History VideoGame / ReturnOfTheObraDinn

* MundaneUtility: The Memento Mortem. A powerful artifact that allows the player to look back at the moment of a person's death, and it's used to... investigate insurance claims. Such a thing would have single-handedly trivialised murder investigations.

** Even the very first memory you unlock has shades of this, both in the sudden shift into the unreal which the memory's very existence constitutes and in how one's very first glimpse into the past is one where [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou Captain Witterel is in the process of shooting you]].

** The journal can only record who killed someone without any room for motive. Thus ultimately causes kills in self-defense, executions of innocent people, and accidents to go down in history as murders in the eyes of the insurance company. Captain Robert Witterel's several kills in self-defense go down as murders, and his estate is posthumously fined severely for it, although given that he committed suicide, his entire estate was already forfeit anyway. Although Henry Brennan is one of four seamen participating in the (wrongful) execution of Hok-Seng Lau, it was Brennan himself who fired the shot that hit Lau, [[ATeamFiring while the others missed their mark]], this is not a crime he is fined for, as the execution was sanctioned (his killing of John Davies, however, was not and his estate is fined for it). Charles Miner, who causes friendly fire, is labelled as a murderer as well. In a similar vein, although Thomas Sefton's foolish actions caused the death of William Wasim, no fate allows you to name Sefton as his murderer, so his estate is rewarded.

** The journal can only record who killed someone without any room for motive. This ultimately causes kills in self-defense, executions of innocent people, and accidents to go down in history as murders in the eyes of the insurance company. Captain Robert Witterel's several kills in self-defense go down as murders, and his estate is posthumously fined severely for it, although given that he committed suicide, his entire estate was already forfeit anyway. Although Henry Brennan is one of four seamen participating in the (wrongful) execution of Hok-Seng Lau, it was Brennan himself who fired the shot that hit Lau, [[ATeamFiring while the others missed their mark]], this is not a crime he is fined for, as the execution was sanctioned (his killing of John Davies, however, was not and his estate is fined for it). Charles Miner, who causes friendly fire, is labelled as a murderer as well. In a similar vein, although Thomas Sefton's foolish actions caused the death of William Wasim, no fate allows you to name Sefton as his murderer, so his estate is rewarded.

** Former Creator/NaughtyDog employee Lucas Pope couldn't resist including a pair of brothers named [[VideoGame/Uncharted4 Nathan and Samuel]] in a nautical-themed mystery game involving a supernatural ArtifactOfDoom.

* BrokenBridge: Many doors on the ''Obra Dinn'' are locked until you see them open in a memory, limiting the order in which information is revealed.

* AlliterativeName: The four Indian seamen all have one.

** By the time the game begins, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tungning the Kingdom of Formosa]] had already been annexed by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Qing_rule the Qing dynasty]] for more than a century.

** If a victim can be said to have died of multiple causes simultaneously, then any one of those causes is considered valid as their ultimate fate. For instance, one person dies because their leg was cut off by another crew member during a fight scene, which falls under the categories of "dismemberment" and "attacked with a sword". Either one is counted as correct, as long as you can identify the killer. By the same token, "fell overboard" and "drowned" are largely interchangeable. However, it is important to note that wounds that would be fatal do not count if the victim did not die in that scene. Someone who is stabbed multiple times and then shot in a different scene died of the latter unquestionably, even if the former would have done them in.

** Someone who is knocked off (or pulled off) a ship and into the ocean is considered to either be "drowned" or "fell overboard".

** During "The Calling", Samuel Galligan calls out to another man, asking if he can still row--while it's plainly obvious that the man has a ''spear sticking through his neck''.

* YouCantGetYeFlask: It can be infuriating choosing the exact right verb for how certain crewmates are killed by the various monsters. [[AntiFrustrationFeatures Fortunately, some of the more ambiguous deaths accept multiple options as true]]--for instance, Abigail Witterel, who dies in the kraken attack, is crushed by a mast that the beast pulls down. The game will accept "clubbed by a beast", "crushed by a beast" and "crushed by falling rigging". Another example is that two people get their arms melted by the quicksilver in the [[ArtifactOfDeath Formosan magic chest]], so both their fates can be either "burned", "poisoned", or "electrocuted", whichever floats your boat.

** Early on it's revealed that the Captain's first mate was his brother-in-law. Luckily his wife hyphenated her maiden name with her husband's family name, making it simple to guess.

* TakingYouWithMe: Winston Smith manages to kill the crab rider with his hand mortar, shortly before dying of his wounds.

** A cow skull hung on the wall lets you view when it was slaughtered, which hints that even animal deaths can be viewed if there are remains available. At the end of the game in the GoldenEnding, Evans ships you the severed hand of his pet monkey, which he had previously killed inside a locked room in order to see what happened within. There's your remains.

** The game will only unblur a crew member's face when you have the information needed to deduce their identity, making it easier to do the process of elimination. If you try anyway, a warning will pop up informing you that there's no way to be sure.
** There's a bookmark feature, allowing you to skip through the book by pressing on tabs to bring you to the next page with information on it. You can bookmark specific crew members as well, allowing you to mark every single memory they appear in on the map.

** If a victim can be said to have died of multiple causes simultaneously, then any one of those causes is considered valid as their ultimate fate. For instance, one person dies because their leg was cut off by another crew member during a fight scene. So is the cause of death "dismemberment" or "attacked with a sword?" Either one is counted as correct. By the same token, "fell overboard" and "drowned" are largely interchangeable. However, it is important to note that wounds that would be fatal do not count if that's not what killed a person. Someone who is stabbed multiple times and then shot died of the latter unquestionably, even if the former would have done them in.

** The Memento Mortem can only show you a person's death if part of their corpse is available or if their corpse appeared in the death memory of someone else. For several crew members, both of these factors are missing. Several chapters end with a "conclusion" of crewmembers who are unaccounted for during the chapter--having simply disappeared without leaving a corpse. The trick to identifying these people is figuring out where they were last seen and extrapolating their deaths from that.

* SickeningCrunch Heard nearly everytime someone is crushed to death by an object.

* BackToFront: Since the Memento Mortem needs someone's body first to show you the moment of their death and automatically locks onto the latest corpse around inside memories, each part of the story uncovered through present-day remains is told in reverse order.

Be warned that the spoilers here are even more extreme than usual for a murder-mystery game--due to the nature of the gameplay (which revolves around identifying individuals), it's impossible to even ''mention'' people's names without potentially major spoilers. '''As such, all spoilers on this page will be unmarked.'''

* ATeamFiring: In Chapter III, four seamen participated in the execution of Formosan passenger Hok-Seng Lau by firing squad for the murder that [[BigBad Second Mate Edward Nichols]] actually committed. Played straight when three of them missed, but averted when Seaman Henry Brennan managed to fire a gunshot that hit Lau. Surprisingly, of the other three who missed their mark and are not labeled as murderers, only John Naples (himself a murder victim) is rewarded for his valiant efforts, while Patrick O'Hagan and Aleksei Toporov are fined for other crimes such as kidnapping and attempted desertion for conspiring with Nichols.

* ATeamFiring: In Chapter III, four seamen participated in the execution of Formosan passenger Hok-Seng Lau by firing squad for the murder that [[BigBad Second Mate Edward Nichols]] actually committed. Played straight when three of them missed, but averted when Seaman Henry Brennan managed to fire a gunshot that hit Lau. Surprisingly, of the other three who missed their mark and are not labeled as murderers, only John Naples (himself a murder victim) is rewarded for his valiant efforts, while Patrick O'Hagan and Aleksei Toporov are fined for other crimes such as kidnapping and attempted desertion.

%% The whole concept of lifeboats would be anachronistic to this period; dedicated lifeboats wouldn't begin to be carried on ships until much later in the century. The boats carried by the Obra Dinn are more properly termed longboats or jollyboats, and were not meant to evacuate the crew; rather, they were for ferrying people to and from shore or other ships, though they could be used as survival craft in a pinch.

%% ** The ship also has only two longboat, which is not nearly enough for everyone on board. The expected The most any of the lifeboats hold is four, though the one used in Chapter IX was intended for five until Volkov attacked them.

** The ship also has only two lifeboats, which is not nearly enough for everyone on board. The most any of the lifeboats hold is four, though the one used in Chapter IX was intended for five until Volkov attacked them.

* DirtyCoward: Second Mate Nichols. Once the mermaids attack during his attempted escape, he immediately hides under the lifeboat seat while they proceed to kill the rest of his allies and captives. His steward calls him out.

** Henry Evans, the ship surgeon, has a monkey with him frequently in the early sections of the story, in particular Chapter 2. Come Chapter 9, said monkey is nowhere to be found on the lifeboat. Eventually, it's revealed that Evans shot the monkey in order to obtain insight into the final two deaths on the ''Obra Dinn'' that he otherwise would have had no way of knowing by creating a body for the player to use the Memento Mortem on.
** If it wasn't obvious that the Henry Evans on the manifest and the Henry Evans whose preface begins the book are one and the same, the case containing the journal and Memento Mortem can be seen with him on that lifeboat. It's also present during Chapter 2, stowed underneath the bed in the surgery as Evans' assistant is cleaning it.

** This helps infer the fates of the four who escaped from the ship. The Memento Mortem and the journal were sent to you by someone named Henry Evans, which is not coincidentally the same name as the ship's surgeon. It's entirely possible that someone else named Henry Evans wrote to you, but if you search the surgeon's cabin or the lifeboat he escaped in, you will find the case that held the Memento Mortem, so it is the same man.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Prior to his apparent SanitySlippage in Chapter X, Captain Witterel shows this during chapter IX when he threatens to shoot Leonid Volkov if he doesn't let the escaping party go peacefully. This also suggests that Witterel authorized them to take the lifeboat to begin with.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Two groups of people try and get away with lifeboats. It ends very badly for the first group, since they try right as the kraken attacks the ''Obra Dinn'', and all of them drown in the chaos. The second group, who does it after the attack, is much more successful, and its four members are the only survivors of the tragedy.

* VillainBall: For Second Mate Edward Nichols: When returning to your ship after a kidnapping plan that goes awry because of the mermaids, disposing of the bodies of your fellow mutineers is one thing, but leaving your dead captives on a lifeboat along with the stolen treasure ''in front of their bodyguard who doesn't understand English'' is a bad idea.