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Oxenfree
At least one Umurangi Generation post is absolutely incoming but in the meantime: LET'S TALK OXENFREE. I think I'm going to try to tier this in terms of spoilers? Ultimately I direct this post To The Void but in the event anyone actually reads it, I'll separate out minor spoilers from major spoilers for the sake of anyone who wants to hold onto the possibility of playing without knowing the ending. IDK let's figure this out as we go.
First, hardly any spoilers: Oxenfree is about a group of teenagers who travel out to an island to party, only for Spookiness to Occur. Your character is Alex, who came to the island with her best friend Ren and her new stepbrother Jonas. (Also on the island: Clarissa, who has a problem with Alex, and her best friend Nona, who Ren has a huge crush on.) The game's more or less on rails in terms of plot, but you get a lot of dialogue choices and some of those can impact how various characters end the game.
I got the game mostly-free in last year's BLM bundle. Base price is $10 and it's currently $3 on Switch. It took me probably four hours to play (with a chunk of that being me working to 100% on collectibles in case that would help avoid a "bad" ending, which it turns out was unnecessary), and I do think it's structured in a way that rewards replay enough that I'll get probably another 3-10 hours out of it.
The dialogue system took some getting used to. Scripted conversations flow almost constantly and for the most part, any time you're given a selection of things to say, you have a limited time to choose one and interrupt the existing conversation before it moves on. It took me a while to stop feeling like I was constantly missing out on either what would have been said if I hadn't interrupted, or what would have been said if I had. I was surprised by how quickly I got the hang of which-button-selects-which-option, so great job to the devs for making that intuitive. I wish moving around the island felt more efficient, but I guess it's also true that I didn't need to do as much backtracking in the name of thoroughness as I did. I think it'll be less of a concern on replay because I'll just be going from Point A to Point B (at least as much as the game allows).
It was scarier than I was expecting, mainly because I wasn't expecting it to be scary at all. This happened to me back when I read Morning Glories, I went in all "this is going to be a fun Scooby Doo kind of adventure" and then got slapped in the face with legit horror elements. I personally don't think it's scary in a sustained way (nor is it intended to be - elements repeat instead of escalating) but YMMV.
Okay, MILD spoilers - aka I'm getting into more detail but still holding back in case you want to play this yourself: The gist of the game is that you're all on this island to party, but you split up, and supernatural stuff happens and you all get MORE split up, and your objective at first is to find everyone so you can all stick together, before it shifts to finding a way to get everyone off the island. In between all this there are lil two-minute time loops and some is-it-time-travel-or-a-dream visions and some getting possessed by ghosts and some is-it-a-prophetic-vision-of-death-or-a-nightmare visions, plus piecing together the Why of it all via audio recordings and letters.
THROUGH ALMOST ALL OF THIS, IT'S JUST ALEX AND JONAS? There are some segments where you have a larger group, and there's a chunk of the game where you can choose who accompanies Alex, but MOSTLY IT'S JONAS? You start the night as TOTAL strangers but you get to know each other, you share your insecurities and trauma, you encourage each other, you argue and you talk it out, you grow to trust and value each other...listen, like I said above, you get dialogue choices and it's pretty clear that they impact the story but I wasn't clear on how MUCH. And one of the earliest choices you get is when, during a conversation about how Alex's mom met Jonas' dad, Ren asks what you guys are to each other. And I said stepbrother because from context that seemed obvious but then by the last third of the game I was like DID I SCREW MYSELF OVER? IF I HAD SAID "ROOMMATE" WOULD WE BE ABOUT TO GET TOGETHER? But no you don't actually have that level of influence, if I had said "roommate" then someone else would have just been like "???? you mean stepbrother" and everything would still have been the same. BUT THE VIBE IS SUCH THAT FOR A WHILE I WAS LIKE "DID I RUIN THIS?"
Anyway I am mostly talking about the stepbrother angle bc that is what feels the most pressing but it was overall a SUPER interesting story and other than Ren the characters did all really grow on me. No offense to Ren, who was fine, but I just never really bought in. I think I'll try to spend more time with him in a replay just to get a little more invested. But I loved Nona, and I really liked that even though Clarissa's introduced as a bitch they did a good job of being like "well, ultimately yes she's a bitch, but some of us are just bitches, and here are some of the mitigating factors that explain why she is like this with Alex specifically." It was good that she wasn't completely irredeemable but also she wasn't just misunderstood or insecure, they hit a nice middle ground that also tied in nicely with the fact that if you like her, you can try harder to save her, but the story isn't really going to force you to do that. While the story's mostly on rails, you do have enough of a sense that your choices are impacting SOMETHING for it to add some more personal stakes to the question of "is there any way we can all get off this island in one piece?"
END MINOR SPOILERS.
Okay, MAJOR spoilers now, NO HOLDS BARRED.
I didn't get this ending but YOU CAN BRING YOUR DEAD BROTHER MICHAEL BACK TO LIFE VIA THE TIME TRAVEL FLASHBACKS????? (I didn't get it because I thought the good thing to do would be to embrace the fact that he wants to leave town but This Is Literally What Kills Him so...my bad.) This causes a ripple effect where because he never died, your parents never split up, so your mom never remarries, so JONAS ISN'T YOUR STEPBROTHER. But rather than him just disappearing from the action because he never moved to town, HE'S THERE AS JUST YOUR PAL? NO RELATION, STEP OR OTHERWISE. The fact that all this happens and yet you still cannot date him in the game and Alex is like "I won't tell him this but I think of Jonas like a brother"...EVERYONE IS A COWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot BELIEVE there was Tumblr stigma around shipping them when in THE GAME'S IDEAL ENDING, the one in which YOU SAVE YOUR BELOVED OLDER BROTHER FROM DYING, you only ever knew him as your stepbrother for like twelve hours? GET OVER IT, NERDS.
So speaking of Alex remembering: TIME LOOPS, MOTHERFUCKERS. I haven't fully played this out by repeating the game yet but basically, Alex's ending narration ends up transitioning into a pregame narration - "we got off the island and here's how we all ended up, anyway I have to go now, I have to pick up that Jonas kid I've never met so we can go to the island" - and you can then New Game+ to replay the game with Alex having some degree of awareness that she's stuck in a larger loop. My understanding is that the loop is ultimately breakable, but at this point in time I don't know what your sibling roster looks like in that situation. WHICH I KNOW IS AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.
Anyway, time loops are repeatedly featured in the game but they're all really small - it's one stretch of path or one conversation that you keep repeating - so while you're playing, it doesn't feel like Oxenfree is something that belongs in the Time Loop Canon, and honestly, even after I finished I didn't particularly think that, but. BUT. The absolute GALAXY BRAIN application in this fic...hell yes. I'm sitting here thinking "postgame fic should be about how Alex and Jonas get together after the island" like some kind of idiot while AO3 user sarsparillia is like "you know what would fucking hurt? If Alex's loop were long enough that she and Jonas repeatedly became the most important people in each other's lives, only for the loop to inevitably return her to a point where he thinks of her as a complete stranger." GENIUS LEVEL SHIT!!!!!!!! THAT'S ROMANCE, BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!! The game's canonical time loop is much shorter (it's the same night repeating) but I'm much more interested in it now. V EXCITED TO REPLAY!!!!!
ETA 6/23 but I did finish a second playthrough last week and VERY GOOD, VERY WELL DONE keeping the same basic story while reworking elements of it to make it clear that Alex is looping. HOWEVER the sibling configuration is very unclear if you save Michael and then go to the convenience store. I saved him and looped and he was gone because Ren was still referring to Jonas as my new brother? I REJECT IT ACTUALLY! I CAN HAVE IT ALL!
First, hardly any spoilers: Oxenfree is about a group of teenagers who travel out to an island to party, only for Spookiness to Occur. Your character is Alex, who came to the island with her best friend Ren and her new stepbrother Jonas. (Also on the island: Clarissa, who has a problem with Alex, and her best friend Nona, who Ren has a huge crush on.) The game's more or less on rails in terms of plot, but you get a lot of dialogue choices and some of those can impact how various characters end the game.
I got the game mostly-free in last year's BLM bundle. Base price is $10 and it's currently $3 on Switch. It took me probably four hours to play (with a chunk of that being me working to 100% on collectibles in case that would help avoid a "bad" ending, which it turns out was unnecessary), and I do think it's structured in a way that rewards replay enough that I'll get probably another 3-10 hours out of it.
The dialogue system took some getting used to. Scripted conversations flow almost constantly and for the most part, any time you're given a selection of things to say, you have a limited time to choose one and interrupt the existing conversation before it moves on. It took me a while to stop feeling like I was constantly missing out on either what would have been said if I hadn't interrupted, or what would have been said if I had. I was surprised by how quickly I got the hang of which-button-selects-which-option, so great job to the devs for making that intuitive. I wish moving around the island felt more efficient, but I guess it's also true that I didn't need to do as much backtracking in the name of thoroughness as I did. I think it'll be less of a concern on replay because I'll just be going from Point A to Point B (at least as much as the game allows).
It was scarier than I was expecting, mainly because I wasn't expecting it to be scary at all. This happened to me back when I read Morning Glories, I went in all "this is going to be a fun Scooby Doo kind of adventure" and then got slapped in the face with legit horror elements. I personally don't think it's scary in a sustained way (nor is it intended to be - elements repeat instead of escalating) but YMMV.
Okay, MILD spoilers - aka I'm getting into more detail but still holding back in case you want to play this yourself: The gist of the game is that you're all on this island to party, but you split up, and supernatural stuff happens and you all get MORE split up, and your objective at first is to find everyone so you can all stick together, before it shifts to finding a way to get everyone off the island. In between all this there are lil two-minute time loops and some is-it-time-travel-or-a-dream visions and some getting possessed by ghosts and some is-it-a-prophetic-vision-of-death-or-a-nightmare visions, plus piecing together the Why of it all via audio recordings and letters.
THROUGH ALMOST ALL OF THIS, IT'S JUST ALEX AND JONAS? There are some segments where you have a larger group, and there's a chunk of the game where you can choose who accompanies Alex, but MOSTLY IT'S JONAS? You start the night as TOTAL strangers but you get to know each other, you share your insecurities and trauma, you encourage each other, you argue and you talk it out, you grow to trust and value each other...listen, like I said above, you get dialogue choices and it's pretty clear that they impact the story but I wasn't clear on how MUCH. And one of the earliest choices you get is when, during a conversation about how Alex's mom met Jonas' dad, Ren asks what you guys are to each other. And I said stepbrother because from context that seemed obvious but then by the last third of the game I was like DID I SCREW MYSELF OVER? IF I HAD SAID "ROOMMATE" WOULD WE BE ABOUT TO GET TOGETHER? But no you don't actually have that level of influence, if I had said "roommate" then someone else would have just been like "???? you mean stepbrother" and everything would still have been the same. BUT THE VIBE IS SUCH THAT FOR A WHILE I WAS LIKE "DID I RUIN THIS?"
Anyway I am mostly talking about the stepbrother angle bc that is what feels the most pressing but it was overall a SUPER interesting story and other than Ren the characters did all really grow on me. No offense to Ren, who was fine, but I just never really bought in. I think I'll try to spend more time with him in a replay just to get a little more invested. But I loved Nona, and I really liked that even though Clarissa's introduced as a bitch they did a good job of being like "well, ultimately yes she's a bitch, but some of us are just bitches, and here are some of the mitigating factors that explain why she is like this with Alex specifically." It was good that she wasn't completely irredeemable but also she wasn't just misunderstood or insecure, they hit a nice middle ground that also tied in nicely with the fact that if you like her, you can try harder to save her, but the story isn't really going to force you to do that. While the story's mostly on rails, you do have enough of a sense that your choices are impacting SOMETHING for it to add some more personal stakes to the question of "is there any way we can all get off this island in one piece?"
END MINOR SPOILERS.
Okay, MAJOR spoilers now, NO HOLDS BARRED.
I didn't get this ending but YOU CAN BRING YOUR DEAD BROTHER MICHAEL BACK TO LIFE VIA THE TIME TRAVEL FLASHBACKS????? (I didn't get it because I thought the good thing to do would be to embrace the fact that he wants to leave town but This Is Literally What Kills Him so...my bad.) This causes a ripple effect where because he never died, your parents never split up, so your mom never remarries, so JONAS ISN'T YOUR STEPBROTHER. But rather than him just disappearing from the action because he never moved to town, HE'S THERE AS JUST YOUR PAL? NO RELATION, STEP OR OTHERWISE. The fact that all this happens and yet you still cannot date him in the game and Alex is like "I won't tell him this but I think of Jonas like a brother"...EVERYONE IS A COWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot BELIEVE there was Tumblr stigma around shipping them when in THE GAME'S IDEAL ENDING, the one in which YOU SAVE YOUR BELOVED OLDER BROTHER FROM DYING, you only ever knew him as your stepbrother for like twelve hours? GET OVER IT, NERDS.
So speaking of Alex remembering: TIME LOOPS, MOTHERFUCKERS. I haven't fully played this out by repeating the game yet but basically, Alex's ending narration ends up transitioning into a pregame narration - "we got off the island and here's how we all ended up, anyway I have to go now, I have to pick up that Jonas kid I've never met so we can go to the island" - and you can then New Game+ to replay the game with Alex having some degree of awareness that she's stuck in a larger loop. My understanding is that the loop is ultimately breakable, but at this point in time I don't know what your sibling roster looks like in that situation. WHICH I KNOW IS AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.
Anyway, time loops are repeatedly featured in the game but they're all really small - it's one stretch of path or one conversation that you keep repeating - so while you're playing, it doesn't feel like Oxenfree is something that belongs in the Time Loop Canon, and honestly, even after I finished I didn't particularly think that, but. BUT. The absolute GALAXY BRAIN application in this fic...hell yes. I'm sitting here thinking "postgame fic should be about how Alex and Jonas get together after the island" like some kind of idiot while AO3 user sarsparillia is like "you know what would fucking hurt? If Alex's loop were long enough that she and Jonas repeatedly became the most important people in each other's lives, only for the loop to inevitably return her to a point where he thinks of her as a complete stranger." GENIUS LEVEL SHIT!!!!!!!! THAT'S ROMANCE, BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!! The game's canonical time loop is much shorter (it's the same night repeating) but I'm much more interested in it now. V EXCITED TO REPLAY!!!!!
ETA 6/23 but I did finish a second playthrough last week and VERY GOOD, VERY WELL DONE keeping the same basic story while reworking elements of it to make it clear that Alex is looping. HOWEVER the sibling configuration is very unclear if you save Michael and then go to the convenience store. I saved him and looped and he was gone because Ren was still referring to Jonas as my new brother? I REJECT IT ACTUALLY! I CAN HAVE IT ALL!