A "Scientific Analysis" of Return of the Obra Dinn

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This video assumes you have already discovered the fate of the Obra Dinn for yourself. If this is not the case, then please refrain from watching until you have played Return of the Obra Dinn. It's not a particularly long game, and if you enjoy clever investigations then it will be well worth your time.
I played through the game again recently, but I was surprised to find that a lot of my questions didn't have good answers online. I set about to do my own thorough investigation, and this video is the unintended result. I am really quite shocked at how little of what I mention appears in most other people's discussions of the game. Or, perhaps I'm just looking into it all too much. Either way, the fact that the game holds up under this level of scrutiny is truly wonderful. Thank you, Lucas Pope!
The game's so good that Henry Evans had to use his magical pocketwatch to erase his memory so he could play it all through again as if it were his first time.
Apologies about the video quality - encoding doesn't much like 1-bit graphics. Such is the true curse of the Obra Dinn.

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11 ноя 2023

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Комментарии : 121

@jerri1918 4 месяца назад

I believe Henry waited until the Obra Dinn sunk to give you the bargain, because the formosan chest is still in the lazarette. and as the cause of most of the tragedy aboard the ship, he didnt want the insurance inspector to know where it is until it became inaccessible

@abramaskren2344 3 месяца назад

That makes a lot of sense

@lifeunderthestarstv Месяц назад

... an empty chest remains in the lazerette, they take the last mermaid and shell and toss it back in exchange to return the obra dinn back to england. the inspector can actually see a shell glowing far in the distance whilst doing his work / playing through the game. nice theory, but it doesnt fit

@will88TFs4Life 26 дней назад

@@lifeunderthestarstvthe person is talking about one year later when you get the monkey paw

@bugjams 8 дней назад

@@lifeunderthestarstv Didn't Henry evacuate right after doing the monkey paw trick? He probably couldn't know for sure if they would release the mermaid and toss the shell(s?) back after he did so. Even if he did, it was still a failsafe plan to let the Obra Dinn sink entirely before revealing the truth about the shells. There could've been more shells on board, after all. it seems the shells in general add quite a bit of confusion to the series of events, to say the least. But "making sure the Obra Dinn sinks" seems like a good enough excuse for why Henry didn't reveal the Bargain until later.

@nnelg8139 5 месяцев назад

Omid Ghul falls off the starboard side of the ship, but in the previous memory he's on the port side looking outwards. I'm pretty certain he got thrown by the kraken.

@aidendavid1123 6 месяцев назад

The attention to detail really shows how Goated Lucas Pope is when it comes to video games.

@matthewmozingo3625 5 месяцев назад

I actually have a theory about why Timothy’s body took so long to be discovered. I went into more detail on reddit, but it boils down to, he landed in the water and was dragged along for most of the voyage. The first mate either didn’t notice or couldn’t see the rope until after the doom, and the leg didn’t get hoisted up to where it is now until sometime between escape and the end.

@matthewmozingo3625 5 месяцев назад

Lol, you basically said the exact same thing, in the next 5 seconds of the video.

@ProjectThunderclaw 5 месяцев назад

There's not a lot of hard evidence that the Formosans stole the shell from the mermaid, but the narrative implication is very strong. If we set aside the lens of investigating this as if it were a real event and instead consider it as a story written by an author, it's clear that giving two mermaids shells and having a third mermaid who doesn't have a shell but is doggedly pursuing one is the kind of detail you don't include unless you want the player to come to the conclusion that that shell belongs to that mermaids. If you wanted to imply that the shell mystically calls to mermaids or is just a broadly valuable object the mermaids want, either all of them or none of them would have shells.

@ProjectThunderclaw 5 месяцев назад

For the same reason, I really don't buy the idea that the cook was talking about the mermaid's lobster shell. In real life that would be a plausible misunderstanding, but this is a carefully crafted mystery story. The game is actually really careful to mever be that mbiguous - it never uses "mate" to mean "friend", never has anyone who speaks a language other than English and their native language, never has a moment where someone mistakes one person for another person, etc. It's meticulously set up such that any reasonable deduction, which in real life could easily be wrong, is always right. No red herrings. Therefore, I feel like we can trust that when Thomas Sefton says "shell", it means the same thing that "shell" means in every other instance. Besides, it makes sense that the captain would notice and take away the shells AFTER they already got one crew member killed.

@OneLimitedFun 5 месяцев назад

100% agree. I think there's a big implication that the Formosans stole the shell from the mermaid. And yeah, I think almost certainly Sefton's "shell" line was intended to refer to a glowing shell. However, it's worth noting that by this point, the mermaids have been taken up in a net, then transferred to another net and carried downstairs, Chioh Tan has warned them about a dangerous shell, and two people on the main deck have died as a result of the mermaids. Additionally, we never see the shells on the mermaids in chapter 5, despite them being pretty obvious in previous chapters. There's a lot to imply that the shells have already been taken. But in my opinion, I think Pope simply didn't pay too much attention to the exact whereabouts of the shells - after all, it's not crucial to solving the game or really understanding the overall story. In fact, if you skip to the end of the development timelapse on his "dukope1" channel, you can see that he only went back and added the shells in chapters 3 and 4 after the initial release of the game. There are posts online of people who played the original version who were really confused as to what was in the chest and what the shells were. All we really get is occasional vague references to "the shells" for the rest of the game anyway. So, I think originally the "mermaids having shells" was going to be a nebulous idea that you just had to trust, or else the shells just weren't as high a priority as the rest of the mystery solving. I tried to stay away from viewing things in terms of "what Pope intended" when making this video though, as in reality most of the functionality of the shells, the book and the pocket watch is best explained by "that's what Pope needed it to be to make a proper mystery game". The shells are a macguffin to create conflict between the crew later on, the book is a fancy UI for submitting your deductions, and the watch needs to open doors and work on bodies in memories and work on severed body parts because otherwise you wouldn't have a game at all. Nonetheless, I still think it's interesting to consider all these things as being "real", and see what fun explanations you can come up with anyway. And there's clearly been a lot of effort to provide reasons for most of these mechanics in-game in my opinion - but some things, like the shells, were intended to be left vague. But yeah, I think that the captain taking the shells after Sefton's death makes sense. I'm just not sure that any precise explanation of the shells was intended. I could be wrong though - it would be interesting to know what the original intentions were.

@ProjectThunderclaw 5 месяцев назад

@OneLimitedFun oh, that's really interesting. I was just thinking that the extra shells may have been a late addition just based on how they're sort of awkwardly floating on the mermaids' backs in a very video game-y fashion and then just disappear in later scenes, both of which feel incongruous with how gritty and well-planned the rest of the game is. Guess they were! And yes, I agree that this is the sort of game that really lends itself to this kind of "forensic" analysis. In most cases I think people miss the forest for the trees because they're too eager to apply that very literal lens (don't get me started on Balrog wings), but Obra Dinn is literally designed to be experienced that way. As a result, there really are a lot of real clues and fun details, and very few of these moments where you have to be like "uuh I think the author just fucked up tbh". You pointed out some really good ones in the initial segment, I really enjoyed that.

@jbeast33sconniepyro 4 месяца назад

With that interpretation, unless I’m wrong, this makes the mermaids roughly equal to the Obra Dinn by the end of it. Their quest for retrieving the shell lead them to a lot of pain and suffering, and lead to two of their deaths (as well as the crab walkers). Ultimately, the Obra Dinn got back to England, and the Mermaids got their shells back, but at too high a cost. Probably why the game ends with a “monkey’s paw”. Both sides’ greed came at a severe price, and by the time they fixed it, they were worst off than where they started.

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

@@jbeast33sconniepyro I wouldn't say the Mermaids are as bad as the crew, after all - crew stole _their_ item first. They were merely trying to get back what was theirs. We also can't be sure how crucial the shells are to the mermaids. But, I'd wager that if they were merely valuable trinkets, they wouldn't go through all this trouble to get them back. They also seem to be weaker when separated from the shells. If the shells are somehow necessary for their health and survival (in my first playthrough, my headcanon was that they contained - or were - mermaid eggs), then you certainly can't blame the mermaids for what they did. I think it's a bit unfair to call _their_ side "greedy" when they were the ones stolen from in the first place - that would be like saying nobody should try to get back anything stolen, ever, because it's equally as wrong, which is... well, silly.

@teamcyeborg Месяц назад

Honestly, now I wanna play through an Obra Dinn style game that takes place in Pompeii. Imagine the inspector going through, uncovering ash and scenes of life in the moments before eruption

@futonrevolution7671 5 месяцев назад

I assumed that despair was the captain's primary motivation, during the final mutiny. His wife's dead, his steward's melted, and the ship's dead in the water with shredded sails, a mast that would fall off if you looked at it too hard, no helmsman, and nowhere near enough crew to operate it. Not even the goat would be able to save them from a slow wasting death. (Plus, Duncan had stolen his license and registration, so he can't risk getting pulled over by the police for unsafe sailing.) He can barely even lift his head, when mumbling his order to let the women and children (and doctor) take the last lifeboat. Nearly everything is still the doctor's fault, though. All he had to do was use the watch on Nunzio, and the only deaths past that point would probably have been Peters taking revenge on the Dane... and the goat.

@Rory626 4 месяца назад

Brilliant analysis 🎉

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

The thing about him using the watch on Nunzio is, who would've believed him? His only evidence being a magical pocketwatch and his own word, against the 2nd Mate of the ship. He probably feared if he squeaked, he'd be executed too, and would them have no reliable way to get the pocket watch to someone who could solve the mystery. True, it does paint his character in a bit of a darker light, as someone who's willing to let people die for the greater good, but he's not completely to blame. It's still Nichols.

@futonrevolution7671 4 месяца назад

@@bugjams The problem with arguments that magic is unheard of in the world of Obra Dinn is our protagonist. They comment twice on the ferryman being annoying, but have no reaction to the magical stopwatch and are immediately able to operate it without any instruction. The insurance company accepts that they have to pay out, based purely on evidence gathered by clairvoyance, and a book that verifies the truth of what's written in it. There's no evidence of wizards in pointy hats being stationed on ships to summon the wind, but no one questions it, when people talk about curses. The captain and 3rd mate are able to speak to the mermaids with the 3rd mate even being able to give very complicated instructions with the mermaid being able to understand English to such a degree that they take advantage of the loophole that he never specified a time frame, the way that people talk about the shells varies (possibly by education level), and Dahl's the only one to react like a Lovecraft character, when confronted by monsters (and, even then, he knows what quicksilver is, which is the name used by alchemists and voodoo sorcerers).

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

@@futonrevolution7671 Hmm... good argument. I still think he could've had his reasons for keeping quiet - if word got out he had a magical pocket watch, anyone who wanted to kill anyone else would realize they would be unable to get away uncaught... that is, unless they killed Evans first. Not being able to know the intents of everyone else on-board, Evans probably came to this conclusion: "If they find out I have a pocket watch that shows how people died, someone might kill me. Either because they plan to murder someone else, making me an obstacle to their plans, or simply because the watch is a valuable artifact." Knowing what Nichols did, he would also be making himself a target as his next victim, something he probably wanted to avoid. He also didn't have the foresight to know nearly everyone on the boat was going to die, and that exposing Nichols may have stopped some of it. By the time shit hit the fan, declaring he had the watch wouldn't have done any good, anyways. So, was his decision to keep the watch a secret selfish? Perhaps. But ultimately, understandable. And as far as the Inspector is concerned, it's a good thing he held onto it.

@Supahdenning 4 месяца назад

@@futonrevolution7671 >he knows what quicksilver is, which is the name used by alchemists and voodoo sorcerers Today maybe, but was it at the time? Mercury is still simply called Quecksilber in German.

@SpidzWT 6 месяцев назад

This was a really interesting video that definitely got me thinking differently about a lot of the events I never dived too deeply into. Well edited, lovely pacing, thanks for making this!

@OneLimitedFun 6 месяцев назад

Thank you very much!

@mattbriddell9246 5 месяцев назад

A masterful video. I've played Obra Dinn 5 or 6 times myself and watched over a dozen other people's playthroughs and yet I still found some new details in your video that I had never seen before. Plus, the short short version of how every died was hilarious 😅

@UseZapCannon 2 месяца назад

One of my biggest frustrations about Obra Dinn is how many memories only seem to contain _exactly_ as many people as they need to, and no more. A lot of really kinetic scenes that should feature half the crew only have a half-dozen or so people in them, and some of the most important people aboard only show up in 2 or 3 memories total The cook wouldn't have had to say "hey everyone, I'm the cook, what's say we grill up this fish and make a meal out of it, because I'm the cook and all?" in one of his _only appearances_ if we'd seen him more casually doing cook stuff in the background over the course of several chapters

@Woodledude Месяц назад

I think that would have been a really nice set of details and rounded out the deduction to make it smoother and more natural, I completely agree. However, I respect the scope control from a game design perspective - This is an indie game made by one person. Pope was already doing some crazy, off-the-wall stuff with the totally unique graphic style and the back end to support it, and had to make something like 60 different versions of the ship, posing and choreography for every single death scene, AND make a compelling game out of the whole thing with a difficult but interesting set of mysteries to solve. I think Pope likely did as much of exactly what you're suggesting as he could stand, but playtesting may have showed that cluttering the scenes too much made the process of deduction more difficult, and may have triaged his priorities, or just not bothered in the first place out of similar fears. There are so, so many moving parts to this game already, both for the developer and for players, that I can respect the trim, lean version of the game we got. Would I go nuts over some similar game that was more detailed, more fleshed out? Absolutely. Obra Dinn is already a landmark achievement on multiple fronts, though. I think it's likely that it will - That it already has - Inspired similar games that will exceed it in every measure, and I'm very excited about the prospect.

@tarantula4197 Месяц назад

no. Then you would have 20 Clues you could stumble upon. How easy would that be?

@will88TFs4Life 26 дней назад

Its worse with the helmsman who has no memory showing him at the helm

@danjo2080 13 дней назад

The helmsman is at the helm for the 'justice at sea' memory and illustration tho

@redpin6 6 месяцев назад

Really interesting analysis! I ran through a bunch of the "details you missed" videos after completing the game but I still hadn't seen anyone bring up most of the small details or connections you talked about.

@Littlepup93 Месяц назад

My favorite head canon is that Hoscut was having explosive diarrhea during the kraken attack and just sat there like "I can either sit here and die, or I can go up there, shit myself in front of the whole crew and then die."

@FlintlockYT 3 месяца назад

12:12 This recap is so clever and creative. Loved it!

@QuiescentCookie 4 месяца назад

The hammocks are numbered is how the inspector knows who's in the scenes. The sleeping people all sleep in their own hammocks and they move when less people need to be slept to upper decks and they stop using lower decks for sleeping. It enables you to differentiate a few.

@epislog178 4 месяца назад

This finally proves my theory that chapter 8 happens in between multiple chapters.

@natashasaravia3137 6 месяцев назад

You enjoyed that recap. Nice detail about the goat.

@natashasaravia3137 6 месяцев назад

Feels fair to mention, Captain Robert Witterell was probably drunk at the time of The End - he's undressed himself, acts with uncharacteristic bravado, kills his first mate & brother-in-law in an impulse he regrets (in a situation he could've easily de-escalated by admitting he threw away the shells), and tanks several fatal hits to his body, as if unaware of the danger.

@mattbriddell9246 5 месяцев назад

@@natashasaravia3137based on how much liquor he had in his private storage, I'd say you're dead-on accurate with this

@caked3953 4 месяца назад

A very good video. Far more details then I notice myself in the 14h that I needed to complete it. There is one thing however with wich I don't agree: the execution. I think the explanation is very easy: Lao was attaxked in the dark and assumimg he as a guard was able to fight before he was knocked unconcious he didn't know that he didn't kill anyone, so he himself agreed with the guilt. The other guard figures this out later after the kidnap and thats why he shoots Nichols without hesitation agains orders. Noone else than the only other person that knows aboit the shell could habe attacked Lao.

@Snowbird2701 6 месяцев назад

Ok, that recap you did of what happened with everyone who died made me laugh 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

@ReverendTed 6 месяцев назад

Agreed - this is a great analysis, but the recap section is exceptionally clever.

@oliverpaszkowski2457 5 месяцев назад

starts 12:15

@somekinnn 4 месяца назад

Love the video, but I disagree with your arguments against Hok-Seng Lau's confession being tampered Firstly, whilst Huang Lee is present during the execution, it's only at the point where Lau is already tied up and masked, so we don't know if he was available to translate at all before that point. I think Nichols's position could have reasonably led him to keep the other Chinese crewmembers busy in order to ensure Li Hong did the translation. Secondly, I think it makes perfect sense that none of the Formosans other than Miss Lim are actively protesting even if they believe Hok-Seng Lau's innocence. They're 3, foreign members against 50-ish by that point, and even if they hypothetically managed to convince the 3 other Chinese (not Li Hong) and George Shirley, which I'd say is the furthest they could reasonably convince others without further evidence, that would still leave them extremely outnumbered. That, along with the nature of the supposed murder of a European national by a Formosan would probably lead to a strong scandal either way if they even tried defending it, let alone succeeded. As nobles of the country, they have good incentive to not escalate the situation further giving the extreme unlikelihood that it would work, even if they believed Hok-Seng Lau was innocent. (In hindsight, you essentially made this point too, but I think they would have still done this even if the translation was faulty and they didn't expect this. I think enough time could have reasonably passed between the 'confession' and the execution for them to have calmed down given that they had good reason to try to calm down fast.) Thirdly, Nichols's position implies both that he has a very varied presence on the ship and has been there for a long time. Along with that, his behaviour shows him to be for the most part, an opportunist who's willing to take advantage of a situation in a pinch, and I believe it would be weird if he didn't try to prepare something in advance to help him with achieving that whenever he wanted. I don't think it's unreasonable for him to actively learn the members of the crew over time and figure out who the weakest links are, especially with his position. In that sense, I think it's completely reasonable for Li Hong and some of the other mutineers to have been "prepared" ahead of time, potentially long before, as lackeys for any plan Nichols would come up with, and they simply happened to be used for the shell theft plan. I do believe your "confession to avoid scandal" idea is equally valid, but I believe both that and the fake translation are options with about equal probability.

Месяц назад

My theory is that the Chinese translations are always quite imperfect -- I imagine Hok-Seng Lau saying something like "I'm sorry I did not protect the treasure, forgive me" and it being twisted and misunderstood in translation

@INukedMyFish 4 месяца назад

Great pacing, clear explanations, learned a lot of details I missed! I only wish I could forget everything about this game so I could play it for the first time again with a note written on the back of my hand saying "play it slowly". Please make more

@parodysam 3 месяца назад

You look at the shoes and socks in the hammocks then look for people with matching shoes and socks.

@Alaric11 3 месяца назад

Henry could tell you how the pocket watch works, but it's Nunzio. Nunzio business.

@lukestenger2817 6 месяцев назад

Really loved this video! It made me appreciate one of my favorite games even more

@witchywoman2008 9 дней назад

I’m not even 5 mins in and I already love this video. This is the kind of attention to detail I love. Thank you for documenting it!

@madisonheckert5415 5 месяцев назад

Great video, man! I thought i had consumed every bit of obra dinn content and analysis, but this had so much new to learn and made me laugh while presenting it. Can't wait for more videos from you!

@captainwolfbane3707 5 месяцев назад

I think it's also possible Hok-Seng Lau really did confess to Nunzio's murder. Hok-Seng Lau was, on that night, supposed to be guarding the chest. His failiure to do so is what led to Nichols' murdering Nunzio. Even though it was indirect, and Hok-Seng Lau certainly hadn't intended to get someone killed, he may have felt like it was on him anyway. That combined with the factors you point out in your analysis related to why accusing Nichols may have been a bad idea present, for me at least, a believable way for Hok-Seng Lau to have confessed and meant it.

@Danerboots 4 месяца назад

Actually the translator lied or couldnt tell that he denied it

Месяц назад

Also "forgive me I've failed". could very well be construed as a confession through bad translation and a rushed trial

@lysotroph 5 месяцев назад

Wow what an awesome video! And so recent too!! When I first clicked, I thought this would've been from 2019 but it's only a month old? This game is timeless, really really well done!

@MegaCygnusX1 4 месяца назад

Finished this today, and really appreciate you making this as its pointing out all the little things that passed me by. I also like your genuinely enthusiastic delivery. Subbed.

@prismaux5168 5 месяцев назад

Incredible video that really pleases the side of me that wants more Obra Dinn. Very keen eye for detail, and I love your reasoning as you try to explain the events of the game!

@zeez145 5 месяцев назад

Dude this video is excellent, I hope your next video is as good as this one.

@JoannaFalkowska 18 дней назад

Such a wonderful video, I loved it. It seems you're talented at this form. I don't know if you plan to upload any similar analyses in the future, but if you do, keep up the good work.

@lordofdrakknor 5 месяцев назад

Absolutely stunning video. I spent around 8 - 10 hours playing the game but probably over 20 hours watching detailed investigation videos like this. The game was definitely created by a genius. It's truly like no other story

@JoesGuy 3 месяца назад

Perhaps the most thorough video on this game. Excellent stuff.

@NeO_Obsidian 6 месяцев назад

Very well made video, I enjoyed it a lot! ❤

@legionfanboy8551 4 месяца назад

Thank you for making this video, it really helped me understand what was happening, otherwise it would've been stuck in my head for at least a year, I'm still going to think about it a lot but for a better reason.

@RylixBlizzai 29 дней назад

in terms of the lack of specifics on what the pocket watch considers a moment of death i personally like to think it's the moment that the deceased soul would consider themselves dead some would think it's the moment they took a lethal injury and anything after that was just the death being drawn out some would go for the moment their heart stops beating, others when their brain stopped because i interpret the watch to be calling directly upon the souls of those in the memories that it's viewing in order to fuel it's recreations of the scenes and illusory corpses and things like that white trail are the ghosts of each crew member trying to either show their movements directly preceding their body winding up in the position we see, or that little hiss after fates have been correctly deduced is the watch letting those 3 souls be free again now that the purpose of calling them back has been fulfilled

@QuantumArtillo 5 месяцев назад

This is a brilliant analysis! Nicely done 😊

@nikkoa.3639 5 месяцев назад

This is the exact type of video I've been wanting for when I finished the game a few months ago. Thank you for making this! Edit: It seemed you were the same too! Seriously, what an amazing video. Cheers mate

@98081 5 месяцев назад

This is a great analysis, bravo!

@fieldgehog 4 месяца назад

thank you for this detailed video!!

@justusP9101 10 дней назад

Good video! I enjoyd it a lot

@strangeanimations2518 4 месяца назад

Such a great video!

@MakoWoman 2 месяца назад

Excellent video dude!

@zazander732 4 месяца назад

Great video, well worth the effort. Grtaz.

@07BigBlue Месяц назад

Thoroughly enjoyed this video

@Paper_Brain 3 месяца назад

I always just assumed the shells were golden and shiny, hence why that bastard Nichols thought they were worth stealing, and eventually brought more back while implying he had some sort of valuables with him on his return. I assumed this was also why Dahl bothered trying to pull it back out, but Witteral and the others didn’t give a damn; by then, they had a lot more to worry about than riches.

@randomcloverr 2 месяца назад

I really loved this analysis! While many of these details may be unnecessary to fully enjoy the game, I always appreciate when such meticulous world and narrative design is able to be showcased through more rigorous examinations like these. On part of your discussion, there is something I wanted to add. While your overall theory about the shells is very well supported by in-game evidence, I personally feel the overall narrative implies the shells hold some significant monetary value that justifies the risk involved in obtaining and transporting them, and the box is just a specialized vessel designed for this task. The game also seems to be indicating that the shells serve some sort of crucial spiritual/biological significance to the mermaids and this is both why they are following the ship to get it back and how the caustic liquid affecting the shell could incapacitate them. In my opinion, the shells' exact function or use to either the mermaids or the formosan royalty is left intentionally obtuse as part of a larger design choice. Throughout the whole game, the player's perspective is subject to narrative and mechanical restrictions that leave the complete truth always somewhat nebulous, and I think some of the lore/plot details are largely designed in the same way.

@necrotoaster94 2 месяца назад

Excellent video!

@ThriftyFangirl 4 месяца назад

"Didn't bring a gun or knife to a 'gun and knife' fight had me in stitches

@bigstupidgrin 5 месяцев назад

I've played the game twice and never realized that the surgeon is the one to give you the book.

@ChimeratAlpha 4 месяца назад

Interesting. You're recap about 14 minutes in say no one fell from the rigging. I have that for a few people. You likely had them as drowned, or fell overboard, but they fell from the rigging...overboard. Do love the lightning round recap though. XD

@scepticalsapien 4 месяца назад

phenomenal video

@chronictato1232 5 месяцев назад

This was such an amazing video, I can’t exclaim that enough. Who would’ve thought the goat wouldn’t like fish 🤦‍♀️

@mattgc 2 месяца назад

This whole video is excellent

@Cerracuda 4 месяца назад

My personaly favourite characters are actually Nichols ( ik the fan-hated one), John davies and Thomas Sefton, even though most of the chapters are only there because of Nichols plan and everyone hates him because of that, if he dindt do what he did, then there would be no game. John davies is just a chad🗿and Thomas Seftons death i weirdly find funny.

@Cerracuda 4 месяца назад

also great video btw, looks like you observed alot of details, which i find pretty rescpectable

@Scar7ace 4 месяца назад

Good video keep it up!

@marcl.611 4 месяца назад

7:54 Fun fact, you can see in a screenshot in the devlog that the chapter was originally called The Calling Shell, it likely got changed to be less obvious/spoilery.

@shushupyounaughtyminx4832 5 месяцев назад

Lovely analysis of an underanalysed game. It has massive appreciation but not a lot of close inspection - I suppose because it's such a "Don't let a new player know anything" game.

@MrFaranox 6 месяцев назад

The goat!

@simontingle6739 5 месяцев назад

This was an amazing amazing video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ClaireChavannes 5 месяцев назад

54:46 I personally thought that some events happened on board, and that there was an awful lot of collateral damages

@TewbBelrog 4 месяца назад

17:40 I'd Imagine outside of camera limitations the inspector probably could have explored or at least seen the whole ship if they wanted to barring areas fully enclosed by obstacles. If you reason it's the limitations of the Pocketwatch, it always had an arbitrary range and has shown to be able to portray stuff far away from line of sight in death scenes so you could suggest it's just more metaphysical barriers for gameplay purposes. The other explanation is that the powers that govern the Pocketwatch shows the Inspector exactly what they need to see. 25:05 Speaking of metaphysical barriers, I believe death scenes opening doors are purely for narrative purposes. It makes no sense how every single door on the Obra Dinn is locked shut and I find it hard to believe doors in the 1807 are capable of relocking themselves no matter what sort of windplay is present. I choose to ignore the inspector fumbling with the doorknob and see it as them not entering areas they have no reason to. The Lazaratte is the only door on the ship that should be canonically locked during the time of the inspection. 53:50 Atlantis probably has their internal disputes and conflicts about the case of the Obra Dinn and its contraband. Probably a sensitive topic amongst Poseidon and his subjects and the return of the Obra Dinn wasn't very high up the priority list for all the trouble she has put them through. Mermaid soldier likely needed additional time to prepare some kind of ritual or at least some subnautical bureaucracy of her own processed before she has the resources to fulfill her promise, but narrative wise I think it's just convenient for the Captain to have the time to rot into a pretty corpse. 54:40 Even this early on I never put the full blame onto the Captain for the state of the Obra Dinn. Through the whole ordeal I always felt there was some kind of divine curse that twisted the fates of her passengers, there were too many freak accidents for there not to be a supernatural influence to their causes of death. My initial assumption was that the Captain tossed the shells overboard to appease the Kraken. After watching this video I maintain that the shells were still the cause for the Kraken to withhold its onslaught; except that before I thought he was murdering the mermaids out of desperation, now I theorize he was throwing the forcefully dislodged shells overboard as a message of mutual destruction. The crew probably saw him with the shells as he was making his way up the decks but had their hands full with the assault, while Abigail was simply another freak accident due to the curse and wasn't behaving rationally in the midst of the chaos. The Captain likely didn't speak the details of the bargain to anyone but Martin and the truth died with him.

@ICountFrom0 5 месяцев назад

"poor life choices" ... I mean, I can't disagree....

@kaygirl10101 3 месяца назад

7:53 I believe chapter 4 is called "The Calling" because the shell either call out to others to possess it (Like Nichols and the crew at the end) or call the mermaids to it once it's close to the water like the Formosans say. Edit: Wrote this early in the vid, and you touch on those answers. My bad.

@FruitySpruce 5 месяцев назад

I hope that goat had a wonderful time in Barbados

@snakycarnival9119 2 месяца назад

I always thought that the watch tracked when the persons death was unavoidable

@ecksdee1889 5 месяцев назад

After playing this game, I was amazed at the intertwining storylines and overarching plot, but I didn't even know about all the attention to detail and speculation around the real story of the game, I just took it all at face value and didn't consider looking deeper. Henry Evans would be ashamed of me, wonderful video!

@reaperz5677 2 месяца назад

I like this video. I think this analysis of the game is just an interesting video concept, and I think that you presented the concept entertainingly. I just wish you did less Minecraft stuff and concentrated on other games. Minecraft is great until it gets stale. It got stale 2 years ago.

@kaygirl10101 3 месяца назад

Goat is the hidden MVP

@engilaru 4 месяца назад

Surprised to not see any notes on the theory that the two crab riders are the two Russians who got pulled overboard in The Calling.

@sedatev7341 4 месяца назад

How about a video that explains every single way you are meant to find a crew member's identity?

@hyunweewoo 4 месяца назад

love it

@beterbomen 3 месяца назад

I have another version of that theory about Li Hong: that he decided to translate incorrectly on his own, in order to save Nichols and have him owe him. Li Hong may have then later talked to Nichols and convinced him to run off with the shell. In other words, Li Hong was the mastermind, not Nichols.

@herm574 23 дня назад

Screw Nichols, all my homies hate second mate Nichols

@karlokb6717 13 дней назад

Very interesting analysis, although I disagree with you on some aspects of the game. I'll confine myself to one I consider important bc you're being unfair to the captaim imo. Why would the captain keep the last mermaid around as a kind of "treasure"? That doesn't make sense. She is a very dangerous prisoner who can still summon other sea creatures if he doesn't let her go. It's also pure speculation. The simplest explanation is the best. She withdrew the kraken, so he kept his implicit promise to spare her life, went up to the main deck and ordered Martin to go to the lazarette with a few men and release her with her shell. Martin as the 3rd officer is the obvious choice for this job, he oversees all operations involving the mermaids. Also, he literally says: "We are to set you free." Sounds like he is following orders.

@ToGgAlt 5 месяцев назад

First Of All Man Youre Very Underrated And Im Glad I Found This Video And The Way Everything Is Edited Was Done Greatly. Along With The Very Quick Cuts For Everyones Deaths Was Hilarious. But I Also Never Though of Some Of The Things That Were Said In The Theories, I Never Thought That Dr. Evans Was Suffering From Some Sort of Memory Loss But I like The Idea That using The Watch for Prolonged Period Of Time can cause Side Effects, Also to Comment On Davies Having Nichols Bookshelf He Likely has It As He believed That Nichols Wouldnt Return to The Boat So It Was Ok To Take or That Nichols Was Going To End Up Dead At Sea In Which It Would Also Make Sense As Well if He'd Dead He Doesnt Need The Book Shelf. I Also Never Noticed That Aleksei Was Left Handed Although I Find It A Need Feature, While The Calling Is Named After How The Shells called The Mermaid To The Boat (At Least thats What I believe Its Named After) As Dr. Evans And The rest of The crew Likely Didnt Know That The Mermaid Had been following Them the Entire time So It would Look That Way To Anyone On Board The Ship. For John Naples Death I Imagine That The Watch Only Worked As The Foot Being Cut off Is What lead To The Death So if You Where To Cut off Somebodies hand And Give The Hook per Say Then the Watch Wouldnt Be Able To Use The Hand To tell When They Died As losing The Hand Didnt Directly lead To That persons Death. With Nunzio's Death I imagine That Dr. Evans Had No Reason To Investigate As Why Should he When One Or More Of The Translators Said That Hok Admitted To The Murder Why Risk Revealing A Magical Watch To The Crew When You Believe In The Story Already being passed Around. Edit: I Didnt realize How Big This comment Was Sorry To Anyone In The Future Trying To get Through Other Comments And Having To Deal With my Word Vomit.

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

Why Do You Type Like This. Stop capitalizing every word.

@ToGgAlt 4 месяца назад

@@bugjams Never Its Call Initial Case And It Makes People Focus On What Im Saying Because Its Literally A Verbal Speed Bump

@romaprof2 2 месяца назад

@@ToGgAlt It literally doesn't make people focus on what you're saying because the capitals are very distracting

@ToGgAlt 2 месяца назад

@@romaprof2 As Far As Youre Aware

@romaprof2 Месяц назад

@@ToGgAlt Meh, whoever told you it helps people focusing was probably messing with you But keep writing annoyingly if it makes you feel better

@0SC2 4 месяца назад

The watch would be more or less completely useless if it needed to be present for the deaths it can view. Kind of a lame way to use the game’s key item.

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

_Is_ the insurance inspector's gender unknown? I thought the voice at the beginning sounded very clearly feminine (as in, a woman's voice, not something a man could do without serious training). They also technically have a name, though their cursive is very scribbly so it's hard to make out... but I'd imagine it's an actual name and not just a jumble of lines. With how much attention to detail Lucas Pope puts into his games, I'm sure he at least had an idea for what the signature reads as. P.S. In 13:35 You say Peters is the first to die, but at 7:13 you say he was alive when the Justice At Sea sketch was made. So, wouldn't that make Hok-Seng the first to die? Morely likely is that Samuel Peters died first, but was put into the sketch simply out of respect, since his death was a tragic accident.

@OneLimitedFun 4 месяца назад

There are two voices for the inspector, one male and one female, and the game chooses randomly between them at the start of a new game. It's possible to play through the game multiple times and always get the same voice though, so some people don't know this! The signature doesn't change based on the character's gender, hence why it's purposely squiggly. It's generally accepted that you can make out the initials A.G., but that the rest is illegible. Samuel Peters was indeed the first to die, but was still alive when the Under Way sketch was made, which is the sketch at the top. Many more people died before the Justice At Sea sketch was made later on. This was actually confirmed by Pope in a steam discussion thread called "Potential minor plot hole [spoilers]", which is a bit surprising! Thanks for the questions!

@bugjams 4 месяца назад

@@OneLimitedFun Oh, thanks for clearing that up. I played through 3 times and got the woman's voice each time. I also was under the assumption that all the sketches were made at roughly the same time, because they were on the same page. Thanks for the reply. :)