Olly olly oxenfree - Halloween special

Hello there, actual people!

Don't be alarmed at my distant, ethereal voice - for I'm the ghost of Janne. It's halloween and... Err, come again? You say you didn't know that it's still halloween? Oh... Poor soul...

In Finland the all hallows' day is the first Saturday after 30th of October, which means you're not imagining those ghosts and goblins lurking in the corner of your eye. They are indeed quite real. They also need appeasing, and while the tradition says that a warm sauna does the trick, I say the real treat is to spend these cold, dark late hours occupying the minds and dark souls of helpless game characters and live through their horrors! Ahem...

There is one story in particular which I enjoy reminiscing as soon as I sense halloween approaching. I would like to forget it so I could play it again and again, year after year. Alas, us ghosts have the memory of an elephant and there is only one Oxenfree. It's an adventure game streaming with interesting small decisions that go on to form the story and your fate in it.


From the outside, looking at the pretty pictures, Oxenfree might look like a slightly comedic adventure told through a tale of youths and all the hustle and drama that youth entails. It is indeed all that, but the real draw is something else entirely. The drama is merely a warm, familiar blanket to put your face against when things go... weirdo.

It all starts with an exciting premise, a group of friends meeting up for a night on a half-abandoned tourist trap of an island near where they grew up. It's a night by the beach, a get-together picnic for kids who seem like the nicest bunch. The kids have their issues, but they all have their reasons, I guess. All of those issues are not light-hearted or easy, but this only makes them feel more approachable, likeable, real - you want to root for them. Just listen to them banter! How this rendezvous slowly turns slightly awkward and uncomfortable is quite tasty, a spine-shivering first step into the cold puddle of unknown.


Once the kids go looking if the ominous caves on the island really do weird things to nearby radio transmissions, the story begins... It's literally as if the Famous Five (i.e. the Enid Blyton characters, not the three writers of this blog, obviously) grew up and apart for a few years and bumped into each other and another adventure! Only this time you don't know what to expect - and that is the beauty of the game.

What I found here was the version of Maniac Mansion that I had always dreamed of, but managed to merely conjure hazy pictures of in my imagination. What I wanted was a group of good friends or at least acquaintances, having good friend-time until an event breaks the idyll, which is when you need to rely on that creaking web of friend-love to overcome or at least escape the distress. Weave in dark undertones somewhere you can't really pinpoint and you'll have a solid head start for my translucent beating heart.

No, don't get me wrong - Oxenfree is nothing like Maniac Mansion, or any other Lucasarts adventure classic. I loved those, and still do, but Oxenfree is all the better for breaking out of those bounds.

The olden-day gems often put you in settings that were simply joyful and packed with mood and mystery - yet the stories were paced with puzzles that really had little to do with the world around it or stretched its internal logic to absurd lengths. For example, I trust you'd know what to do when you're thrown into the sea, strapped to a weight, right?

In Oxenfree you don't have that set of discrete, individual puzzles, but something rather different. Here the puzzle is, quite simply, to get off the island unharmed, and you carry out this quest by making small decisions, one by one, bit by bit, throughout the story. This time, though, you make those decisions more naturally, by deciding where to go first or how you reply to another person's question, or even retroactively build the character's past. The brilliant side-effect of this incremental puzzle solving is that you don't get any immediate feedback on these small actions, you never get the assurance that you picked "the right option". This will keep you on your toes, second-guessing each move, until you learn to to forget the mechanics and just be there and do what your nose tells you to.

And isn't this uncertainty of your direction quite the stuff of fear and insecurity for any youth - or, well, anyone? How odd that it just so happens to feel so right, here. Maybe it was just a coincidence...

One clever trick that Oxenfree uses to first throw you off and then pull you in is the dialog, how you talk with other people. You probably saw that already in the let's play video? Most of the time you'd do well to be pay attention to what's being said, because if someone asks you something, if you sit and wonder your options for too long, the thought bubbles start slowly vanishing until the moment is gone. And then it's really gone - your friends will interpret your silence in their own way. This gives nice weight and volatility to the conversations. Suddenly the world stops revolving round you, and you see yourself as merely a part of the fleeting events. What a magical feeling - I could almost sense what it feels like to be an actual person!

For me the dearest gift from the game was indeed the immersion, the chance to live out an earnest teenage adventure tale. To be there, on that island, as a part of a hodgepodge group of friends, all of a sudden working towards the same goal, is something I'd apparently craved for ages. It's quite something how the game mechanics manage to strengthen the sense of fellowship and being there where traditionally it's been solidly the other way round. This fills me with hope for a healthy future for adventure games across the board - Oxenfree proves that you can meddle with the sacred formula and end up with something equally valuable, yet very, very different.

There's no way round it, I'm over the moon about how good this quaint-but-nontraditional little game is and how strong an affection it has managed to lure me in. It was a happy chance that brought the game into my collection and onto my living room television on one fateful halloween. Play it alone in the dark, with a friend or a few, and it will bring joy to every soul.

So come now, it's just over midnight. You still have ample time to make those wandering pumpkin heads, wraiths, spirits and spectres happy. Come dance with us on the Edwards Island. You won't want to leave...

- The Ghost of Janne