jennegatron

Oxenfree

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So, Oxenfree comes out Friday (1/15) and I am likely going to buy it that same day and play it!

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/388880/

 

It's from some people who also left telltale and have a dialogue choosing mechanic. It is scary in a thriller way, from what I gather and I am very excited. I got to play a little bit of it at Day of the Devs back in November and was definitely feelin' it at the time, so I'm glad to dive in deeper.

 

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/01/11/supernatural-adventure-oxenfree-is-out-later-this-week/186891/

 

http://m.ign.com/articles/2015/12/29/oxenfree-one-of-2016s-most-honest-gorgeous-and-weirdest-games

 

here's some previews, and that IGN piece has some gameplay footage as well.

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Wait, this comes out Friday? For some reason I thought it was still a ways off. Awesome!

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Count me as another who didn't realize this was out so soon! Excited for it!

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A video series with Night School the developer talking about the game:

 

 

It's amazing when they give you a glimpse of their choice trees and talk about the amount of dialog in the game.

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I had forgotten this was coming out so soon! Between this, The Witness and Firewatch; I'm going to have a lot of good new stuff to introduce to my other half.

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Yeah, this coming out this Friday has me hyped. I caught this just via Twitter and I'm glad I did, it seems right up my alley. 

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Vainamoinen, it is on humble bundle! It gives you a steam key, but at least  you're giving the retailer cut to not steam.

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I saw some of this via Steam Train (a Game Grumps show) and hot damn, it looks really neat. Spent a little too much lately to jump on this immediately but it's on the list of "nao plz."

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I played the first 2 hours of it tonight. Atmospheric without being nightmare inducing. I am enjoying it a lot.

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I know nothing about this game but I want the devs to team up with the creators of OlliOlli so they can make a sequel called Olli Olli Oxen Free

Olli Olli Oxen F2P

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I finished it today; I love it. Saw the ending a mile away, but it was still great experiencing it. The 80s electronic music and group horror/adventure narrative it has I have such a sweet spot for and it did a great job of it.

 

There's a lot of feelings going through me right now and I can't express them, but I really dug Oxenfree. 

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So I finished this this weekend. Some quick thoughts

1. To those of wondering about duration - my playthrough took about 4 hours. It could take longer if you explore more or a little shorter if you really zoom in on the critical path

spoilers from here on out

2. I don't know how much my choices affected or what exactly it changes. Here's what I did - save Ren first, then Clarissa, take Jonas with me to retrieve the keys. I did not choose to go through the door or let the ghosts keep Clarissa.
I'm interested to see what other choices people made and if they saw clear results out of it.

3. I love the atmosphere and story. I like that it didn't lean on the crutch of jump scares and instead built a scary ghost story. I don't really like horror as a genre and am instead more into suspense/thrillers and if this is also the kind of scary that Firewatch goes for I will be very happy.

4. The backgrounds and environments looked absolutely gorgeous. I loved the way it looked. I loved the character design in the little polaroid selfies, but I was less in love with them as in game character models. That's totally personal preference.

5. Loved the sound design & music. Loved the radio as a mechanic as well.

 

Well worth the 100% sticker price. I had no technical problems, I know some other people have had issues, but I can't speak to that.

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I loved it.  The dialog and voice acting felt pretty natural.  The mood hit well for me.  It's very unique in the horror genre.  It's occasionally creepy, but mostly the horror is used to explore grief and relationships.  The art was exceptional and the animations were usually good.  By the end of the game, I found navigating the island more tedious than enjoyable.  After awhile, the game requires a lot of backtracking, even more if you want to get all the story items.  Without a fast travel or even a run button navigation felt time consuming for sparse content.  I probably would have given up on finding all the items, but I was still enjoying the ambient music and noise in the game.

 

Overall, the experience of the game is unique.  The running dialog, great sound/music, and beautiful art make this game really fun to play.  I think it's a game horror fans would like, but it's not "scary" so much as occasionally creepy.  The humor mostly worked giving the game a lot of comedic relief.  I played my 4 hours in one setting, so maybe the repetitive environments from back tracking was especially bad.  The game uses a unique radio mechanic.  One of the main ways you interact with the world is through tuning a portable radio.  It worked pretty well, but I think it's potential wasn't fully tapped.  I'd have liked to see them do a bit more with it.

 

I'd say that anyone interested in this game will probably like it.

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I played this last night and had a lot of fun! It's a good horror game.

 

As with all supernatural stories, the discovery of weird events happening on the island was much more interesting than the final explanation for those anomalies, but even if Oxenfree didn't quite stick the landing it still had a great and creepy lead up to its ending.

 

I got the ending that has all of the characters reconciled with one another. Later I found you can get an ending where your brother didn't actually drown, which feels like an especially sinister plot point given the way the game actually ends - suggesting that you're still caught in your island loop and are about to go through the whole process again.

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I played this without knowing much about it beforehand and I really enjoyed it! Really atmospheric but a bit less spooky than I expected (that's not necessarily a bad thing).
With this out and Firewatch around the corner, 2016 looks like a good year for talking simulators
 
Stuff about the ending and some random thoughts:

I went to Clarissa before Ren, took Nona to retrieve the keys, didn't go through the door or give up Clarissa. Totally botched the test in the mansion.

My ending stuff was that Ren and Nona were dating, Jonas was Alex's stepbrother but in a different city and Clarissa got a dog and hates oceans, I guess.
It also said that I kept Jonas at a distance, which I don't feel like I did, except for not taking him to get the key and being against him going to see his mom.

Missed most of the letters and didn't feel like ruining the story by going on a long scavenger hunt in the end. Would really like to read them and see if they give any extra explanation.

I wonder if the "mirror interactions" affect the story at all and how, like the advice you give when you're the reflection as opposed to what you got earlier.

 

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I'm of two minds about this game so far. On one hand I've gotten far enough to see some of the creepy stuff, and it's really inventive and scary. I want to keep going just to see how much weirder and horrible it gets.

 

But every single moment that I liked has had the air sucked out of it because every character in this game is so sarcastic all of the time! Even when horrible, otherworldly things are happening people are reacting in such annoying ways that it's ruined every moment of the game that I should have otherwise loved. I think the only character I like so far is Ren because he's the only one who isn't being sarcastic about everything and he actually has a personality. I loved Life is Strange so I don't have a problem with Awkward Teens in video games, but in this they manage to kill any tension or atmosphere by reacting in all the wrong ways to every situation.

 

 

One thing I forgot: Why does progressing cause you to skip conversations to start the next one? You'll be walking along in one conversation and then hit the trigger for another one, and whatever was going to be said in the first conversation is gone forever. I know it's not an easy problem to solve but surely that's the number one priority if your game is mostly walking + talking? It's really frustrating; I have to stop moving every time dialogue starts so that I don't miss anything, and even then I'm still caught out from time to time.

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Vasari, I think they were trying to be honest about how conversations in the world actually work, and if something more interesting comes up, you will switch to it and drop the thing before. This runs counter to how most games treat dialogue (as something you can consume all of without any naturalistic flow)

 

I read this really great piece about Oxenfree & loss - http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/26/10819392/oxenfree-death

 

I liked this post a lot and thought it talked thoughtfully about loss in a way that I had been struggling to put words to.

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I feel like that article is undermined a bit by the fact that it actually is possible to save Michael.

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