Ben and Tao ride the ferry to forever and back again, and again, in time-twisting, ghost story campfire-and-click, Oxenfree. The duo revisit teen angst, past selves and old features - etymology disco anyone (no, sadly, it’s not a thing), introduce new characters - who is Henri’s gran anyway?, coin new terms - (‘wadsy’, you heard it here first), and hopefully flesh out what makes an indie adventure game win friends or alienate people.

Spoilers from early on but with extensive discussion about them beforehand.
 
Content Warning: PEGI 12, bad impressions, casual anti-Americanisms, and some swearing.
 
Clarifications:

• Oxenfree soundtrack is by American music composer and sound designer Andrew Rohrmann, known under his alias scntfc


• "Olly olly oxen free" is a catchphrase or truce term used in children's games such as hide and seek, capture the flag, and kick the can to indicate that players who are hiding can come out into the open without losing the game


• According to GoodReads, Mark Twain’s full quote is: “When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.”

Audio extracts:

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)


• Skyfall - Adele


• Halo 5 - ‘Reunion’


• Kentucky Route Zero - ‘The world is not my home’


• The Usual Suspects (1995)


• The Simpsons


• Inside OST by By Martin Stig Andersen & SØS Gunver Ryberg


• Theme to No Code's Observation composed by Nine Inch Nail's Robin Finck


• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia


• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)


• Man in the Mirror - Michael Jackson


• The West Wing


• Alan Partidge


• Arrested Development S04


• Syd Matters - To All Of You from Life is Strange OST


• Gone Home OST by Chris Remo


• Comedian Pablo Francisco


• Extras feat. Stephen Merchant and Barry (from Eastenders) played by Shaun Williamson

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