A Few Thoughts on Oxenfree

It's October, so I decided to take this opportunity to catch up on a few scary games I've been planning to play. These articles won't be full blown reviews - more like rants, really.

We discussed SOMA earlier, so now I'd like to talk a bit about Oxenfree. Because my overall impression is basically completely positive, I don't have that much to say, but let's see if I can get my thoughts out.

Oxenfree is a game about a few teenagers who visit an island they're really not supposed to be after dark. The protagonist is a girl called Alex. By tuning into radio signals, Alex and her friends end up encountering supernatural phenomena that I don't want to elaborate on in case you're planning to play the game.

The developers wanted to make a 'walking and talking' game, and in that regard, they succeeded. The sheer amount of dialogue options is baffling, and the voice acting is stellar across the board. Most of the plot progression and consequences don't depend on binary choice, either, but an accumulation of how you treat certain people. It also has good music and gorgeous visuals.

That's really about all I have to say about the game's quality. If you're into narrative games, give it a go. The reason I personally felt it necessary to write an article about it does get into spoiler territory, so...

SPOILERS START HERE 

I don't usually "like" my own articles, but if I had to pick a favorite in terms of theme, I really enjoyed writing the one about "meta narrative" after experiencing Doki Doki Literature Club. The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I would've included Oxenfree in that article if I had played it at that point. You see, at three key points in the story, a mirror image of the main character speaks to you and chooses one of three dialogue options outside your control. This mirror image will have the name of a person from your Steam friendlist above its head and the reason becomes apparent at the very end. You yourself become the mirror image in those scenes and offer advice to a friend who will play the game in the future. The mirror image will actually pick the dialogue option that the person in your friend list picked, so their playthrough "echoes" into yours.

I think it's genuinely brilliant that the game doesn't just break the fourth wall, it also involves the choices other players made in your playthrough. And then you get to make those choices, which will consequently impact another player's playthrough in the future.

So, that's all I had to say. I'm not sure if I'll get to finish another scary game this month, but we'll see. If I don't write anything else, happy Halloween!