Papers, Please dev releases a demo for his next project: Return of the Obra Dinn

Lucas Pope, the creator of multiple 'best game' awards for his 2013 hit Papers, Please has been hard at work on his next game for about half a year now. He's been regularly posting his development progress on TIGSource, and yesterday he released a free playable demo on itch.io.

In Return of the Obra Dinn, you are an insurance adjuster for the East India Trading Company that must board the previously lost, currently abandoned, and possibly cursed merchant ship Obra Dinn to find it's manifest and determine the fates of all the crew members.

The demo looks great, and does a really good job of pulling you in and teasing you into wanting more. If you leaf through Pope's devlog you'll see how much work he's put into making a 3D world inspired by old 1-bit adventures like Dark Castle. And when you walk around on the Obra Dinn you'll see how much that work has paid off. Obviously there's still a lot of rough edges, but Return of the Obra Dinn already has a captivating atmostphere, and looks like the story will have a lot to unpack.