Oxenfree

Hello gamers!

     This time, I will write my experience playing a game called Oxenfree.

What is this game about?

     Have you heard about Oxenfree? Oxenfree is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Night School Studio. The gameplay involves us -the player- as one of the characters called Alex. The game starts as Alex and her friends went on a trip to an island and supernatural events started to occur. As things unravel in the story, the characters will have conversations and we -as Alex- need to respond to the characters by choosing from the answers. We will be given a short amount of time to choose the respond we want to give and if you don't answer until the time's over, the choices of answers will gradually disappeared. Please keep in mind that different choices will lead to different ending.

How I find Oxenfree

     Just like Subnautica, I knew this game when my brother watched his favorite youtuber played it but I only looked for a second. At that time, I was captivated by its art and gameplay, mostly art at first glance. So, I decided to bought it with Subnautica which I reviewed on the last post (What?! You haven't read that? Check it out!). By that being said, I bought it in 2016 and I played in 2020, this time I mostly played it alone though. Personally, I have never like playing thriller or horror game. Well, lucky me it is not a hardcore horror or horror game in general.

     What I like about this game other than its art is how the characters will still have conversations even though we didn't choose an answer. It really has smooth conversations and when I played in the beginning, I didn't even recognized that the game has start since I tried to focus on the story lol (at that time I didn't have any idea how to play it, I only know that Alex's friends will follow her). With that being said, I missed my chance to answer some of the conversations. Even though the game has some ominous element in it, the conversations between characters make it less scary (which is good for me) and somehow we won't feel like playing alone and surprisingly it relaxes me in some ways. The journey really makes a difference when your character's alone, you will feel the tension in the game increased. One more thing, I like how it involes the radio (which I will talk in control section).

Control and UI

     Oxenfree is a game where you move your character using keyboard's up, left, right, and down button which is commonly used in games and make it easy to control. On some cases, we will need to use Alex's radio to get through the game which I found really interesting. Press shift on the keyboard to hide and hold the radio then we can set the frequencies by clicking and draging the cursor to the right or left depending on the radio stations.

Art and Music

     I love its art and coloring, both characters and backgrounds. The backgrounds make us feel like we are in the game and succeed to give more tensions and mystery to the game. The musics are great and calming in some ways.

Tips

     After finishing one time, here are some tips you might keep:

1. Different choices lead to different endings
2. I personally suggest to enjoy the game without ending goal in mind for first timer, but when you played it for the second time or third time, might as well keep the ending goal in mind
3. If you feel scared while walking along the way, turn on the radio because it has musics to listen on the way

     I would recommend this game to people who like story games because it needs commitment to play the game and getting different endings unless you just want to try otherwise I personally thought that it would be our loss to buy it once (So, play more!). In my opinion, this game is for you who also like mystery and thriller genre but not really into jumpscares and horror.

     That's all my experiences and review about Oxenfree. Have you played the game? What do you think? Comment down below!

🌻 Cinnamoon