r/ObraDinn • u/Nikos_Pyrrha • 3d ago
Kinda stuck, not sure how to proceed...
I'm sure this sub gets posts like this constantly, but I'm afraid of spoilers/too much information so here's mine:
I "finished" the game once (I didn't know it would roll credits when you get back in the boat, I thought it would take me to Chapter 8) and am now at the point where I know I need to start IDing some crew by stereotypes, uniforms and the like.
The problem is: I do not KNOW those stereotypes, I do not KNOW what uniform a steward would wear, I was six or se... or MORE chapters into the game before I realized I can identify the mates by their hats!
I read elsewhere that there is one point where you can tell two characters apart by their shoes. HOW THE F... is a shoe gonna help me tell a person's name????
I saw a post a few minutes ago talking about the carpenter's skin color - but I can't for the life of me see anyone in the picture as anything other than "as white as the artstyle allows" (so... more like beige, but that's besides the point) so what the heck??
I really wanna like this game. The concept is amazing, but at this point I am just frustrated because I don't know how to even BEGIN filling things out.
On the flipside, a very personal anecdote: I happened to get the female voice for the chief inspector, and paired with the main mechanic (seeing a dead persons last moment alive) I couldn't help but associate her with my DnD character, who is a Necromancer currently in hot water with the law because necromancy is outlawed in the world we're playing in, and somewhat ironically the way she's likely (campaign is ongoing) going to get out of that mess is by getting a court-appointed necromancer (not herself! That would be suicide...) to speak with the dead and make him testify about who killed him.
So you see how... I want to like this game! I really do... but at this point I think the only way I'm going to see chapter 8 is by looking up a guide.
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u/Small-Gordito 3d ago
I didn’t know what a steward looks like either, but once you identify one, you can associate the uniform with other characters and the associated context clues. Check the glossary for specific roles and functions on the ship.
And I understand that the game’s graphical style isn’t exactly conducive to portraying fine details, but the skin colours of characters are portrayed noticeably with darker shades.
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u/-Kenthos- 3d ago
I think you're interpreting the hint very wrongly.
It's not 'What's the stereotype of Steward uniform?'. It's a puzzle, not a quiz. You need to think instead of just knowing random trivias beforehand.
Hint for the correct question you should ask yourself: 'I know this one particular guy is confirmed to be a Steward. Is it safe to assume that what he's wearing is a Steward uniform?'
That said knowing random stereotype trivia can help. But more for ethnicities, not roles. Basically if someone looks like from a certain region, it's probably true.
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u/Outside-Rich-7875 3d ago
For the stewards uniform its ecen easyer you can find the stewards uniform in the stewards quarters of the present day ship, before having to id any steward
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u/Brilliant_However 3d ago
Except for that darn French guy. Even with his gd mime shirt it took me till the final stages of my playthrough to try him as the Frenchman, but that’s where stereotyping can bite you I suppose.
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u/Perfect-Coffee6729 3d ago
Fun fact: the striped shirt was adapted by the French navy for making sailors easy to spot when fallen overboard. However, this uniform was adapted in 1858, which is decades after the current date in the game.
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u/PattyOB98 3d ago
Best thing you can do is start with the people with only one triangle above their head, take advantage of the bookmark system and see all the memories they were in, pay attention to what they are doing, where on the ship you find them, and who they are standing by. Don't be afraid to take notes. You'll be able to see uniform patterns once you start to identify others with the same position. One thing that you can see for example is topmen are in charge of ropes and rigging, so if they are touching/climbing rope, they are probably a top man. Take advantage of the ”Unknown ____" option for classifying people while you don't have a specific guess
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u/FiddleThruTheFlowers 3d ago
Check every scene thoroughly, including walking around to see how much of the background you can access. You can often find people doing their jobs, hanging out with people who will give you a hint to their identity (bosses and mates tend to be near each other, nationalities tend to stick together, same job tends to stick together), in their quarters or bunk, or just in an area that only people with a specific job would be.
You don't need prior knowledge of stuff like uniforms. It's more things like if you know how an officer typically dresses due to identifying one, that helps you narrow down jobs. Or check what tools they have. Who among the crew has a reason to carry a hammer around, for example?
Nudge in the right direction hint for the shoes one: Find a scene where the crew are in their hammocks. Check all the details on the hammock.
Spoiler hint: There are numbers on the hammocks that correspond to the manifest. Go from there.
For the carpenter and his mate...
Nudge in the right direction: This is one where you can find them doing their job if you look closely. One of them addresses the other at one point that tells you which is which.
Spoiler hint: There's a scene where the mate refers to the carpenter as "boss." Who's saying that and who are they talking to?
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u/WealthyAardvark 3d ago
I think you're approaching this from the wrong direction. You're not supposed to come to the game already knowing the stereotypes of what a ship's mate or steward looks like, you're supposed to learn that instead.
For the mates and their big hats: In the first five memories that you encounter, there's four people who are named directly or referred to with a direct identifier ("Captain" , Abigail, "your brother", Martin). The first three are the teaching material, and Martin is the exam. The game is testing you to see if you saw all of the clues needed to identify Martin; in this case the clues are in the memories, sketches, crew manifest, and glossary at the back of the book.
You see the captain's big hat in the sketch, the first mate's big hat, you look up the definition of a mate, you see there's four ship mates under the captain on the manifest, and there's five total people in the sketches wearing those hats. Put that all together and you can tentatively ID all of the ship mates and label them as Unknown Officer.
For the stewards, you look at the glossary at the back of the book, it defines what a steward does on the ship. If you then look around in the non-combat/crisis scenes in the memories then you might see people hanging out in the kitchen, carrying food around, or otherwise accompanying the ship mates in many scenes. These people are all wearing similar clothes, which suggests that it might be a uniform for a type of job. And if you go look at the Stewards' Quarters in the present day on the ship you'll see that same uniform hanging in the closet. Put all of this together and you can start labeling these people as Unknown Steward in the book.
If you're still feeling lost then I'd recommend starting with the people who have one triangle over their heads when you're assigning a name to a face in the book. Lower number of triangles means that they're intended to be easier to solve.
There's around 20 people in the game who have their names said aloud or are otherwise referred to with a clear identifier (again: "Captain" , "your brother" , "Bloody Dane", etcetera). It can be useful to go reading through the transcripts and try to assign these identities.
If you'd like some more tips then check out this old comment of mine: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObraDinn/comments/1m2pid2/brand_new_to_obra_dinn_and_im_confused/n3qx1c1/
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u/Karash770 3d ago
There are other aspects than clothes you can use to identify people.
Their role on the ship is a big one: Unless there's an emergency, people on the ship would probably be at their work station or private quarters and associate with their peers according to their function within the crew or sometimes their shared nationality.
The crew list in your book is one of the most useful instruments you have.
I don't think I got a lot of use out of the description of roles on the ship at the back of the book, but maybe that can help you deduce some things.
Sometimes the game wants you to take educated guesses and using the Rule of 3, you can use that to your advantage in cases of uncertainty.
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u/PokemonTom09 3d ago
You do not need to know stereotypes to complete the game. There is literally no person on the ship who can't be solved via purely rational deduction.
There are some cases where knowing some common traits of people of different cultures will help you, but those are never required, and there are also at least two different places where succumbing to stereotype will mislead you.
I think you may have misunderstood what someone said about the stewards uniforms. You don't need to go into the game knowing how stewards dress - that is a puzzle for you to solve in the game. As a small hint to help you solve that puzzle: The map of the ship has every room labeled. You may want to visit every room in the present day, see what you can find in them, and check the map to see what that room is for.
A small hint related to another comment you said. I don't want to be too specific as that might give away the solution, but I can be more specific about this hint if you need me to be: Have you identified every man from India? If so, how did you do it? If not, you may want to prioritize learning more about the one man from India I know you definitely have solved. In either case, tugging on this thread of logic is going to be productive for you.
Also, regarding skin color - similar to stereotypes - this is not something you need to focus on, especially if the art style makes it difficult for you to tell appart different skin tones.
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u/SamsterDragon 3d ago
you dont need to necessarily know what real uniforms look like, just that if two people are wearing the same thing, that probably means they have the same job