Oxenfree

My Conclusion of the Game is below, if the detailed Text here is too long, and you roughly want to have the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Game listed. Plot Who doesn't know? The school Days are slowly coming to an End and you really want to experience something with your Friends. So you meet for Baptism, Partying and Drug Use on the Beach, become a little too adventurous and accidentally conjure up Hell. Happens to almost everyone, after all. And so does the Protagonist in this Game. However, "Hell" here does not mean the angry Parents who have to pick you up from The Police Station because you threw toilet paper at the school building, but they are actually paranormal, malicious Entities that want more than just one Ruining Beach Party. At Oxenfree, the Plot is at the Heart of the Game. So she has to be exciting enough that you want to stay tuned, and I Think she is. While There are a few Gaps now and then, it's not something that negatively affects the Fun of the Game. Gameplay As far as Gameplay is concerned, Oxenfree is quite simple, but somehow innovative. The most important Tool in the Game is a portable Radio, which allows you to communicate with the aforementioned Entities by setting the right Frequency, or open Radio-controlled Door locks. (You can also listen to classical Music, but that's less important for Moving Forward.) There are no real Puzzles or difficult Passages in the Game, which is why I would rather call it an interactive Film. As I said, The Plot is the Centerpiece. The Dialogue System deserves Particular Praise. Most of the Time, you can choose between three Options. But one should not allow oneself too much Time, because as in real Life, the other Participants do not wait forever for an Answer, but take the Conversation forward themselves. The Dialogue Options you choose affect the End of the Game, greatly increasing the Replay value. Atmosphere In front of seemingly hand-drawn backgrounds, Oxenfree presents itself in chic and above all authentic Look, into which the 3D models of the Characters fit well. The Soundtrack of the Game is passable. He is clearly attributable to the Game, but nothing extraordinary. Through the Dialogue System, the Characters "Conversations seem particularly natural, which greatly contributes to Immersion. But gentlemen, the Characters are all real Cross Bubbles, who like to talk messed up, which makes it difficult to follow the Course Of conversation every now and then. For this, the Quality of The Synchronization has been absolutely successful. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient Horror sentiment or sense of Threat for being supposed to Be a horror Game. So If you really want to gruse yourself, you're wrong here. Other Even if the Characters are Teenagers, the Teen Drama is very limited, so that even Adults can enjoy the Game without rolling their Eyes ... And by the way, they can feel a bit young again. Verdict/TL; DR Oxenfree is no Match for the general Public. If you're looking for Thrills and tricky Puzzles, you'd better make a Bow around the Game. But If you want to experience an interesting Story, which is told in an authentic Atmosphere and wants to feel that your Friends are there, I can recommend Oxenfree.

As a part of my 12 in 12 project, I completed Oxenfree. (You can follow my progress here → https://rawg.io/collections/my-12-in-12-project)

*The gameplay*

It's an adventure game which basically has two gameplay actions.
1. The dialog system. It's quite innovative. There are three options (usually) to choose from and the main gimmick is that the system is kind of dynamic which means that sometimes you can just keep silent and the NPCs will take “nothing” as the answer. At some points you can interrupt other people as well. The voice acting is done very well and the dialog system has several voice tracks which are triggered depending on which dialog option and when you choose. This system has its downside too, since you sometimes can't even read and understand what your character is going to say and you mash he button at the last second. So the timing is weird sometimes. The other problem I had is that I misunderstood some dialog options. I wanted the character to say something nicely but it turned out to be sarcastic or a bit mean.
2. The radio. It could be done better. You just go around and listen to scrapes of info trying to collect the full story. It could be used so much more but that's just it. At some point, even one of the “enemies” makes a joke about you how you go poking everything with your radio like with a stick without even understanding how it works. That probably shows how poor this thing is used from the game-design perspective, although obviously this wasn't intended as a self-referential joke.

*The story*
The story is good, the characters are well-written. Although I had two problems with it, and that is why the overall rating for the game dropped from “Recommended” to “Meh” for me. 

The first problem doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the game. The thing is, I read a lot of Lovecraft some years ago. And as a teenager I also read a lot of teenager horror fiction. And since the game balances just between these two I wasn't surprised at all, nor was I scared or drawn in the story in some other way. 

[spoilers ahead, scroll past the second screenshot to avoid those]
The second problem is how the narrative is constructed. First off, choices don't make much difference in the short run. There was a moment when ghosts made me run around the house searching for things. So I failed the first riddle and I decided to fail the next riddles too, just to see what would happen next. The result? Well, I had to fix three tape recorders after my three friends disappeared. I guess I would have had to fix one if I'd failed just the first riddle or none at all (if I had had just a bit more time to go around the house to find the right item). So you can't really lose here. There are more cases like this one.

Besides if you want to get the true good ending and break the loop you have to replay the game one more time and choose a specific dialog option and at the end of the game you'll have the option not to go to the island before the loop even starts and that's it. Happy ending. Sounds boring and it is boring. There's not much content and variety to replay the whole thing again.

[end of spoilers]
*The presentation*
The best part of the game. The art-style is unique, I made around 20 great screenshots (which I added to the game page here). The music adds to the atmosphere and works to present the locations perfectly. The voice acting is very solid, although I already mentioned it. 

*The summary*
The game disappointed me in the end, that is true. However, if you enjoy mysticism and adventures and you haven't read a lot of good books with the same style and theme, I recommend you to give it a try. It's very short (around 3 hours for a playthrough, at least what Steam reads, I felt that it was more like 5 hours) and you might love it.

I am still glad that I played it and knocked it off my backlog. Although I am making a note for my future self not to play the games which I know what to expect from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Game Specific stats:
Playtime to completion: 3H
Ending: 3/5
Gimmick: 3/5
Difficulty: 1/5
How scary is this: 2/5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okey, before we start going over the list of positives and negatives, it needs to be made clear that I feel like most issues I will discuss are technical in nature, and I would not know a better way to solve them either. Also, I like the game for what it is, I just do not think it is good enough for a recommended tag.

If this game appeals to you, do give it a try. It is worth it!

Normally, I would put bullet points on positives and negatives, but Oxenfree is a game that takes one gimmick and uses it all the way. This means I would only have one or two positives and a row of complains. Instead, I will go over it using "more text" ;)

Talking in Oxenfree:
This is the main gimmick of the game. You will get information from other characters by talking to them and giving different responses. This means that Oxenfree is very replayable, as with each replay you can give different answers and get completely different responses!
When talking to the NPC's I often felt that we actually had a discussion, and while the characters in the story are extremely one dimensional, I still managed to get attached to at least one character. (More on that in a bit).

Talking also had a few downsides;
Sometimes, I had issues with executing the following steps fast enough:
1) Read all possible answers
2) Imagine what my character is actually going to say when I click that button
3) I'm too late, now I have said "Nothing" instead. (The npc's actually consider this an answer as well)

Additionally, it was unclear if my response would be executed right away or at the end of their sentence, leading to many unintended interruptions of my character. I would have personally preferred if the system would wait a moment and then include my response.

The radio:
Cool gimmick, but really under-used. You use it near info area's to get information about the island, and near the "bad guy" area's. This is not enough, and often I felt as if I should have kept the radio out at all times to find hidden gems. This proved to be useless.

Small nitpicks:
Before I enter spoiler territory, I wanted to put down some nitpicks that might turn you away from this game.
A) Walking is a pain in this game. Aaaand, its a walking sim. You can get stuck in terrain, its hard to properly direct where you want to go. Moving up and down had me hit the edge of the collision box more often than not.
B) There are trails in this game that I failed even though I knew the answer because my character was not fast enough to walk to the correct place to stand.
 - yes, you heard that right. You can fail this game's trivia just because your movement speed is so darn low.
C) Its almost impossible to make your characters stop talking, and this is AWESOME. If any of the devs read this, this is super cool! But... when there are long dialogue trees I often accidentally interrupted the NPC's, left the area (which cancels the npc's dialog) or stood near an interactive space with my radio (both will then talk at the same time.. great)

Now, the last part that is really important in Oxenfree is the story.
If you have read the above parts and think to yourself; "Well, that's okey, as long as the story is compelling". Then, I would highly advise you to run away now and come back to the next part of the review once you have completed the game.

Alright, everyone gone? Good!
Overall, the story is well written and entertaining. It offers multiple paths and in the end you get a nice list of "choices you have made compared to other players". There is also some cool gaming meta stuff going on!

The problem I ran into however, is that there is this moment were the bad guys ask me; "Can we just kill one of your friends, and then leave the rest of you? You dont like her anyway!"
And to be fair; I didnt like her. I did not like her at all! She managed to be annoying to me the whole game up to this point. So I just said yes and won the game.

Now, its cool that I have an option like that. But the problem is that the game then gives me another option near the end and "safe everyone". No consequences at all. Just "Hey, wanna get everyone free?".
So I did. I got everyone to escape. This made me feel pretty bad. I really wanted the game to just stick to the consequences presented earlier in the story.
Additionally, the story in Oxenfree is quite vague. This certainly did not help me enjoy the ending.

Overall, I would recommend Oxenfree to anyone interested in just engaging with the story. Its not fantastic or mind blowing, but it certainly is entertaining enough.

Also, I really liked Nona. I took her with me and dished all the boys. Take that crappy punks! ;)