Much like Life is Strange though, it also falls into a very standard trap.
Oxenfree game all endings full#
The tone is very natural, with line-deliveries full of pauses and stammers and corrections that really works for the setting, even if it can lean a little too much towards being self-aware when the aforementioned shit gets weird. It's not a game I felt any need to go back to after the credits rolled, but I did like that they were acknowledged.Ĭertainly, during that all-important first play, it's very well written and performed stuff. All conversations play out in real-time too, giving very little time to choose your response and no chance for backsies, with your choices ultimately splitting Oxenfree off into multiple endings. there are very few moments that don't feel as much like an interactive radio play as a walk around the island. Jokes, swapping theories and bitchy comments, arguing over what to do, discussing their backstories, altering relationships. There aren't many puzzles, but Alex and friends are always - always - talking. The world is a beautifully painted one of watercolours broken up with spooky effects, a soundscape of old radio stations bleeding into the new, of looped history and surreal encounters that beg questions instead of just foster confusion. The specifics would be spoilers, but Oxenfree manages to take a plot that's mostly on the Scooby Doo end of the horror scale (minus a last minute reveal and "I would have gotten away with it!") and make it its own.
And now Oxenfree's favourite mini-game - 'Guess What The Feedline To This Reply Was.' All are there to party, but end up facing far more than just hangovers when Alex inadvertently opens a rift in the caves and, to use the technical phrase, shit gets weird. Alex, a slight tomboy considered just one of the guys, Jonas, her new step-brother, Ren, a friend doting after Nona, his latest crush, and Clarissa, the local queen bee. Specifically, it's the story of a small group of teenagers heading out to party on a deserted, abandoned island - a familiar rite of passage on a creepy local landmark, but one where the spooky radio signals in the caves are largely secondary to getting drunk, stoned, and maybe to at least reach second base on the beach. The sense of not being alone in the dark, but uniting against the darkness a group of friends pulling together with humour and warmth that cuts through the spooky atmosphere.
The slow, drawn out reveals that hang as much in the silence before the reveal as whatever bogeyman lurks at the heart of the story. The laughter at the scary bits to make it clear how very not scared you are by the things that go bump in the night. It's not a scary game, though it's an often unsettling one, rooted in that sense of shared communal unease. Tales of flickering shadow, told with earnest delight to at least a briefly receptive audience willing to put aside logic and courage, and allowed to simmer in darkness when the light finally expires. There's a kind of story that campfires were built for.
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