I’m quite fond of watching Let’s Plays of Obra Dinn (it’s the closest I can get to experiencing it for the first time again), and there is a fundamental mistake I see happening over and over: people not getting the rules the game plays by.

First off, the game is tough but fair. I’ve seen a lot of people say out loud what the correct solution is, but not punch it in because the game could be tricking them. In fact, the game would rather give you a hard puzzle and help you solve it rather than giving you an easy puzzle and trick you away from the solution.

Second, the game does a a neat trick of using very contrived game-y mechanics (the magic of the pocket watch) to present information, but only to enable that information following fairly natural real world logic, rather than puzzle game logic. People are unexceptional — they hang out with their peers, use more or less familiar language depending on who they’re talking to, stick to their jobs unless shit is hitting the fan (and even then, their job informs how they react).