Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope has posted an early development build of his next game. The Return of the Obra Dinn may not be set behind the desk of a border control station, but it is still somewhat administrative in nature. A first-person mystery, your job is to find out what happened aboard the merchant ship "Obra Dinn"—uncovering the fate of the ship's crew.
This demo gives you a brief idea of its central mechanic—which I won't spoil because it's a neat revelation. Still, as it's easy to miss things: make sure you've collected the watch and the passenger manifest before you've finished. You should, with some deduction, be able to work out the fate of two crew members by the end of the current content.
Systems aside, it's worth taking a look to see the beautiful "1-bit" rendering style in motion. Screenshots don't really do it justice. To download the build, head over to the game's Itch.io page, and for more development details, check out The Return of the Obra Dinn's TIGSource thread.
