Three of them (The Cat Lady, Until Dawn, and Oxenfree) have promised branching paths or at least different potential endings. This past week I’ve recommended a handful of narrative-driven adventure games. Thankfully the four- to six-hour length of the story isn’t prohibitive, and when you replay Oxenfree, it puts you in a sort of new games plus mode that allows you to find all the mystery clues you missed the first time, with the game also helpfully giving you hints on dialogue choices you made in previous plays so that you can choose alternate paths. I knew right then I’d be playing the game again. It felt like there was such urgency to complete tasks in the game that first time that I didn’t want to dawdle on a collectible hunt. My first time through, I didn’t discover the collectibles that help piece together the finer points of the odd happenings on the island until I was more than halfway through. Oxenfree is that rarest of adventure games, one that begs you to play it through multiple times. The story folds in ghostly presences that show up at odd times, spooky radio stations that can only be tuned in at certain places on the island, and a story that involves a terrible accident and lost history. You play this game as Alex, one of five friends spending an overnight on a lark on a touristy island that’s essentially abandoned after dark. ![]() I actually had to play the game through twice to fully wrap my head around the events that transpire here. Those are all reasons enough to play this wonderful game, but since it’s October, I’m going to mostly focus on the spooky story that Oxenfree spins. Tom gave Oxenfree a glowing review over the summer, and in it he focused mostly on its unique dialogue system and how that drives choices you make as a player, develops the characters, and moves the story along. This is one of those game recommendations you may need to take on faith. The art style and animation are often quite lovely, in fact. When you see screenshots of it, your first impression is likely to be that the game either looks like a platformer, or even worse a ridiculously cartoonish pixel game. Oxenfree, the dialogue-driven adventure game from Night School Studio, seems like a hard sell. This month’s Friday recommendations are determined shoves in your direction. But that’s not what’s going to happen on Fridays. They’re things we feel deserve a little nudge in your direction, for whatever reason. ![]() Our Make October Scare Again recommendations aren’t just the best or our favorites. Tom Chick and Chris Hornbostel, October 7, 2016
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |