A masterclass on building a whole experience instead of just a game, brought to you by the masters at valve. This game is a compact, funny, satisfying, well thought out puzzle experience. The research and thought that went into creating this game, calculated millimetrically, in order to provide a consistently good experience astounds me to this day and is the industry standard for quality. A good tutorial is one that teaches you to "think with portals" and pioneering those concepts is a testament to how amazing the guys at valve are at making games.

Obra Dinn is the most satisfying detective experience you can get in a game that still functions as a game.

This is not an investigation flavored story nor something else disguised as a game. This game is an honest digital interpretation of detective work, and playing feels like being a detective. Despite all the fantastical and digital aspects of the game, you will get immersed in this complex, ship spanning, murder mystery.

But why do i have to go through the samey lengthy, unskippable animation sequences
e v e r y   s i n g l e   t i m e?

A classic, cutesy, programming-inspired, puzzle game made in a game jam? Count me the fuck in!

This game has no bombastic gameplay nor grandiose graphics or music. It's simple premise may even, in the very beginning, trick some people into thinking it's going to be a simple relaxing puzzle game to vibe to. These people could not be more wrong. This stress inducing game uses every single interaction to build up the next, every new little block added, every detail changed, even in similar looking stages, demand from the player that ever needed shift in perspective to see the often unintuitive solutions that those pieces offer to every problem posed.

The game never underestimates you and it has it's own "thinking with portals" way of teaching you the different interactions between the many ways you can alter the game state.

It does get to the point of showing how ridiculously complex those interactions can get once or twice where it might even be a little too much (If you know THAT level, you know what i'm talking about) but it prefers most of the time to ask you to think about pieces interacting and perspective shifts instead of being a game about trying every possible option until something magically works for some unknown reason or knowing what you have to do but still having to memorize the 347 (made up number) steps it takes to finish the level in one specific way (Seriously Arvi? WHAT THE FUCK?! and that solution is REQUIRED??¿)

5/5 tho, would play it again.