The beauty of Oxenfree was that at its core it is tackling the real problems with narrative design and decision making in games. It comes off the back of RPGs of the era that touted big decision trees and payoffs as a selling point (Mass Effect). Oxenfree says “yup the ending doesn’t matter, it’s the same. Does that change the way you felt about your choices in it?” It creates a closed loop and fills it to the brim with content and mechanically it presents itself as a solution to the problems with branching narratives. That regardless of the actual ending, the journey to that end feels like it was a compelling narrative of choice and consequence. Oxenfree is a great game because it really focuses on what makes a good narrative and directly challenges the player through out the game and subtly asks you constantly if the decisions are yours and if they matter to you. It’s a shame that “Oxenfree 2” isn’t a further development of the mechanical magic that made the first game so great and instead just took the surface layer designs of the first game. I’d have loved to see another development further into videogame narratives from a technical execution level.
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Nice video ❤
🌷
The beauty of Oxenfree was that at its core it is tackling the real problems with narrative design and decision making in games. It comes off the back of RPGs of the era that touted big decision trees and payoffs as a selling point (Mass Effect).
Oxenfree says “yup the ending doesn’t matter, it’s the same. Does that change the way you felt about your choices in it?” It creates a closed loop and fills it to the brim with content and mechanically it presents itself as a solution to the problems with branching narratives. That regardless of the actual ending, the journey to that end feels like it was a compelling narrative of choice and consequence.
Oxenfree is a great game because it really focuses on what makes a good narrative and directly challenges the player through out the game and subtly asks you constantly if the decisions are yours and if they matter to you.
It’s a shame that “Oxenfree 2” isn’t a further development of the mechanical magic that made the first game so great and instead just took the surface layer designs of the first game. I’d have loved to see another development further into videogame narratives from a technical execution level.
Tragic to see that happen to a piece of media, not just video games but books and film too
Good video though