Halloween is actually tomorrow, and if you haven’t arranged your plans yet, I’m here to help you now. If you don’t go out, you’ll probably stay home See a movie or play games. With huge sales going on in every store imaginable right now, now would be a great time to pick up a great horror game or two, I think Oxenfree The game is the perfect one-two punch of the season.
As it happens, Night School Studio’s critically acclaimed narrative games, including the groundbreaking indie Oxenfree Both the 2016 game and its 2023 sequel are currently heavily discounted on Steam. I’ve highlighted some shockingly cheap deals while doing this, but I don’t think I’ve ever found a deal as good as this one: Both Oxenfree and Oxenfree II: Signal lost Through November 4th, you can spend just $3.
Why is this theft? In addition to the low prices on about three Arizona beverages, Oxenfree Games are just some of the most effective minimalist horror in the medium. At their simplest, they are 2D side-scrolling narrative games with branching dialogue options. but Oxenfree Stands out with some exceptionally solid writing, bringing its characters as teenagers and later young adults to life as they dig into ghosts, both real and imagined.
In the first game, a group of teenagers travel to Edwards Island, a tourist trap off the coast of their hometown and a famous “haunted” location. On the night that Alex, her stepbrother Jonas, and other friends set out for the island, they begin to receive strange radio signals and wavelengths that begin to open up what can only be described as a split between worlds. thing. When the angular portals that begin to appear around Edwards Island invite other kinds of creatures into Alex’s reality, the crew is no longer able to discern reality from the machinations of the otherworldly spirits.
I prefer intimate stories that are character driven rather than larger plot machinations. A good character study is one of the most enjoyable things a story can convey, and this is Oxenfree Indeed. While both games are set in hauntings, possessions, historical tragedies, and even cults, they most The story centers on the unraveling of clues and the characters are so damaged that they need ghosts to escape a trauma that is nearly beyond the reach of therapy. Alex and her friends—and Riley and Jacob in the sequel—are hanging on a lot of before their fateful encounters, but they leave those experiences fundamentally changed, and as players who learn to love them, we at least hope that things get better.
However, the often unspoken highlight of these games is their running time. The first game can be completed in about five hours, which means if you just sit on the couch and play until the end tonight, you can go to bed at a perfectly reasonable time. That way you can enjoy the larger, equally ambitious sequel (6-8 hours long) tomorrow on Halloween. Remember when I called this catch a one-two punch? That’s what I mean.
To get a better price, you can pick up two Oxenfree games, the soundtrack to the first game, and even after partyOne of the most underrated Night School books about drinking your way out of hell, it sells for about $3. No matter how you analyze it, this deal is one of a kind.
Even if you don’t particularly enjoy these games during Halloween, fall is a notoriously spooky season. Make the most of your weekend oxfreewhich is what I did when I played my first game! If you’re in need of a low-key, casual spooky time without watching a movie or show, why not give these two games a try? They’re as good as any season of a TV show, they’re relatively easy commitments, they’re both incredibly thoughtful coming-of-age stories set in two completely different stages of life, because we’re always growing, we’re growing up.
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