RF Generation Message Board

We have decided to start the new year off with a dark, mystery adventure title. Night School Studios' debut title, the haunting, 2-D adventure OXENFREE from 2016, is available on many platforms including: Steam, GOG, Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and a Limited Run Games physical edition for the Playstation 4, which is still reasonably priced on the second-hand market (No, really! Ask singlebanana.). Join us in January as we venture to uncover the mysteries of Edwards Island in this stylish, indie gem.

CHECKPOINTS:
OXENFREE is a rather short game that can be hard to put down once it gets going. Rather than checkpointing the game, we're going to say there is one checkpoint as far as spoiler discussion is concerned, and that is we expect everyone to have finished the game by Saturday, Jan 13th. After that we can discuss the plot fully and also it will give participants the final two weeks of the month to replay the game if they wish.

PARTICIPANTS:
GrayGhost81
singlebanana
Addicted
douglie007
bickman2k
Buried_on_Mars
Wempster
russlyman

This is another one that I've played. When it first came out and again just a couple months ago. I'll definitely join the discussion.

Nice Pam!  Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it. Really excited about playing this title after watching a trailer.

Oxenfree is currently free on GOG!!!!  This deal only lasts for a few days.

I might as well try playing this since it was free. I started playing Nioh and Lumo and it's been hard to play anything else.

I will be playing... if you needed to ask

Awesome! Time to get started. 😁

Too late to join in? I got the GOG deal and want to give the game a shot.

It's never too late to join in! :)

I just played this in October so not to Keen to play again unfortunately.

Checkpoints are up, in a manner of speaking.

The game is very short, so enjoy it on your own time and make sure to be finished by Saturday the 13th so we can all discuss the entire game with all spoilers on the table after that day.

Until then, as usual, anything else is encouraged in regards to discussion.

If you have started, what do you think of the speech bubble discussion mechanics, the characters of the game, the art style, the music, etc etc?

Finished the game this past Friday in one sitting. It's the first time I've done that in quite a while (I think since college...about 20 years ago). Like Shawn said, we have set a deadline for finishing the game and discussing spoilers until after the 13th. We are hoping that participants will want to play through the game a second time, since the game is short and there are alternate endings available.

My thoughts on the games mechanics:  I like the speech bubbles and how each character is attributed a specific color bubble.  I think this definitely makes it easier to track who is saying what and I wish that more games would implement this technique.  With that said, I think that the voice acting is very good and distinctive enough (great inflection that defines each character) that the colored bubbles really aren't even needed, though I still think it's nice; this is more of a tribute to how strong the voice acting is.  Speaking of characters, I think that they are well done. I like that each of them has a different personality. And even though one character is a total "beeeyatch," it's really done well and suits the story.  It's really, REALLY hard to be nice to a certain character, even for me (the gamer who always tries to be the nice guy). I couldn't hold it in and at times, I fought back. I think this says a lot about the strength of the dialogue and story.

As far as the QTE speech selection is concerned, I do have some issues.  One is that choosing to speak sometimes interrupts and cuts off what some of the other characters are saying.  I know it's more natural, but it really makes me feel like I might be missing some important parts of the story.  To go along with that, the QTEs are a bit too quick.  You have to be a fairly fast reader, or you can easily miss an opportunity to respond.  I consider myself a very fast reader and found it hard sometimes to read three dialogue choices (some of which were similar), process them mentally, and then select one. I think that's a shame that this hurriedness can sometimes forcefully limit gamer autonomy.

Overall, I like the characters in the game. Unlike many games, I don't feel like the majority of them are stereotypes.  Sure, they might remind you of people you went to high school with at times, but I never really hard labeled any of them like I did in say Until Dawn.

I think the art style in this game is really neat. I love the had drawn landscapes (simply incredible) and the map is a great size. Not overbearing and lends itself to more easily and rather quickly track down achievements toward the end of the game (be sure to do so before

Spoiler (hover to show)

entering the shelter

...**not really a spoiler, but hiding it just in case**).  My only art issue might be with the character sprites. I feel like they could be more detailed, but this gripe is minor. Also not a big fan of the cartoony art style of the characters as better seen in the "photos, " but that's more of a personal preference.

Music is good and "appropriate" (there's our damn word again Shawn). I need to go back and really focus on it to comment accurately. The story is so intriguing that I was more laser focused and concerned with that on my last playthrough.

I also want to add something to the discussion here regarding the genre of the game.  I find it hard to use the word "horror" when describing this game, but it is pretty intense at times and sometimes I was worried that things might jump out at me.  There are a few scenes where the voices get intense and......I really don't want to say any more right now.  However, I would probably call this more of a sci-fi/thriller if I had to label it.  Fans of these types of films should definitely check this game out.

Enjoy!  Looking forward to hearing some more thoughts.

Wow, Rich pretty much said it all.

I played through the game on Sunday and fully agree with the QTE's and cutting off the NPC's speech.  The game is so well written, it must have been a hard decision for the devs to go that route.  I started playing with the keyboard but quickly switched to a controller when I noticed the dialogue boxes were colour coded for an Xbox controller. That help bring the anxiety down from fear of picking the wrong one.

Other than that, the rest I have to say is kind of spoiler-ish, so I'll save it for after the 13th.  I really enjoyed the atmosphere and story.  It felt like I was playing through an episode of the Twilight Zone. I got the game free through GOG too and although it is short, I would have been fine with spending $5-$10 on it.

I also finished the game tonight, I thought the game was ok,  but it was more interesting to read about the hidden phone number in the game that the designer had some real life game.

Please remember that starting tomorrow, all talk may have spoilers. :D

I’ll see about getting this on my Switch


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I thought I had put myself on for playing this month, but I must have forgot.  Anyways I just finished Oxenfree. Looking forward to the discussions.

Hi Playcast and RFGen in general -

I just started Oxenfree last night (got to the radio tower) and expect I'll finish it at some point this week (I'll keep myself away from spoilers until then).  
Glad to see you selected this one - got it with Games with Gold a while back (as I'm sure a few others did, too) and I've been looking for a good, short game to go between bigger RPGs.

Hey Musty!  Welcome to the site and thank you for joining us this month. Excited to hear your thoughts on the game.

I finished it up last night, and really enjoyed it.  Glad Microsoft made it a GWG and I'm glad you guys chose it for a playthrough. 

Love the vibe - wish I would have tried to be a little nicer to everyone, but at least a new connection was made. 

I tend to like the games that compare your choices against the audience.  I didn't see a ton of discussion yet on those choices, but if there are others who start sharing theirs, I'll do the same. 

Yes! Please start us off Musty. We are beyond the date to be concerned with spoilers.

Here's how things landed in the end:
Ren and Nona = now a couple
Clarissa = absolutely hates me
Jacob = kept my distance, but we're on good terms.

I'm happy that R&N got together - even if only on a temporary basis.  Clarissa was brutal to me from the start, but I wasn't overly crude to her, so I'm surprised it led to her outright hating me.  Jacob was a little more nuanced - I didn't feel like I was pushing him away, but at least we're on good terms as step-siblings.

Also - I ended up getting advice from Pam and Major Nelson at 2 of the "mirrors" (I missed who the first one was).

I went to Ren first, then Clarissa - did anyone go in the opposite order?  Curious what happened as a result.

Not sure who this Jacob fella is, but don't worry, Rich called him Jona on the show. Agree that the Ren and Nona relationship was cute, they even nailed the feeling of new couple annoyingness when they're broadcasting on the PA together.

It's really hard on your first playthrough to be nice to Clarissa. On the second playthrough I felt more empathy for all of the characters and role-played Alex as ultra-polite to everyone.

There's gotta be some dialogue differences, but I went to Ren the first time and Clarissa the second time and there are no major plot differences. 

Yeah, my bad - it's Jonah.  Rookie mistake.  :facepalm:

Did anyone sell out Clarissa to the aliens?

Hey guys, so happy to have played this game the same month as you all. I played on the Switch and picked it up when it was on sale for $5. I had a lot of fun playing this game.

Wempster, I was very tempted to sell out Clarissa, but alas, I was worried I'd get a unsatisfying ending so I went all in on saving everyone.

Was anyone else confused that while most gamers easily refer to the antagonists as aliens, the characters themselves repeatedly use the term ghost?

One other question I had was the significance of the pop up box that would have the head of a character while someone was talking. Was that to signify a bonding moment between who was talking and who the character was that was depicted in the box? Did I miss something?

HD rumble made the radio tuning pretty intense on my Switch. Was I the only one who chose to bring Ren with me from the comm tower to look for Marie Adler's boat keys? I know he had just confessed to being high of pot brownies, but I'd had enough of being with Jona up until that point and wanted to have a different companion. Man, was Jona a whiny dweeb afterward.

Thanks for playing alatinolawyer!  We actually recorded our podcast for the game this past Sunday, so unfortunately you won't get a mention.... :(

So yeah, to follow with Musty's question regarding choices, mine were as follows:
1. Ren & Nona - together
2. Clarissa - boy, I tried to be nice....but alas
3. Jonas - I was really nice to him, but didn't take him with me when venturing from the tower meet-up. So I ended on good terms with him, but we didn't get tight.

Seems like I probably had the same ending as Musty.

I went to Clarissa instead or Ren first.  At the time I was trying to be nice and foster that relationship and Ren had kind of annoyed me with the drug use, so I felt much less sympathy for him. 


Yeah, I have no idea about the faces coming up on the speech bubble and was wondering the same thing. In some games, someone's portrait coming up means that your relationship is either improving or degrading, typically depending on whether the expression is happy or sad.  The face icon in this game is always happy and I made some speech choices that I wouldn't necessarily consider relationship improving and saw it pop up.  Who knows?  Maybe it was just there to give some direction as far as who you were speaking with or to give those dull bubbles a little flavor.

Something that I neglected to mention in the podcast is how I like that the speech bubbles for each character are color coded. Not that I ever had an trouble telling who was speaking, since the voice acting was so good, but it was a neat feature that I think many games could implement to make them better.

And yes, the rumble feature for the radio was great.  I played the Limited Run Games version on my PS4 and it also included this feature.


Ha ha!  Funny enough, we almost named our third kid Jonas, but one of our fears was that people would call him Jonah.  So yeah, maybe this validates our decision.

For my latest playthrough...
1. Ren & Nona - not together, no matter how hard I tried
2. Clarissa - I was awful right back to her. But I didn't give her to the ghosts, even though I really wanted to.
3. Jonas - I was always nice to Jonas and generally brought him with me. When him and Ren fought I'd generally tell them both to chill out rather than side with one of them

I read that with certain decisions you could get your brother back - did anyone manage that?

People keep talking about seeing people from their friends like in their games. I didn't see this in my original playthrough on PC or my recent one on XBox. I'm trying to figure out if that's a function of my bad memory, or if I was just the first on my friends like to play it on either platform? I could have sworn I just saw another Jasyla talking to me.

I did not get Michael back, but we do discuss how you can accomplish this on the show. :)

Never heard that about seeing people from your friend's list, but that is just weird enough for this game that it might be true...

I managed to "record that" when it did, so I'll post a screengrab when I get a chance.

Hey everybody! I just finished this game, sorry I'm a little later than everybody else! Played on the Switch, grabbed it when it was on sale. Played 100% handheld so my only gripe is how tiny the characters were on that screen.  There touch screen controls too with the Switch.

I feel special because I finished with the brother on the boat with us! Don't know how I managed that.  He and Clarrisa were a couple and she is even friends with me! As well she should since I didn't sell her out! Ren and Nona are not together, and I'm on good terms with Jonus.  I kinda thought his Mother would come back too in the end, but I guess not.

What's up Bill?!  Thanks for playing along with us this month! To save Michael, you simply need to ask him to stay in town during the flashback scenes.

I agree, the tiny characters are a bit off putting and even playing it on the big screen, it was tough to really make them out. I think their focus was primarily on the environments. We actually discuss this a bit in the podcast, which should be out in early February.