Developer: Night School Studio
Rrp: £7.19 (Humblebundle, Steam and Epic) £7.49 (Gog.com)
Oxenfree is a game that truly deserves a full review however that’s not something I can do without revealing rather major plot-hooks and mechanics that should remain a surprise, therefore this game is receiving the ‘Blast Review’ treatment instead.
This game… its impressive, not from a graphical standpoint as the graphics while gorgeous aren’t exactly complex. No, in this particular instance what makes this so impressive is the dialogue system more than anything.
I know it’s a rather strange thing to hone in on but dialogue systems are one of those things that when they are implemented well most people won’t notice them but if done bad can break a game. In this instance I liked the way that while in conversation each person that would speak (out of the cast of six characters) had a voice bubble that would appear that was colour coded to them. On top of that when you had the opportunity to respond you almost always had three responses to give, all shown as a speech bubble, these gave you a clear hint as to what would be the response. What made it even better was that these bubbles would start to fade, the speed of which depending on the situation, which allowed you to pick on more lines of conversation before making a firm decision or even just let them fade out and not respond at all, which on some occasions (both in life and video games) is the best thing to do.
The whole story revolves around a mystery, the game is somewhat framed as a horror and I truly can see the horror elements there but well… you’d have to be very, very, very sensitive to be actually scared by anything in this game. I’d say this is more of a thriller than a horror.
The whole game lasts approximately five or six hours, however there are multiple endings each of which is different enough to warrant another run through. Plus its a pretty great story.
