As soon as I left the boat and went aboard the Obra Dinn, I was immediately lost. Black and white graphics, locked doors, left click to interact and right click to zoom in. WASD and left and right clicks were the only vocabulary I was given, and I went around the entire ship trying to articulate myself to progression. But nothing happened. No matter how many times I clicked on the dead body, the sails, locked doors, and other supposedly interactable objects aboard the ship, progress did not come. I spent 40 minutes doing nothing except walk around the platform being lost and entranced by the eerily mysterious atmosphere Obra Dinn has managed to conjure. My failure of an exploration was interrupted by a black screen accompanied by “It’s too heavy!”. The first time I heard it, I was ready for a cutscene; an automatic progression. The second time I heard it, I became aware that I had to find progression myself; that progress won’t come to me. However, my exploration was confined to a perception that progress can only be linear.
To me, the small boat was a mere starting point from which I found larger meaning: the Obra Dinn. Despite the detail of the luggage, the same voice actor, and the obvious plea for help, I didn’t imagine - for 40 minutes in the game - that I had to return to my starting point to retrieve a diary and a stopwatch. I was curious, why did they send me aboard the ship only to make me come back down? If I could carry the stopwatch and diary aboard now, why didn’t I then? There was something off-putting about the futility of my 40 minutes of illiterate gameplay. But as baffling as the revelation was, it engendered in me a kind of awareness that would assist me throughout the game: there is no spatial linearity in progressing through the Return of the Obra Dinn; returning can be a necessary act.
Although the lesson I learnt was derived from a lack of awareness, it became one that alleviated a certain discomfort. Throughout any game that permits exploration, soldiering forward and retrospection are two forms of choices a player can make. Although games can permit both forms throughout, there is a large difference between knowing retrospection is valid, versus questioning whether or not it is. Questioning leads to a bitter aftertaste: every road blocked becomes an anxiety inducing event: have I missed something? Validity, however, is more appetizing: every road blocked becomes an invitation for return. Return of the Obra Dinn’s plea to return to their starting point in order to find crucial equipment that will aid progress was therein an introduction to the form of the game. Though there were many parts throughout the gameplay that (likely) more effectively emphasized the importance of returning and retrospection to other players, my unique and embarrassing experience of exchanging 40 minutes of my time to understand the importance of return will likely render it the first thing I mention when I talk about Return of the Obra Dinn.
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