#Oxenfree tumblr portable#

While this means you can potentially find more secrets in previous areas, accessing them is more chore than pleasurable journey, and when you aren’t pushing the narrative forward the mute characters can be awkward.

#Oxenfree tumblr portable#

A little after you reach the turning point of the game, you are given a new portable radio with access to higher and lower frequencies than previously. It is not that they took off in the opposite direction, but diagonal paths never quite matched the necessary analog stick angle. This is also not helped by the ascension and descension paths, and my character generally avoiding the path I intended when traveling anywhere but sideways.

While the map is smaller than expected, with less than 20 explorable areas, it still takes quite some time to get from one end of a section to the next. Characters walk the entire island, save for some teleportation tricks done for story purposes. Of course this isn’t a stereotypical horror game, though, it’s more like a great teen adventure with a thriller backdrop.Ī more rote aspect of the game is traversal. It also adds a sense of guilt, seeing as you are the progenitor when you took that radio out in the cave early on. You are aware, for a majority of the game, of a force beyond your control or understanding that could easily erase your existence. One of the best things Oxenfree does is instill a sense of dread. Confusingly, characters will also create an image of someone they are thinking about, but this is done both when that person is offensive, or affectionate, robbing the icon of any significance beyond letting you know that person has you, or someone else, on the mind. While some give the appearance of altering relationship status or create a branching story, the major beats are the same and only at key moments are you given the ability to shape the character’s conclusion. From that point, a majority of the game is made up of dialogue options, traversal, and fumbling with a portable radio that allows you at any time to tune into a variety of public domain audio broadcasts and infrequently into supernatural frequencies that can alter reality.ĭuring conversations with other characters you will frequently be tasked with choosing a response or statement, though more often than not these decisions don’t really matter.

After Ren introduces the rumor of a cave granting access to non-existent radio waves with,you begin to engage with them and are thrust into a mystery surrounding a tragedy that occurred far in the past. The destination is Edward’s Island, where two other friends, Clarissa and Nona, await with alcohol and merriness on the beach.

Oxenfree does all of that, and while it has its problems with traversal and technical problems that kept booting me out of the game, I still really enjoyed this adventure game that accurately captures teen angst without relying on popular tumblr posts.Īboard a vessel at sea, you begin as Alex with her best friend Ren and new step-brother Jonas mid-conversation. Edits by: a video game to forgo corny teen dialogue and deliver on a thriller story of ghostly apparitions and side step the perils of complex adventure game puzzles is a feat in and of itself.