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.
( mild spoilers and why i want alex to date her stepbrother )
( major spoilers and why alex SHOULD date her stepbrother )
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.
( mild spoilers and why i want alex to date her stepbrother )
( major spoilers and why alex SHOULD date her stepbrother )
