The return of the Obra Dinn is scratching my Cyberpunk 2077 itch

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The return of the Obra Dinn is scratching my Cyberpunk 2077 itch

Cyberpunk, Cyberpunk 2077, Dinn, Itch, Kotaku, Kotakucore, obra, Return, Return of the Obra Dinn, scratching

Illustration for article titled iReturn Of The Obra Dinn / i scratches my iCyberpunk 2077 / i Itch

Screenshot:: Lucas Pope

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There are many who want to play some cyberpunk without playing Cyberpunk 2077Contributions I have an addition to recommend: claims adjuster with a twist simulator Return of the Obra Dinn.

Wait, let me explain.

I played very little Cyberpunk 2077and limit myself to that Character creator and the prologues of the three ways of life. For my “main” -V, I got just far enough to finish the first braindaince – the CSI/.Ace Attorney Investigations Part of the game where you inhabit someone’s recorded memories and use them to find clues to move the plot forward.

If they aren’t Trigger seizures, Braindances are my favorite part of the game. I would love a version of Cyberpunk It’s just me, Jackie, T-Bug and the Delamain AI that solves crimes through braindance. I think it’s so cool how you can isolate various visual, acoustic, or thermal cues that the person whose memories you are investigating is not even aware of it. There is something appealing about me how our brain can absorb so much information that we don’t even notice it because we are concentrating on something else. What parts of life am I missing out on? What clues is my wetware currently cataloging that can tell me which of the two animals at my feet has just farted? I would love to play a game that involves only braindance investigation, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit down through the shooting, shooting, chatty, talkative parts of Cyberpunk 2077 to get to the next. What can a mysterious brain like mine do?

Return of the Orba Dinn to the rescue!

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Screenshot:: Lucas Pope

Return of the Obra Dinn is a homicide investigation game developed by Lucas Pope, the same guy who created it Papers, please. It’s about an insurance company exploring the Obra Dinn – a merchant ship that recently returned after being lost at sea for four years. It is our job to find out the fate of the Obra Dinn and their 60 passengers, armed with a notebook and magical compass, able to show the moment of death for any corpse you find.

I heard about it Obra DinnI’ve seen a couple of incomplete games and seen a former partner sneak through the game, but I never sat down to play it myself. I am totally fascinated by braindances, but I lack the essentials to continue Cyberpunk, I thought Obra Dinn would satisfy the gameplay memory test cravings that I’ve left with. Oh sweet Jesus it does.

The return of the Obra Dinn is not for the impatient or easily distracted. The game gives you two tips to get you started – how to use the Memento Mortem compass and logbook – and sends you on your merry way. The extremely sparse tutorial can be frustrating. I wasn’t paying close attention at the beginning, and as the game dragged me from one corpse to the next, I thought I had done something wrong and had to start over. I persevered, however, and my face lit up when the game told me that I had correctly deduced my first three fates. In this way, the lack of a tutorial makes a real fate payoff all the more satisfying. For example: “Hell, yes, game, I did this despite your almost hostile helplessness.”

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You know he’s keeping that.
Screenshot:: Lucas Pope

CyberpunkBraindances are not a one-to-one replication of Obra DinnThe gameplay, but I was surprised to see how similar they are. In braindances you can switch between a visual, thermal or audio layer to find clues. And during Obra Dinn wants you to rely on what you do primarily see In the moment of death, what you are hearing at the same time is also helpful. It wasn’t a particularly challenging puzzle, but I was extremely pleased with myself when I was able to infer the identity of a victim after another victim complained of killing his wife’s brother and best friend in his final moments. As I excitedly checked the crew manifest for people with matching last names, I changed my original answer to thinking that two people with the same last name were siblings instead of spouses. I thought something was wrong, so I listened to the moment again and went back to the crew manifest, only to find that I missed the woman’s center Name matched the last name of another character. I changed my answer back, the game rang, and I was rewarded with an intake of endorphins – the same happy feeling I had in Evelyn’s memories during the first braindance.

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Oh no! He keeps that to himself.
Screenshot:: Lucas Pope

Obra Dinn is not as nifty as Cyberpunk‘s braindances, but I don’t need to be. When CD Projekt Red releases its great Cyberpunk Patches next yearMaybe they’re carving out a braindance-only version of the game so I can get back to it. In the meantime, I am happy to continue Obra Dinn, Hopping from one body to the next, waiting for my compass to calm down with all of the new discoveries, so I can sift through all the information and make some educated (or not-so-educated) guesses.

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