every chapter. During the events of escape, Africa is the nearest landmass to the ship and the only feasible place you could escape to.
Morocco IS a country.
@@lalehiandeity1649 My bad, I don't know my geography very well. Hence why I used the logic based reasoning rather than the knowledge based option. Although if Morocco is a country why isn't it accepted as an answer? Or is it, I honestly forgor, it's been ages lol.
@@bocolicboulevard8386 The game doesn’t give it specifically as a choice. Just Africa in general.
@@lalehiandeity1649 I see. Perhaps you're supposed to assume that they all arrived at a port in Africa and only Henry moved further from there. Perhaps because he was a doctor and had more/was more capable of making money than the others who settled closer to port for financial reasons.
The people down inside the ship also say they're going to take the ship and "Head east", and of course that would be towards Africa. It's reasonable to guess that the four on the boat would try to do the same.
The wedding ring on Emily Jackson's left hand is also (and I think much more clearly) visible in Paul Moss's death scene (the one right before Volkov's). She's standing on the railing with her left hand clearly in shot holding on to a rope.
I know it was probably a ton of work to put this together and that I'm about three years late to this video. Just finished Return of the Obra Dinn and wanted to watch other people's videos about it. This was extremely cool to watch and a huge thanks for putting this all together. I am surprised that you don't bring up the positioning of people in the pictures at the front of the book. While not particularly definitive it was definitely a tool I used a lot. Regardless seeing all the various scattered hints was really cool! The amount of work that went into this game is absolutely incredible and it's also incredible to see it all laid out like this.
Something of note for anyone who may be struggling and may see this comment:
you find Samuel Peters's corpse/ghost through a barrel in the back of the cargo hold. A stowaway hid in a barrel that fell on Samuel's head, but the barrel then hit the ground and the stowaway inside died on impact. After the scene, Samuel's ghost corpse is directly accessable, like with the other ghost corpses, after finding that chain of deaths. I was a little stumped trying to find it myself, so I though it was worth mentioning.
The other thing one can get stuck on is that there is an option of "foreign enemy" but both mermaids and crab nazghul are considered "beasts".
Another clue that George Shirley is friends with the chinese topmen and thus is likely to be the person sharing a drink with the last remaining one in Edward Spratt's death is that he's playing a dice game with them in the drawing.
This is true, but less useful because both Alaxander Booth and Hamadou Diom - the two characters you are likely to be stuck with Shirley on - are present and playing as well.
He’s so polite when discussing this. Like you can constantly hear him resisting the urge to call you an idiot like the whole time it’s hilarious
1 Miss Lim is also named in the execution scene when she tries to speak out.
2 Maba's biggest clue is that his face gets unblurred as soon as you see his death - meaning the tattoos are supposed to be a sufficient clue.
3 Lewis Walker is identified as a topman as early as his death scene - no other kind of crewman would think to get into captain's quarters by climbing down onto the balcony, and Walker is seen jumping or climbing in nearly all his scenes (this also identifies Brennen by process of elimination in the midshipman's death scene)
4 A bosun's job can be summed up as "shouting at seamen." If you look down during the lightning strike scene, the bosun isn't there, but Charles Miner is, and he's the only one not pulling the rope - presumably, he is the one we hear giving commands.
5 Apart from being named in the execution scene, the gunner can be heard commanding the cannon that he later dies from.
When I realized the hammocks were numbered, and it was a direct referral to the ship's charter, I knew the 2 main scene with the whole lot of them was the treasure trove of info to id just about everyone of them. I started looking at anything that differentiate each one, and it led me to checking shoes and socks. But it can be hard to see with certain color scheme...
Still it worked for nearly all of them :D(along with the numbers gone between a bitter cold and the start of the doom, to eliminate names in between those two event..)
I felt the same, when me and my partner were playing every time a hammock scene came up we were so excited lmao
Another fun fact is that you can actually be a FEMALE inspector as well, it is randomly picked at the start. You can only hear it in the voicelines at the start. (as can be seen in this video here: ua-cam.com/video/51OYs3wtZ78/v-deo.html )
Anyway thank you for this video, I would've never guessed the bit with the chinese topmen and their shoes I assumed you were just expected to guess, but from Uniforms to grouping up together in the Pictures to being, coming out of or fleeing to their respective rooms it has a lot of miniscule details that are very interesting to know and I would love another riddle like game like that, the Memento Mortem is a pretty cool concept. Maybe with some added variability to make replays more possible as if you played the Obra Dinn once, that's kind of it unless you want to revisit it for the great aesthetics. Lets see what Lucas Pope will cook up next, the Indi market seems to certainly have great gems.
I got a female inspector in my game.
i didn’t know the inspector could be male!
Yeah I was so surprised when I start a game again to play with my friends (I just end chapter 10) and I swear I heard our character voice was male the first time. My friend don’t really care though lol
Huh that’s interesting I got the female one
I wish I could like this video more than once. Thanks for the amazing work!
One thing you didn’t mention about the gunner’s death is that you can say he was shot by the beast. I just think it’s funny to say that he was “shot by a terrible beast”.
This was a brilliant video! I finished the game and was so curious as to what clues I missed and how I was supposed to figure out certain people that I had guessed at. This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!
Great video, it took me 15 hours but i ended up deducing them all. I was so fascinated with the game i thought i'd check out your video to pick up any clues that i had missed. I had missed a few like the 4th Mate in the cabin when the 2nd mate gets shot.
The number of times you have to listen to that poor artist guy almost literally shit himself to death in order to find all the clues and whatever in that particular scene has to be some kind of cruel joke on the players by the devs. The audio for that is so extensive and detailed and you have to revisit that scene so many times that I really cannot fathom that it's not intentional.
Excellent video, and as a little trivia, for a ship of its size, the Obra Dinn is actually very undermanned.
I'm sure I saw an interview with Lucas Pope and he said that the ship should have like double the number of people, but he had to cut it off at some point for his own sanity and not to overwhelm the player
@@ninjabiscuit1095 oh yes. From a gameplay perspective, 60 (61 technically) was the perfect amount. Too many more and you'd get repeat deaths.
@@Bus_Driver_Jay very true, especially when you consider how many of them would just be some form of seamen or topmen, it would definitely get repetitive very quickly
@@ninjabiscuit1095 yeah very true. I can't think of to many missed ranks, and the way the glossary was done in this, such things were covered.
"Lascar houses" were specifically places where British companies could get cheap foreign labor. Even in their time they were criticised as very exploitative. No wonder Syed got sick.
Im French and your "marinière" was beautiful ! Thanks for your amazing work !!
I don’t think “Obra Dinn” should get a sequel necessarily but I do believe that the concept and gameplay loop of Obra Dinn would be really cool to see for another story or mystery
This looked like so much fun to play! I would love to get another mystery type game set in a different time period.
I agree, the overwhelming majority of this catastrophe was Nichols' fault. Who would have died regardless? Rujab, Syed, and maybe Sam Peters.
You could argue that if Sam died, Lars may have ended up getting murdered too
Wasn't it the Formosans' fault for bringing a cursed treasure on board without warning anyone?
(it seems the chest uses the shells' magic as a weapon. Perhaps they were royalty in exile and wanted to use the treasure to get back to power?)
I just finished the game for the first time a few days ago and holy shit the level of dopamine I got from it was insane. It felt so good. You really had to use alot of deductive reasoning to figure out who everyone was but the neat thing was that alot of scenes, while not based on them, referenced the kind of jobs they had which saved me alot of time.
You can also say the gunner was shot by a cannon by a beast
You can figure out that Thomas was knifed on his death diorama by the bloody knife right outside door in the pool of blood (it might also be there in the present as well)
Part of my deduction process with botb Hamadou and Mabu was that both of them are not really involved with a group, are not interacted with and dont speak. I deduced that, taking the era in mind, noone either cared nor spoke their language and so they are isolated as the only ones of their respective homelands on the whole ship.
That’s how I figured it out too, well Hamadou at least, I had Maba figured out from the tattoos
Damn the hammock thing is way bigger than I thought. I found out about the hammock numbers throughout the game and actively used them but I didn’t catch that they were taken down after people died
Can't just poor Edward take a poop in peace?
Great video.
Thank you so much for making this video. It took all my self control not to watch it before I got the bargain 😅
I'm glad you held out! 😃
Something I like about this game is that, while it does lean a little hard into ethnic stereotypes in spots, it does at least make sure that you can confirm them - e.g. with Omid Ghul's sword, you can make the assumption based on his ethnicity, but you can confirm it using evidence, even if most players probably wouldn't need to.
To me the most frustrating thing about guesswork is not knowing how you were *supposed* to do the solve =/
I like that it doesn't treat you like a child that can't see the difference between a Chinese person and an English one. The stereotypes are damn correct though, in 1807 traditional clothing and things like polynesian tattoos were far more common.
You can actually tell who the captain is just from his death scene, he refers to the woman as Abigail. There's no other crewmate or passenger named Abigail, and they both have the same last names. From that you can tell they're husband and wife or at the very least close to each other.
It is well organized, Im impressed! Thank you for all the segmants in the video and your effort.
There should be a sequel, and it should be Return of the Orient Express.
I just completed this game again for the 2nd time. The last time I played it was 2 years ago so long enough that it was pretty fresh for me and I couldn't remember any of the names or fates.
The 2nd playthrough just confirmed for me that the game's a masterpiece. Its a shame none of my friends would play it as they are put off by the graphics, but I'd take this over any of the CoD shite they play any day.
A sequel can absolutely be done. The idea of being a assurance manager with death watches is so good
Also realized there's a big black book at the end... Is this a prequel bait?!
Another minor clue confirming the identity for the first mate, he is seen in the periphery of one memory exiting the first mate's cabin
I think you forgot to mention being shot from a cannon by the beast as a possible death cause for Christian Wolff, even though You listed it as George's Shirley's death. I think it's the most hardcore death cause in the whole game. I imagine someone reading it later and going "So those two were shot from a cannon by a fucking kraken!?"
Also, being Polish I need to say a few words about Olus Wiater. When I played the game for the first time his accent didn't help at all. Partly because it was muffled as being heard from another room, and partly, because his accent is not really audible. And I think that this is because the actor they cast for his role is a prominent Polish actor, and his english is really good, even compared to other Polish actors. Funny thing is, at first I didn't even recognize his voice, and I was shocked seeing his name in the credits! And at first I thought it might have been just a coincidence. Only after replaying the game and listening very hard I noticed a hint of polish accent and realized it really did sound like him.
I've actually seen one youtuber get his identity by the accent.
That was a pretty good video, a bit on the long run, but you did go into a fair bit of detail for pretty much everyone, and mentioned stuff I probably wouldn't have even considered (the smoking pipe for one)
The quicksilver line (mercury, poisonous via inhalation or touch) from Filip Dahl is why I chose poisoned as his manner of death rather than burned for the other victims of the mystical box. I was delighted when it was accepted. Electrocuted is a fun interpretation though.
I will say that both Li Hong and Wei Lee have white socks and black shoes with black soles, but similar to the deduction for Lewis Walker, Wei Lee is solvable first and Li Hong is left by process of elimination.
I would love to play a sequel (or more accurately a prequel) - we know that the Chief Inspector has at least one other casebook on the shelf when she puts it away.
Great video! The only clue I missed was that Lewis Walker's hammock is still up in present-day (though I got his identity by eliminating other topmen).
A small note on figuring Alexander Booth's identity from Doom 2: you used his remaining hammock to distinguish him from Hamadou (which requires that he's one of the last guesses), but there's another similar way. Iirc, in the same scene the only hammocks that are up but empty belong to A. Booth, N. Peters and L. Linde - which happen to be the 3 non-special-role guys that are up and trying to escape in the previous scene. So if you figured out Nathan and Lars, you can get Alexander by elimination.
I actually found Hamadou Diom’s identity right away during his death scene because as I was looking through the manifest on him I saw that someone was from Sierra Leona was on the ship. It made me think of the song “Woman” by Little Simz where she mentions multiple African countries and the line “Miss Sierra Leona looking like a gem” got stuck in my head, so I clicked on Hammadou’s name and since I had two other fates correct it got typed into the book right away. Quite the lucky break for me
Great Analysis - When I played it I never knew you could press E to zoom in and match up with the drawings - so I was playing it at a much higher level - so many scenes where you dont see the face so you have to make some guesses. It took me about 9 hours to beat it. Very good game I hope there is a sequel.
If anyone is wondering how I did it. The map of the ship was more needed for me; you can go into the mates quarters and see the type of shirt on a coat hanger. Then there is a lot of weight put into assuming the roles based on who is standing next to each other - then tools and hats, and stuff. For some reason I thought the tattooed topman must be scottish - the most difficult was the bosemans.
One other small thing for John Naples is you can hear he has a strong Welsh accent in the two or three lines he has in the cook's death scene
Great video! I just finished my (admittedly terrible) playthough of the game with like ~30% of the crew correctly identified, and, while I saw the amazing potential underneath, I knew right there and then that I'd get more frustrated than I'd enjoy finishing the game. After watching this, I know that there's a solid 25% of the crew I'd never have been able to get right, mostly because I don't like guessing at these things, and wouldn't have (although designed for that purpose) used/abused the "Once you know 2, guess at a 3rd" feature. Thanks again for not only giving the answers, but how to get there as well!
Awesome, I hope you enjoyed the game anyway! :D
I watched a blind play through by a German UA-camr many months ago. He found out all the fates correctly, but I still love to watch this explanation video, because he sometimes missed clues that I saw and now I am curious about what else he missed. Furthermore the accents are not very helpful, because in the German version they did not choose speakers with fitting accents, so you couldn't even base guesses on that.
So Midshipmen would be known as Ensigns in the US navy? (Hence the use on Star Trek)
Thank you. I was looking for a video like this
Just wanted to say how valuable I'm finding this video! (And don't be so hard on yourself in the comments!) I solved the game on my own, but going back to review all the clues I missed has been very illuminating. I totally missed many of them and was just guessing in a couple of places!
Okay, but I've gotta ask -- how does one speed run Obra Dinn? Because shouldn't it be trivial to speed run once you know all the fates?
5:00 "on NUMBERS of occasions" ;)
I figured out Charles because in one scene (I can’t remember which one - one of the monster attacks on the lower decks) the Gunner throws a gun to him and the Bosun is running ahead - so I figured they must be a pair. I love how many subtle hints there are!
Oh how interesting. You didn’t mention it, but for Wolff on my first play through I put his death down as shot with a cannon by a beast.
Because I interpreted the situation as the kraken disturbed the cannon, and held it and him together. And kaboom. And it worked! Game has more options than even speed runners know about, it seems.
an amusing detail i found during my playthrough is that for wolffs death, the game accepts "shot by cannon by a beast". made me chuckle
I found that answer too on my first guess. After all, the kraken was clearly holding the cannon as it went off.
And if you blame the kraken for shooting the cannon; Abraham, instead of getting fined for the murder of his fellow crewmates, gets commended for his bravery and given a bonus
@@diegokevin3824 seriously? man, imagine getting a fine and get blamed for killing your crew mates because of a giant killer kraken
@@fwenny yep, same thing with Minier, he can get blamed and fined for the death of the steward, even though the shot went through a wall. And depending on your answer for fates for the disapeared (drowned, fell overboard, killed by a beast) they recieve different ammount of compensation (if they died by a beast they will get commended and have a bonus, if fell overboard just outstanding wages, if fell drowned or left the ship they get fined fined for leaving their post - all survivors get fined for leaving their post and the passengers get no refunds as leaving the boat forfeit their tickets)
There is also a way to find the identity of that steward; as he is leaving a trail of blood, when you go back in time through the death scenes, you can follow his trail of blood and find that he was leaving his office
Addition: I believe you could explain Wolff's death as "shot with cannon by a _beast_
I loved reading the text you had on screen
For Leonid, during the action on the gun deck in the Doom you can also see that his Hammock is still up and he is actually moving the cannon under the hammock
What impressed me the most, was how close each character and their mate / stewards are
Neat video! I used some different information to unravel 8. Henry Evans, 21.Emily Jackson and 22. Jane Bird, so I thought I would mention it here, since it isn't mentioned in the video. All three ending letters mention Dr. Evans by name and are signed Jane Bird. In letter number 2 she writes that they are content with their situation in Morocco. This was how I deduced their location.
That's true! I didn't consider deduction options that are obtained from the endings. Nice find!
It also says Morocco in the intro letter at the beginning of the book.
The way i identified A. Akbar, Renfred Rajib, and William Wassim was by alphabetical order in relation to their positioning in the sketch. From left to right it's A. Akbar, Renfred Rajib, William Wassim. I also asssumed the top row of people in the upper sketch were all topmen, and was able to deduce Omid Gul's identity due to the fact that he was the only person in that row who resembled a Persian person.
There's another scene that determines that James Wallace was the sergeant's mate. In the artist's memory (I believe) where you see two seamen carrying a patient downstairs while Henry watches with a monkey on his shoulder, in the sergeant's room you can see Wallace preparing the bed.
Lewis Walkers hammock is also right above the gun he was manning on the deaths of Akbar and Wolff
if they ever make a follow up, I'd like the option to put in multiple names or a note feature to save things you have learned such as ethnicity/tatoss etc.
Nice video. I never knew that about the chinese topmen, I had to guess for them.
With regard to 24: I believe there was a death scene involving him opening up the chest and lightning going out in all directions and hitting the merfolk. That's where electrocution comes from IMO.
INCREDIBLE VIDEO. THANKS.
While I missed all of the ways to identify the gunner's mate as listed in the video, he can also be seen handling multiple guns during the midshipman Peter's death (the explosion death), going upstairs towards the main deck (and falling over, lol).
I correctly identified Zungi as Indian by his facial features, then got hopelessly stuck on his death, because i listened for a gunshot sound and didn't hear any - only splattering blood and breaking wood... (even when you do see the person who shot him, he is too far to be highlighted - you need to watch previous fight scenes to see which crewmen were given rifles.)
If you peek through the window slots you can see Charles Miner on the far side of the crab beast, and his shot lines up past the creature and into Zungi through the wall.
Wow!! Spratt's death and A Bitter Cold do some really heavy lifting in terms of identification
It took me longer than I’m willing to admit to realize the people playing poker in Chapter 2 were the Russians
A clearer clue is that the 3 hammocks next to the poker players are labeled with the numbers of the 3 russians