Lucas Pope on 3 years of Return of the Obra Dinn, and what's next

Lucas Pope, the developer of Papers Please, Return of the Obra Dinn and the upcoming Mars After Midnight, sat down with Jordan to chat about Obra Dinn on its third anniversary.
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[@shrimpbear2544]

makes me happy to learn that the other book and ornaments on the bookshelf do hint at the possibility of other similar obra dinn type adventures, or that at least Lucas had such idea in mind at some point

[@mikeanthony773]

"All my games have problems with them... They've got a little jank" News to me! Obra Dinn was near perfect!

[@NarfiRef]

Fast travel would have been appreciated.

[@marcusc9931]

The needs of the story had to be balanced against the needs of the puzzle, so the events get a bit wonky at times.

[@arandombard1197]

@@NarfiRef It takes 30 seconds at most to get from one section to another.

[@cycopl]

I like the part about Bruce Straley's input and how Lucas acknowledged it and improved the game around it. Having an unlimited amount of time to explore each scene is one of my favorite things about the game, and made it a much less stressful experience than his previous game.

[@Sykroid]

14:18 SAME. It was frustrating because he was in sooo many memories, even the last few, and I just couldn't find out who he was. Also, lot of good interview questions here. I really enjoyed hearing it

[@resiniferatoxina4248]

With Brennan??? He was like my fourth It happened to me with Lewis Walker

[@Prospect_]

Henry was easy lol

[@yoshimori_hero]

"Oy, Brennan! Get the surgeon's kit!"

[@BruCipHiF]

It took me a while as well!

[@deeznoots6241]

@@yoshimori_heronot even any ‘which one is Brennan?’ Since he is literally cupping his ear to hear the shout in that scene

[@yoshimori_hero]

I feel that the lack of fast travel made it so that you *had* to travel through different parts of the ship and notice *what* events happened *where*. It would also help you associate events that were happening in the same time frame together, which actually helped me with deductions.

[@deeznoots6241]

Yep, if anything I find fast travel spreading to more and more games discouraging map development. Before fast travel games had to make the map genuinely interesting to travel through instead of just a collection of points to fast travel between with just basic terrain inbetween. How can you feel truly immersed in a world that you actively avoid experiencing just to complete a games story faster

[@doopness785]

Return of the Obra Dinn is my favorite Video game of all time. I’m very sad that I can’t erase my memories of it and experience it again.

[@tobiasmattsson9285]

Same. Recently bought the game as a birthday gift for a friend, and I'm glad to be able to give someone else that same experience

[@oldschooloverlord]

Give it 20 years and come back - its not like the graphics will have dated.

[@ChaosPootato]

I can't say it's my absolute favorite ever but it's way up there. A really unique experience. Those games where you have to piece everything together on your own are always a treat

[@nickthebluemonkey1149]

Obra Dinn has become one of my favourite games. It may not be perfect, but it's damn close. I hope there's a game that tells the continuing tale of the Obra Dinn universe. Right now, though, I can't get the music to Soldiers of the Sea out of my head :) thanks for this interview!

[@TheRealGreaves]

Great interview, i admire his dedication to push to get a project done despite being interested in a variety of things. When you are financially sorted like he is, you have no stick hitting you to complete things for money, so it's good to see he continues to be creative and productive on his chosen project. Hopefully he'll make more stuff for PC after releasing Mars After Midnight.

[@Swedgers]

I don't think it really works like this. You don't get to be creative when you're spending most of your time working to cover basic necessities. People who are provided-for can spend their time on whatever they want, and people naturally want to create and work on things, even without the threat of impoverishment.

[@Alaric11]

​@@Swedgers Artists are very fickle in my experience. As an avid reader I have experienced dozens of times at this point authors who want to create a long running series and either the quality drops sharply or releases slow/stop as the artist writing them grows bored and wishes to work on other projects. Pope pushing through that and finishing his product for the sake of his fans is very admirable in my estimation.

[@yorkipudd1728]

This is my fave Detective game. Superb.

[@DylanHunter64]

I'm really glad he hasn't retired. I want him to live his best life, but this man is just too good at making incredible games to just stop so young. Hope to see more.

[@TheNightOcelot]

Remember in the end where "you" close a catalogue book and put it on the bookshelf, just next to it is a wooden frame with a Sacred Scarab in it. Just imagine how cool would it be to get a sequel where "you" investigate a mystery story set in Egypt where the group of archeologists disappeared on the excavation site in the desert! 19th century where Obra Dinn events occur is also known as a Golden Age of Archeology, it gives so much wonderful options: supernatural things sealed deep down in the sand, renowned archeologists from Europe, rich sponsors who have their own motives, workers from different regions of Africa (like Nubia or Abissinia or arab desert tribes), spies of european empires, journalists looking for a scoop, adventurers seduced by easy fortune, art traders etc etc etc.

[@zachpetersen1231]

Great interview! Thanks for doing this! Obra Dinn is one of my all-time favorite games.

[@nikiindzhiev5369]

Loved this and I love that you asked him about the book at the end of Obra Dinn, really hope we see more of this insurance investigator. Amazing interview!

[@WhatNowMaxTVchannel]

42:00 I wonder if the relatively high risk of AAA games will cause AAA to 'diversify their portfolio' by instead running 20 'indie' studios working on trying to find the next killer app game.

[@pungoblin9377]

I can’t be the only one who screamed in their head when reading this

[@Ramix09]

delete this before some game VC reads it :(

[@guillermochiste1485]

I just finished Obra Dinn. I loved the interview, tons of great questions, thank you! And what an incredible mind Lucas has, is astonishing really.

[@Rapandreas]

I think the point about fast travel is unnecessary. Having to walk to the corpses gave a unique feel. If you could fast travel, you would spend half the game in a menu. Having to walk to the place where the clue is gives that feeling of actually being an investigator.

[@Smarod]

Also familiazire the player with the boat. You are forced to learn the layout of the ship when walking to the different corpses

[@Rapandreas]

@@Smarod Yes, exactly. Another good point.

[@doopness785]

Agree you can pretty much get anywhere on the ship in under 30 seconds

[@NeatChill]

Think a better option would be to add a small white trail that leads to the corpse once you’ve found it once(I.e. you click “locate corpse” and it produces the trail). You’d still have to walk but it saves you getting distracted and getting lost. That way you can still admire the scenery along the way.

[@deeznoots6241]

Facts, fast travel is lame as hell and only improves games that have terrible maps.

[@DonPasquale_]

This was a really great interview. Excellent questions

[@rogumann838]

Great questions and interview!

[@inchworm9311]

8:49 Excellent advice about how to give useful feedback

[@chekeichan]

Hear me out: Return of the Obra Dinn VR

[@83rdgec17]

the art style wouldn't gel so well i imagine, especially because of the low resolution

[@calderov]

Unlikely, the author mentioned that the original one had problems with making you feel dizzy after a while. He had to implement some 1 bit motion blur equivalent to mitigate this. I imagine the issue would be several times worse in a VR setting

Nope

[@Danny1905]

@@calderov how weird, I get dizzy incredibly easy, I couldn't even finish Outer Wilds due to the dizziness it gave me, but Return of the Obra Dinn didn't make me feel even remotely dizzy at all

[@leow.2162]

VR still gives like 20% of all people nausea and headaches, I don't think it's worth it. And RotOD has relatively little replayability.

[@Aleblanco1987]

I'm a simple man, I see Lucas, and I upvote

[@scuraballthetrueone]

I would honestly be totally fine if he just reused the assets and made a Obra Dinn 2 (though I guess it wouldn't be about the obra dinn but whatever)

[@tomasbreunig4950]

I hope someone makes more obra dinn like games like one set in a arquelogical site or a classic mistery in a mansion

[@KnightMirkoYo]

The only problem with the Return of the Obra Dinn is that now I want more ;_; It's absolutely incredible!

[@Carbon_Cola]

I'm honestly a bit surprised you use footage from the end of the game in the first 30 seconds of this video. I realize this is not a review or anything like that, but still I think it would have been nice to try not to spoil viewers who have not played the game yet.

[@AkashCherukuri]

Didn't expect to see you here, loved your factorio review!

[@Carbon_Cola]

@@AkashCherukuri Hey Akash! What a coincidence haha. Glad you liked my Factorio video! I also have one on Obra Dinn if you're curious 👀

[@Dragonoidalpha]

Brennan was slow for me too lol

[@StuartLoria]

7:06

[@0002pA]

0:25 this dude just out here spoiling a massive part of the ending of the game in the first 30 seconds. Could you not have found ANY other footage...?

[@DEFCON_1]

Spoiler from 0:20. :(

[@sebbog]

omg your accent

[@-iIIiiiiiIiiiiIIIiiIi-]

Lucas Pope took 9 years to port "Papers, Please" to Android, which left a really poor impression on me.

[@Khalendil]

lol

[@nobodythisisstupid4888]

I felt so smart when I put together that there were numbers on the hammock that correspond to the numbers on the crew manifest. I had 8 people left to find (not counting last 2) and 4 were laborers of some kind, but I had some issues determining who exactly were the laborers and what their names or even nationalities were. I kept seeing that there were like 22 people in chapter 2 part 1 but could only directly see 7. Then i saw the numbers and was able to match them to those in the manifest. I was then able to determine that the 3 Russians were together playing cards, which person had the forearm tattoo (which I found on the guy dying later) and the other two could be determined by the process of elimination. I can see how it is so easily overlooked since it’s a bit difficult to even read the numbers at first, but those numbers were what I needed to beat the game.

[@doopness785]

My favorite memory of this game is my brother showing it to me and watching me play and me immediately solving the Frenchman because he’s wearing the same striped shirt that I recall from a Pepe le pew cartoon of all things. My brother was in shock at how easy I solved it. And my response was: “his shirt is a dead giveaway” spoken in a Pepe impression. We both had a good laugh. Of course, there’s plenty of other clues to solve that character But it just made me feel like a genius.