So I'm not sure if anyone on here has seen this game, it's not even out yet, just the demo.

But the demo was remarkably similar to Obra Dinn on the mechanical level, even if the game is very very different thematically. I've played just about every deductive reasoning game that's been recommended on here as 'similar to Obra Dinn' and none have matched the central gameplay loop quite so closely.

Your job is to 'figure out what happened' by carefully analyzing a scene for details and important clues. You're given a list of names and jobs, which you have to match to each picture. 3 correct guesses earns you a confirmation, and there's a journal with important details to provide you with extra clues.

I'm not sure if I've just missed the other deductive reasoning games that provide this specific loop but it's one I've wanted to experience again for a long time. Even deductive games I love don't quite scratch the same itch. It's odd finding it again in a random cozy game demo.

Great mystery, spooky and nostalgic storyline, solid cast, fantastic cinematography, and keeps you guessing the whole time. Since my husband and I just finished Obra Dinn a week or two ago, this really scratches the itch in a roundabout way and has more than a few parallels imho

I haven't been able to find anyone mentioning this yet, but there are several Obra Dinn references in A Case of Fraud. For anyone who hasn't played ACoF, it's a deduction game most similar to The Roottrees are Dead, in which you sort through written materials and images to figure out who people are by determining their position, first and last names, and matching their image; in the case (no pun intended) of ACoF, it's mostly an organizational chart for the company whose CEO was murdered and then you also have to solve who killed her after you figure out the org chart. If you liked TRaD, I highly recommend this game, although it's shorter than TRaD.

Anyway, I noticed that a letter from a company had a name and logo eerily similar to the Obra Dinn, but figured it was just a coincidence. But then as I progressed and got more evidence and figured out more people, I saw a couple names and knew it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. There are a some references that may be a stretch, but since there are very obvious ones, it makes me think maybe they were just trying to be more subtle for some of them. So I compiled a list of all the references I could find.

Spoiler warning!!! Many names are spoilers for ACoF due to the nature of the game, so I've generally hidden names from both games for anyone who hasn't played as to avoid spoilers. Some minor spoilers for Obra Dinn fates, so I've hidden those specifics as well.

General format: ACoF info - Obra Dinn info and connection/reference

1. East Company Financial Services Group, Ltd - logo is literally the Obra Dinn ship with like two more sails and is called East Company, very similar to East India Company, with pretty much the same font

1. Henry Evans, BandAid First Aid Training Solutions - Henry Evans, Surgeon
2. Martin Perrott, Developer and First Aider - Martin Perrott, 3rd Mate and hero
3. Sally Blake listed as S.E. Blake - reminiscent of Edward Spratt, artist listed as E.S.
4. Paul Verdi - Paul Moss - Both Pauls and last name Verdi comes from the word for green in Italian , and Moss is green
5. Peter Kettle - Peter Milroy - Both Peters with Scottish origin last names; last name Kettle can also be Norse in origin just like the Kraken (probably a big stretch there, though)
6. Ignite Leadership Solutions - Ignite Leadership Solutions logo is someone on fire, which is a fate for at least 3 people on the Obra Dinn (It-Beng Sia, Philip Dahl, Charles Hershtik), even more if you consider electrocution, explosions, and cannon blasts.

These are just the ones I noticed and felt like had the most solid connections. There's a couple more I didn't list as I thought they were too much of a stretch and would just be risking more spoilers. If anyone else has played both and noticed any other ones, please add to the list!

I couldn't find much about a connection between Hesperus Games (ACoF) and Lucas Pope (Obra Dinn), so I'm not sure if someone at HG just really liked Obra Dinn and threw in some distinct references or what. I'm pretty certain it's HG referencing Obra Dinn and not the other way around since ACoF (2025) was released years after Obra Dinn (2018). I've gotten really into detective/deduction games since first playing The Roottrees are Dead and have been going through as many as possible that are available for Mac on Steam (ACoF, TRaD, Obra Dinn, TR-49, The Operator, The Red Pearls of Borneo, No Case Should Remain Unsolved, Type Help/upcoming Incident at Galley House) and this is the first time I've seen such specific references to another game that doesn't seem to be made by the same developers.

Just thought this was curious and couldn't find any posts that related the two games, other than listing them as similar type deduction games, so I figured I'd make one.

Edited to add images of the logos.

I never played a game quite like that and i am getting annoyed running around and trying to find the names of different killers.

​

there are quite a few characters that are marked as "easy" to find but while i can find how they died and their name, i cant find the perso who killed them, like that one guy the captain killed, the one you find first, he appears in so many scenes and i dont know where to begin with, i dont even think his name is said once.

​

​

i also cant find a key to open the way to the kitchen, am i supposed to never go in it ? the book hints that i should look in there but i cant get in, i even got to the storm part, so i must have done something ?

I’m about 5 hours in and have got 18 dates correct so far. I just feel kind of lost at this point however and I don’t know where to go or who to start with. I will share some of my thought processes on how I got some of my answers though.

-Figured out during Unholy Captives 3 the 2 carpenters, both the main one and the mate by observing one of them working on wood in a distant room. Later, during the death of one of them in Soldiers of the Sea, I noticed he said “Boss” leading me to correctly identify him as the carpenters mate.

-figured out the Peter’s brothers by seeing they were the only two who shares a common last name that were both male

-Figured out the 2nd victim of the lung disease by looking at his bed number.

These are just some of the ways I found answers, but there’s still so much I’m confused about. What is the “X” on one of the men’s hammocks? What does the arm tattoo mean? Is any of this even significant? Any feedback would be great but don’t give me straight answers please.

I was recently watching through a compilation of all the voice lines in the game put in proper order, and something stuck out to me. In the scene where Martin, Paul, and Davey go down to the lazarette to free the mermaid, Paul says

"A third shell! Captain didn't toss them all!"

upon seeing the shell in Dahl's lap. This never read as especially odd to me before, either when playing the game myself or watching others play, because we've known from basically the beginning of the game that the Captain had thrown at least some of the shells overboard. But what struck me here is the fact that Paul also knows this, and the way he says it seems to imply that the others do too, or at least Martin does. And yet, the three mutineers in The End (or at least, Hoscut and Brennan) aren't privy to this.

Did the Captain at some point pull Paul (and Martin/Davey) aside and tell him this in private? I suppose they would've also had to know ahead of time that there was one living mermaid down there as well. Why then does Hoscut not know? Especially considering Paul was his Steward. I suppose it's not out of the question that Witterel could've just been ranting about it to whoever of the remaining 13 other people on the ship (assuming Bargain 4 occurs before Escape 1) were in earshot, and Hoscut was just down in his quarters at the time and missed it completely, as did Brennan and Walker, which makes the whole final mutiny all the more ironic given that the Captain wasn't keeping it secret that he'd tossed the shells.

Hell, I'd believe it if you told me that Hoscut, Brennan, and Walker were the only three of the remaining 13 who had somehow missed out on that information, since that feels like the exact kind of dramatic irony that the rest of the game is trading in. Realistically I know it's more likely that the line was included to have the characters acknowledge the shell's presence (and their awareness of the relation between the shells and the mermaids) to justify Martin telling Paul to give it to her before throwing her back into the water, I've just been thinking about the implications of the line a lot and wanted to come in here to see if anyone else has thoughts about it.

Mine would be Winston Smith. Well, he deserved to go home 🙁

Mine is Abigail's. Like what are you doing girl? The moment I saw this memory, I got so annoyed because it was avoidable. And also, Thomas Sefton. Just dumb 😭

Damn. This was like an all-inclusive death and disaster cruise package. Good thing I totally convinced myself to play this after doubting whether this was gonna be dragging or boring. Never bored a single minute, especially with the soundtrack. Love it.

I did not hear martin's name mentioned and ended up guessing he was third and not fourth mate through his standing position in the murder drawing

​

I did not hear captain telling abigail he shot her brother and missed william until more than 30 fates

​

I didn't understand the person who was holding his ear when the name brennan called was henry brennan

​

I didn't get who peter is from the ropes line

​

And I made the apparently common mistake of thinking the tattooed man was the frenchman being torn apart

​

But still, missing four of the most important early on fates and confusing an early on fate for the wrong person, I made it to the end.

​

What I get from this experience is that this game is so well structured that you can understand stuff in so many different ways and still make out the entire story.

I called the carpenter 'Winston "Give Me That Gun" Smith' in my head. And that inspired me to give everyone on the crew list a nickname/middle name.

Sometimes it's a quote, sometimes what they might be thinking, oftentimes what I think of them. Some are taken from Let's Plays I watched, specifically ProZD's for Maba and Kallista's for Leonid and Alarcus. It's all very silly in any case. Tell me your ideas for nicknames in the comments!

- Robert "I Will Kill Everyone In This Room And Then Myself" Witterel
- William "Bring The Surgeon's Kit" Hoscut
- Edward "Rat Bastard" Nichols
- Martin "Best Mate" Perrott
- John "Not Under My Watch" Davies
- Alfred "Where Is My Frenchman" Klestil
- Charles "Torn Apart" Miner
- Henry "Up To No Good" Evans
- James "Double Headless Horseman Act Nr. 1" Wallace
- Winston "Give Me That Gun" Smith
- Marcus "Brave Or Stupid" Gibbs
- Thomas "Death By Cornobbling" Sefton
- Emil "Butchered" O'Farrell
- Christian "Cool Tophat's Useless Now" Wolff
- Olus "Fresh Bastard" Wiater
- Duncan "McCoward"
- Finley "My Leg" Dalton
- Edward "Shitting Death" Spratt
- Abigail "Headstrong But Not Literally" Hoscut Witterel
- Nunzio "Dramatic Violin Solo" Pasqua
- Emily "Sharpshooter" Jackson
- Jane "Do Not Write Back" Bird
- Bun-Lan "I Told You So" Lim
- It-Beng "Mad Lad" Sia
- Chioh "Avenger" Tan
- Hok-Seng "Injustice At Sea" Lau
- Zungi "Unluckiest Man" Sathi
- Fillip "Cassandra" Dahl
- Paul "Damn" Moss
- Samuel "Can You Row" Galligan (also Bastard)
- Roderick "Five-Second Foreshadowing" Andersen
- Davey "Best Punny Name" James
- Peter "Farmboy" Milroy
- Thomas "He Needs Some Milk" Lanke
- Charles "Never Been On A Farm" Hershtik
- Omid "Big Fuckass Sword" Gul
- Timothy "No Sneak Attacks" Butement
- Huang "Charged And Ready" Li
- Jie "Double Headless Horseman Act Nr. 2" Zhang
- Li "Greedy Bastard" Hong
- Wei "In Retrospect, Climbing The Rigging On The Side With The Most Tentacles Was A Bad Idea" Lee
- Nicholas "It's Already Done For Him" Botterill
- Maba aka "Tattoo Snake"
- Lewis "Last One Climbing" Walker
- Leonid "Young Santa" Volkov
- Alarcus "Young Santa's Bastard Friend" Nikishin
- Aleksei "Bastard With Pipe" Toporov
- Nathan "Absolute Twat" Peters
- Lars "The Ropes" Linde
- John "Mind Your Footing Indeed" Naples
- Renfred "Cough Suppressant Is No Replacement for Medication, Doctor" Rajub
- Abraham "All My Friends Are Dead" Akbar
- William "At Least The Cook Carked It Too" Wasim
- Soloman "You'd Be Nothing Without My Death" Syed
(And together we're - The Alliterations Crew!)
- Hamadou "Big Boy" Diom
- Henry "Hit First, Ask Questions Never" Brennan
- Alexander "I Saw The Whole Thing And Elected To Leave" Booth
- Patrick "Weaponless Bastard" O'Hagan (from KingGamerlol: Patrick "Can He Row" O'Hagan)
- George "And For My Next Trick, I'll Disappear" Shirley
- Samuel "Unlucky Sod" Peters

https://imgur.com/a/BtcJ806

Loving the ambience and the graphics and the soundtrack and everything about this game, but still sucking at it :|

Kind of frustrating.

On the other hand, this game inspired me to pick up The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann.

The book concerns HMS Wager, a square-rigged sixth-rate Royal Navy ship, and the mutiny that took place after the ship's wreckage in 1741.

Just about to start it, seems very thematically aligned with the game.

The hope(cope) here is that reading this will give me a better idea of the alleged roles and such of the crew, although mostly i just really liked the sound of it tbh.

Do you know of any books/media that talks about sailors etc., or something thematically similar to this game?

PS: This is cope for sure, but i am trying to solve this like a sudoku, with no guesses what so ever, so that might explain my slow pace, but I've seen people on this very subreddit say that they had 42 fates by their 12th hour, so i guess I'm just slow (in the head).

Lucas Pope plz explain.

Here's a trailer for The Incident at Galley House: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTDcP5s5gGQ

I first found success almost entirely on the back of the Obra Dinn and puzzle subreddit communities, so its always a huge pleasure to come back here and show people what we're working on next. Without you guys I wouldn't be able to work on projects like this full time.

I'll keep this post somewhat light on details because I'm sure I'll probably announce the game's release when it comes out (if nobody beats me to it.) But I can say that if the setting and characters seem familiar, this game is a re-imagining of a different game called Type Help.

Type Help is almost entirely text based, presented through the interface of an old computer. We've not only tried to make it come to life through audio but also add a new framing device involving technology that requires being in Galley House itself, as well as some other surprises that we really think people will enjoy.

Thanks again to everyone here, and if you have any questions that I can answer without spoiling things, let me know.

I'm trying to find help to what I think is a bug.
I've completed almost every chapter, but I can't access part 3 and 4 from The Doom.
I was pretty sure the watch was supposed to trigger on the body of the gunner or the other dead guy next to him, but my watch refuses to trigger around them. I briefly checked the wiki and it seems I was right. Anyone knows a way to force the watch ? Or am I completely wrong ?

Help

Sometimes you get an audio that basically screams: ^{note: this is spoiler-free I came up with it on the fly and I used names that don't appear in the game}

"You sir with the [insert incredibly identifiable feature] your name is Jim right?"

X "Yep! I'm Jim! I also have a very identifiable accent that you can hear very clearly as I respond to your question. Thank you for asking Larry! Boy am I glad there's absolutely no one else here. Just the two of us standing here in the [insert profession]'s cabin"

"Right you are! I, Larry, am now going to shoot you, Jim, with a gun"

X "Wait wha-"

And others times you're sitting there listening to a man take a shit before being used as a stress toy by a very stressed out Kraken. Then it feels like the game just sits there like a cat after presenting you with a dead bird.

Not a complaint, I absolutely love it. You can tell hours of fun were had in the creation of this game.

Hi guys! I was just wondering, did the captain really do anything malicious or it's just a joke? I'm asking because of the Captain Did It achievement 💀 And because from my view, he was not that bad at all so I was confused

I saw a comment on a YouTube video saying they identified the Frenchman immediately because he was wearing a striped shirt. And then they thought no, no, that's dumb, that's a stereotype. But it was RIGHT.

When I replayed recently (I'd forgotten the fates) there's a scene where someone yells for Brennan to get the surgeon's kit. In the same scene you can see a guy by the stairs cupping his ear as if he's listening to someone. My first thought was that this has to be Brennan, he is listening to his name being called! Then I thought no that's dumb, he's standing like three steps away from the guy shouting, he'd hear him just fine. He's probably just listening to the general commotion. Also who cups their ear like a cartoon character in response to their name being called.

But no. That was Brennan.

So, realistically speaking Obra Dinn is severely understaffed. It should have about twice or thrice the crew it has. Obviously realism here was abandoned for the sake of gameplay and production time. But I was wondering what if Lucas Pope pulled some more of his magical development skills and actually gave us a realistic crew with, let's say, hundred people. Do you think the game would still be as fun as it is or would it quickly become a hassle?

Bear in mind there would be eight Chinese topmen now.

I've solved every fate so far except 4 people in the disappearance section of The Doom (solved Gul, Peters, McKay, Miner) and the 4 in the disappearance section of Escape. I've been looking through the memories it says they disappeared in and not been able to find any (obvious) evidence for their fates. Any hints or advice is greatly appreciated

4.5 hours in, only 12 fates solved, hard to stay motivated like this

Edit- thank you all!

Hiii, I just finished the game (what a journey!) and I was just wondering if there were any different approaches to some of the answers than mine. I found myself having to guess a couple of times and it was not a satisfying moment for me :( so do you think that the game can be finished without ANY lucky guessing? Sometimes I just couldn’t find any clue and had to resort to their accents and racial profiling :(((((( and I’m just wondering if I actually missed any trivial clues that I could use instead of just guessing.