In Oxenfree, players take on the role of Alex, a teenager on her way with her best friend and new step-brother to attend a beach party on an abandoned island. After discovering an inexplicable, presumably supernatural force through the use of a radio, the three of them, as well two additional teens, are set on the path of uncovering an eighty year old mystery while trying to cope with temporal anomalies, intersecting realities and possession.

I want to describe Oxenfree as a point-and-click adventure, but with its gamepad oriented control scheme (which maps fine to mouse and keyboard controls), there isn't much pointing going on.

With the exception of loading screens and the radio mechanic, which narratively fits as a break in focus, most of Oxenfree plays out as a kind of "continuous experience," there aren't any state changes. Items in the environment can't be interacted with until the player is close enough, and typically actions don't restrict player control, and walking away interrupts those actions. Dialogue options present themselves while other characters are talking, and if unused will fade away as conversation shifts to other topics or the moment passes.

This keeps the game's presentation consistent in a way that helps the supernatural "glitches" feel significantly more invasive.

The dialogue mechanics are interesting. In principle, they allow for smoother flowing conversations, but without knowing whether further dialogue opportunities will present themselves or whether selecting one will result in Alex interrupting another character's train of thought it can make things feel a bit disjointed or oddly stressed. Perhaps in some ways, this exposes some of the awkwardness of unscripted real-life conversations, but it still feels a bit odd to me.

The mechanics of exploring and unlocking clues, secrets and, potentially, Bad Things by wandering around fiddling with knobs on a radio are fun, and it feels like the sort of game that one could sink a lot of time into if the atmosphere and environments feel enjoyable to explore. I haven't gone through to find all of the caches Maggie left behind, but I suspect I'll come back to do it at some point.

On the note of secrets, hidden within audio recordings that can be found is a phone number, which had a voice recording which set a group of community members on the trail of an ARG that took them to an abandoned military fort similar to the one depicted in the game.

There's a nice photo mechanic aimed at getting particular moments in the group's relationships and story beats to resonate. The game is more or less book-ended by these photos in a way that invites reflection on the impact of the story's events upon its characters.

Aesthetically, the game has a painterly style that I really enjoy (I particularly like the trees in the Edwards Woods). The 3D characters have a style that can sometimes be a bit hit and miss when it comes to fitting into the environments. I'd be interested to know whether the developers were trying or had tried to create something similar to the flat style with outlines seen in the in-game photos.

I massively dig the mystery, the cyclic time loops and the opportunity to affect history, but the game is steeped in a style of teen drama/angst that I personally have low tolerance for. That said, while writing this, I fired up the game to double check the points at which the game takes control away, and somehow managed to accidentally play through the entire game again by accident.

Oxenfree does a bunch of cool stuff along a bunch of cool axes, some of which resonate with things I appreciated about Moirai (players communicating with each other through a game in ways that invite reflection) and Firewatch (depictions of realistic relationships and people). I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever Night School Studio make next.


This was originally written as part of a retrospective[cheesetalks.net] on games I finished in 2016.

In Oxenfree, players take on the role of Alex, a teenager on her way with her best friend and new step-brother to attend a beach party on an abandoned island. After discovering an inexplicable, presumably supernatural force through the use of a radio, the three of them, as well two additional teens, are set on the path of uncovering an eighty year old mystery while trying to cope with temporal anomalies, intersecting realities and possession. I want to describe Oxenfree as a point-and-click adventure, but with its gamepad oriented control scheme (which maps fine to mouse and keyboard controls), there isn't much pointing going on. With the exception of loading screens and the radio mechanic, which narratively fits as a break in focus, most of Oxenfree plays out as a kind of "continuous experience," there aren't any state changes. Items in the environment can't be interacted with until the player is close enough, and typically actions don't restrict player control, and walking away interrupts those actions. Dialogue options present themselves while other characters are talking, and if unused will fade away as conversation shifts to other topics or the moment passes. This keeps the game's presentation consistent in a way that helps the supernatural "glitches" feel significantly more invasive. The dialogue mechanics are interesting. In principle, they allow for smoother flowing conversations, but without knowing whether further dialogue opportunities will present themselves or whether selecting one will result in Alex interrupting another character's train of thought it can make things feel a bit disjointed or oddly stressed. Perhaps in some ways, this exposes some of the awkwardness of unscripted real-life conversations, but it still feels a bit odd to me. The mechanics of exploring and unlocking clues, secrets and, potentially, Bad Things by wandering around fiddling with knobs on a radio are fun, and it feels like the sort of game that one could sink a lot of time into if the atmosphere and environments feel enjoyable to explore. I haven't gone through to find all of the caches Maggie left behind, but I suspect I'll come back to do it at some point. On the note of secrets, hidden within audio recordings that can be found is a phone number, which had a voice recording which set a group of community members on the trail of [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZPkoN4vmvs]an ARG[/url] that took them to an abandoned military fort similar to the one depicted in the game. There's a nice photo mechanic aimed at getting particular moments in the group's relationships and story beats to resonate. The game is more or less book-ended by these photos in a way that invites reflection on the impact of the story's events upon its characters. Aesthetically, the game has a painterly style that I really enjoy (I particularly like the trees in the Edwards Woods). The 3D characters have a style that can sometimes be a bit hit and miss when it comes to fitting into the environments. I'd be interested to know whether the developers were trying or had tried to create something similar to the flat style with outlines seen in the in-game photos. I massively dig the mystery, the cyclic time loops and the opportunity to affect history, but the game is steeped in a style of teen drama/angst that I personally have low tolerance for. That said, while writing this, I fired up the game to double check the points at which the game takes control away, and somehow managed to accidentally play through the entire game again by accident. Oxenfree does a bunch of cool stuff along a bunch of cool axes, some of which resonate with things I appreciated about Moirai (players communicating with each other through a game in ways that invite reflection) and Firewatch (depictions of realistic relationships and people). I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever Night School Studio make next. [i]This was originally written as part of a [url=http://cheesetalks.net/gamesRoundup2016.php]retrospective[/url] on games I finished in 2016.[/i]