The Lost Borealis Expedition
You play as John Falcon, second-in-command on a ship sent on an Arctic expedition to rescue the crew of the U.S.S. Borealis. You've only been at sea for two days when the crew starts complaining about sightings of ghosts.
The Captain has asked you to investigate. He wants you to prove that the ship isn't haunted before the crew panics.
Controls: Mouse, Esc/M for menu
The game saves automatically. (In the cryptic puzzle, your progress is only saved at certain checkpoints.)
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Update 2: Version 2.4Jul 17, 2023
- Update 1: Version 2.3Jun 21, 2023
Comments
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I might have hit a bug with this game. I got all the statements and there's a green check at the top saying they're all correct and I can't edit them anymore. But looking at other comments, it looks like I was supposed to put something else for two of the Head-related statements. However, I see no way to change that or progress the story now that its locked in my statement choices.
Was really enjoying it up to that point!
Hi, thanks for playing! :)
The part where you need to enter something else comes later. After entering the witness statements, the next puzzle is figuring out which hammock belongs to whom. To view the hammocks deduction section in the diary, you have to first view the items in the hammock containing the cream and robe (without this, you would have no reason to make deductions about the hammocks).
Ah, thanks! I didn't see a prompt for that. Happy to still have more to play!
where can i find rosemary and sage?
Spoiler
The rosemary is in the doctor's office on the shelf and the sage is under a hammock on the other side of the mess.which one is it and how can i ask the doctor?
do i have to solve the puzzle first?
Yep, you have to solve the puzzle first! (It’s Salvia Rosemarinus.)
where can i find the walkthrough?
You can get it in the downloads section above. :)
how do i solve the puzzle?
Hi! Which puzzle would you like help with?
the doctors puzzle like the complicated one
Yeah that is a little tricky.
Part 1
In part 1, you need to place all the alphabets such that the gaps between them match the blocks in the clue sets. All placements can be logically deduced. For example, B and I must be in the 4th and 5th column next to each other and must have at least 3 rows above. Since X/Y is already in the last row, B and I must go in the 4th row.Part 2
In part 2, you have to pay close attention to how each shape moves and interacts with each other. For example, the squares move clockwise along the border. You'll also need to figure out which shape gets priority when multiple shapes are trying to occupy the same box.Part 3
You'll need to use both Part 1 and Part 2 for this.First part of Part 2 shows that the order of precedence when finding the coordinates for the letters is triangle > circle > square. Also see how Doctor Trout got the first two letters.
If you still need help with the solution, you can download CrypticSolutionImagesV2.4 from the downloads section above. :)
i cant download sorry
Okay, no problem! If you need more help you can ask here then. :)
i got like the crossword part of the puzzle, i figured it out
I'm honestly quite stumped. I'm at the section where I am able to turn the page of my notebook. I thought the answers would be Noah Devlin and Nathan Glass. So unless I just got some information wrong when inputting that, then I have absolutely no clue how to solve this. Either way, this has been a fantastic experience.
Hi, thanks so much for playing! I’m glad you’re enjoying it! :)
Spoiler
You're right, the answer is that Noah Devlin and Nathan Glass saw each other at the head last night. Are you sure all the fields are entered in correctly? If they are and it's showing it as incorrect then there might be some bug I haven't come across yet. Can you try re-entering to see if that works?I figured it out, for some reason, I put what they thought they saw, not who they actually saw.
Hi Nice Game, Is there a continuation of this story? Should I download the full version to get the full story?
Hi, I do have a full story in mind for this but right now this is all there is. Thanks for playing and the comment! :)
You're welcome
Hi, so I don't know if it's intended or not but on the web version it won't let me go to the Main Deck even though I've talked to everyone else on the lower half of the ship and found no sage nor anything I can actually take from the hammocks.
I did take the ale from the Mess but can't use it on anything either
Have you been to the other side of the Mess? (There’s an arrow at the bottom.)
You don’t need to visit the main deck to finish the game.
Thank you! I didn't realise there was another side, most of the other arrows were for areas that you could get to otherwise. I assumed it was to go down the ladder.
You’re right, it is a bit hard to see. Thanks for playing! :)
It's challenging and I wouldn't have finished without the walkthrough. I love the concept. I hope to see more of this.
Thank you so much for playing and your comment! Really means a lot to me! :)
Did you play the updated version? I've made some changes so that there's a slightly gentler difficulty curve. I'd love to get feedback on where players are getting stuck so I can fix it and make it a more enjoyable experience.
Yes, I played the updated version. The last puzzle was the most difficult. I finished the 3-question quiz by randomly selecting locations and the 5-question quiz by checking the walkthrough. Maybe I'm not smart and clever people will appreciate this level of difficulty. Anyway, I highly enjoyed the game :)
I think other people are having trouble with the location order as well. I'll try to fix it in another update.
Thanks again! :)
Pretty good! I found it challenging, but I enjoyed the rewarding progression and exploration.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
very good
Thank you! :)
That was a bit more difficult than I had expected ...
I had to use the walkthrough twice. Once for the cryptic puzzle, because I couldn't figure out the movements of the triangle. And a second time because of the witness statements. I didn't realise that the game wanted me to interpret my findings already. I could kick myself for that, because it was clear that this was bound to happen at some point. I just expected it to be a later step. And I have to admit that working out the times was a bit too convoluted for me, so I just, ahem, "masterminded" it. :)
That being said: I love this game to bits. The graphics are good, the setting is great and the puzzles are genuinely challenging. Collecting all the witness statements in the diary was a lot of fun. I like mechanics like that. The hammocks were also a nice idea.
Excellent game.
You're totally right, of course, about the pacing of diary entries. Initially there were going to be more parts and a gentler deduction curve but I was feeling quite exhausted this jam so clubbed a few things together. Will provide more clues about the triangle for sure, you're not the only one to mention it!
Thanks again for playing and the feedback. I appreciate it!
***SPOILERS BELOW***
So fun! Especially once it clicked that not everyone should be taken for their word, and that there may be more normal explanations for what some experienced.
Very challenging at times, but everything was fair in retrospect. It took me way too long to see the "next" button on the hammocks (not the game's fault) which stumped me for a while.
A few suggestions:
-An in-game notepad would have been nice but wasn't necessary.
-It wasn't obvious (to me) that brimstone is synonymous with sulfur
-The solution has 3,5 as L, but L is not in the clue sets. The correct answer according to cluesetI.1 is A ( _ _ _ _ A). I was given a checkmark for clue set 1 even before I "fixed" 3,5 and put in L.
- A checkmark did not appear over cluesetI.3, even though I had SWTXU in the correct positions, until I put "L" in 3,5.
-I didn't know how to undo a box after I placed a letter, which made things messy while figuring things out. (I used X's as placeholders where I screwed up)
-The cypher was otherwise great, and II.1/II.2 cleverly explained shape order, the behavior of the square/circle, and what a shape does if their path is blocked.
Overall, would recommend to fans of the Obra Dinn.
***END SPOILERS***
Thank you so much for playing and the comment. It means a lot!
It's easy to get blind spots when testing your own game, especially one that's been made in 10 days. So your feedback has been very helpful! I'll use some of the points you mentioned to improve it in a post-jam version. :)
SPOILERS BELOW
I agree, the game doesn't make it clear enough that brimstone is sulfur. The only clue is when you're speaking to Elijah the engineer, he says he smelled brimstone and you, in turn, ask him when he smelled the sulfur. As for the letter "L", it's meant to be filled in last and since it was the only letter left after you've filled all the other letters, I didn't add it to clue set 3 (Maybe I should have though.). Your point about undoing is very good, I'll make it clearer when I update the game.