Oxenfree's a short game, but there's a lot going on under its surface.
Available today on PC and Xbox One, and published in partnership with Robert Kirkman's shop Skybound, Oxenfree is the debut project of Night School Studio, founded by two cousins with experience making games at Disney and Telltale. Its unique approach to game storytelling is apparent from its first moments, as we watch a group of teenagers chatter while riding a ferry to a nearby island. The lines of dialogue, precisely and wittily written and delivered, come fast and furious. It sounds like a natural, vibrant conversation, and it moves fast.
It didn't take long before I found myself quite invested in these characters, interested in the dynamics that quickly popped up between them---and being asked to make some on-the-fly decisions about what Alex, the protagonist, should say or do. Various speech bubbles pop up around her head, and you can select an option (or not) if you want to interject an opinion. Interrupt someone, and they might come back later to what they'd been talking about, in a way that sometimes sounds almost too natural to have been pulled up on the fly by a computer program.
