I solved the century-old mystery of a shipwreck survivor

If you liked this story, you might like the game Return of the Obra Dinn, which is kinda just this but for ~60 different people on a fictional ship.

A very cool game by the author of the also interesting Papers, Please.

I second this recommendation!

When my wife was pregnant and had to stop working, she got bored so I got her this game. At first she said she didn't like it "because the graphics suck". A couple days later she was totally immersed in the game and had made spreadsheets to track the whereabouts of every character over time. It is a really well-made game.

The graphics are actually quite an impressive technical feat, Lukas Pope went into some detail in his blog/forums about the effort that went into making them. I remember lots of work went into getting the "dithering" right when the scene was in motion.

Not only did a lot of work go in, but after much trial and error the breakthrough ended up coming from some random mathematician that happened to be following the thread and decided to take a crack at it.

Mathematician's posting starts here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg121280...

Next dev blog post from Lukas Pope mentioning this here: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg121719...

I tried to play it. But I just didn't 'get it'.

I can't say I commiserate, as I was hooked at the very first flashback.

    > Scene is black, you hear "Come out, so Johnny and I can flay your bones" / "Get out of -- *BANG!*"
    > Scene reveals, man is frozen in time, his body still in motion though he is clearly dead. 
    > A half-dressed man stands inside the ship's main cabin, gunpowder still billowing from his pistol.

    Now you play "Clue".

    Who killed whom with what, and where?

    > KILLER: What? I have no idea!. Why would I know?! I know literally nothing, why would I ... Oh, hang on, this is the Captain's cabin! Nobody but the captain would be half-dressed in the captain's cabin so... he must be... the captain! Ha!
    > VICTIM: At least one of these assailants is "Johnny"... not sure if the victim is, though. I'll hm... have to figure out how to write down "some unknown guy wearing pointy-toed boots and another guy with a scar on his shoulder were on the deck at 4pm, and one of them died to the captain's pistol, and uh... one of them is named johnny" hm...
    > WEAPON: Close range pistol shot. Yeowch.

...

Anyway. I totally dug it from the outset and only loved it more as I progressed.

I hope you'll give it another shot.

If you like, say... Myst-like games that blend puzzles and attention to detail with good storytelling, you'd like this game.

It and Outer Wilds are probably my two most-recommended games.

I tried it too after it was recommended but it's a detective game that requires you to take notes or cram a bunch of story line in your head. If you want to "just play a game", this isn't it because it will get real boring real fast.

I thought the artwork was striking and original and I wanted to like it. But I think detective games aren't for me. Very subjective, obviously.

Yeah, it's a game that's very easy to bounce off of. The first few hours can feel like a slog until you familiarize yourself with each scene enough to have a direction in your search rather than just wandering randomly.