This game cracked the detective genre in a way that I never thought possible. It made me realize that most detective games have you solve meta-narrative puzzles and then trigger a cutscene every now and then where the character solves a chunk of the puzzle for you (I love you, Professor Layton, but this game has laid your flaws bare).

Return of the Obra Dinn gives you a puzzle: what happened to the passengers and crew of the eponymous Obra Dinn. It gives you a few sketches of the crew and passengers, a map of the ship, a book to record the "who", "how", and "why" of each person's fate, and a magic compass that lets you view a corpse's last living moment.

That's it, and it's fantastic. Corpse's last memories frequently have their own corpses present in them. Through this, you can hop from one grim moment to the next in reverse chronological order, observing each critical event in the Obra Dinn's ill-fated journey.

Through these memories you're given just enough information to piece everything together, and the reverse chronological nature of the discoveries makes everything a whole lot more intriguing.

Every memory gives a small bite of information, but leaves a larger question: how did this moment come to pass? Going backwards through the ship's journey lets you slowly find out where everything went wrong, and what started the chain of events that left the Obra Dinn floating unmanned back home.

It's a truly fantastic experience that lets you live out the fantasy of being a detective with a wall of photos, sticky notes, and scribbles on a cork board, all connected with red yarn. You get to sit and chew on each nagging question, and unleash an incredible level of satisfaction as you start piecing things together.

I've never played any detective game or solved any puzzle that was as satisfying as this. It's a truly singular, incredible experience.