I have three major criticisms of this game. The soundtrack reminds me of Sword & Sorcery, in a way. The music and sound effects are difficult to describe, at times melancholy, at other times, cacophonous, full of radio chatter and static. The island’s environments, while pretty, are also very oppressive. I would personally say this is more atmospheric horror. Some reviewers have classified this game as a horror game. I think my favourite area is Epiphany Field, with its dark wooded area leading up a mist-shrouded slope. If I had to compare Oxenfree to other games, I’d say it’s a lot like Life is Strange meets, well, pick a ghost story, down to the weird time travel plot.Ī note about the art, the 2D environments are really pretty. Would you believe this game’s development team included folks from Telltale? Yep, and that influence shows. Yes, if you’re not fast enough, Alex will clam up. One unique thing about the dialogue is that instead of choosing from a list of options at the bottom of the screen, you choose speech bubbles, and these choices are timed. Do you try your best to be nice to Clarissa, even though she wants nothing to do with you? How do you feel about your stepbrother Jonas? Do you encourage Ren to talk to his crush? Or, alternatively, do you push everyone away? Much like a Telltale game, these choices influence how characters relate to you during the story, and also affect the ending variations you get. The real meat of the game is in how you, as Alex, choose to interact with your friends. I’ve been calling them “puzzles” all this time, but what it really comes down to is tuning the radio until you find the number that does something. It is possible to collect everything on one playthrough and as long as you don’t go into the final area, you can still find everything, finding all of the collectables involves exploring the environment, some can be hard to spot or require a lot of backtracking. In addition to radio anomalies, there are letters to collect and photos to take. When the numbers are red, that means you’ve found an anomaly, one of the game’s collectables, usually a creepy message of some sort, blue numbers open locks on doors. When the numbers are green, you can listen to information about landmarks on the island. Solving puzzles are usually as simple as tuning in to the correct frequency on the radio. The radio is the key to solving puzzles in this game. You use the mouse to select dialogue options, and pressing shift brings out Alex’s radio. There’s also Clarissa, who doesn’t seem to like Alex very much, and Nona, Clarissa’s best friend who doesn’t talk a lot and loves taking pictures.Ĭompared to many other point and click adventure games, the controls are simple: you use WASD to move and space to interact with objects (climb ledges, etc), the tab key brings up the map. He’s constantly in conflict with Jonas, who is a bit more serious. One of my favourites was Ren, the talkative nerd with a drug problem. You’ll spend most of your time listening to dialogue and banter between characters in this game, luckily, the characters are all pretty likeable. The party predictably takes a turn for the worse as Alex and friends contend with time loops, creepy radio messages, possession, and each other. You play as a teenager named Alex, who is heading out to Edwards Island–formerly the site of an active military base and now a commercial site and tourist trap–with her best friend Ren and Jonas, her stepbrother. Oxenftee is a supernatural horror thriller mystery adventure game by Night School Studio. It’s October and you know what that means: it’s time to play tons of spooky games! This one came recommended to me by a ton of people, but I went into it not really knowing what it was or why it was so highly praised.
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