I Hate It When This Happens.

[rionaleonhart]

Played another hour or two of Oxenfree! I've just opened the gate to Adler's house.

I keep thinking about the dialogue choices in this game. When I play, Alex is a peacemaker. She worries about people and tries to see things from their point of view, even if she doesn't necessarily like them. She tries to get along with everyone, although she doesn't always succeed. She's inquisitive; she's interested in history; she can get excited about little things. She makes jokes to deflect serious conversations. She avoids talking about Michael if she can. She feels like such a complete, established character to me, and it's strange to think back on dialogue choices I turned down and realise I could have been playing her as apathetic and hostile the entire time.

The game's excellent voice acting helps. Whatever responses I choose for her seem to flow so naturally that it's hard to imagine she could have said anything else.

I'm also interested in 'Scrödinger's backstory' moments. Several hours into the game, Jonas asked whether I was religious. I said no. Up until that point, Alex's beliefs could have been anything, but the moment I picked 'no' she'd been an atheist all along. My Alex is a non-smoker because of a bad experience the last time she tried smoking. That's something that happened in the past, but it didn't become true until I declined Jonas's offer of a light. My decision in the present altered Alex's past.

Videogames are weird.

Another aspect of Oxenfree that's been playing on my mind is the moment where your reflection gives you advice for a later point in the game. Because it's not just the game giving you advice; it's an actual person. A PSN username shows up alongside your reflection. You see the dialogue options - 'do A', 'do B' - that the reflection is choosing from. The game makes it as clear as possible that the person giving you advice is a real person who's also playing this game, and that they're choosing to say what they do.

It's such an effective way of inducing paranoia. If my reflection had just given me advice, without the indication that there's a real person behind it, I'd have gone 'well, I suppose I'll take its advice!' But introducing a real person changes things. I don't know this person! Can I trust this person? Is this a helpful person trying to give me good advice, or is it a troll trying to lead me into disaster for their own amusement?

The possibilities I can think of:

- The other player knows that A is the right thing to do, and in saying 'do A' they're trying to help me. I should do A!
- The other player knows that A is a bad idea, and in saying 'do A' they're trying to screw up my playthrough. I shouldn't do A.
- The other player did B on their own playthrough, and something bad happened. They don't know whether A is good or bad, but they know that B is bad, so they're trying to give the best advice they can with limited knowledge. I should probably do A.
- The important question isn't whether I do A or B; it's whether I take the reflection's advice. The moment the reflection said 'do A', A became either the right or the wrong decision. The other player could be trying to give me good advice, but giving good advice isn't necessarily possible. I... either should or shouldn't do A, but I suspect I probably shouldn't.

I'm so fascinated by this game!

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

My Alex is a non-smoker because of a bad experience the last time she tried smoking. That's something that happened in the past, but it didn't become true until I declined Jonas's offer of a light. My decision in the present altered Alex's past.

Ooh, I like that! And I want some kind of narrative where the character becomes increasingly aware that they're a former blank slate who is becoming increasingly more specific because of someone else's decision, and freaking out about it. And not like "They keep making decisions that make you feel like you have specific memories", but "They keep rewriting reality so things that they decide retroactively always have happened." Especially if the character's reality is being rewritten not by a malevolent figure, but by a person who's been accidentally handed the power somehow and initially doesn't realize it, but discovers and also freaks out, but doesn't have a consequence-free "stop deciding things" option. (There would be a scary, possibly-malevolent entity in there somewhere.)

That's fascinatingly complicated about the reflection!

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, that's a fascinating concept for a story! Although, as this entry demonstrates, I'm endlessly intrigued by the narrative implications of videogame mechanics, so I suppose I'm biased. (I find The Sims strangely terrifying. You have so much control over these people's lives! These... fictional people made of pixels.)

[wolfy_writing]

It is interesting, because games encourage people to make choices involving tremendous power over others and sometimes ignoring real-world moral standards in favor of what gets more points, better equipment, or whatever is simply more interesting. Giving the character real existence would make for a tremendously complicated problem. (You ever see the movie Ruby Sparks? Guy does a writing exercise where he creates a fantasy girlfriend, and ends up actually creating a fantasy girlfriend. The rest of the story involves the implications of having a person around who you know you created and can control any way you want, just by writing it.)

[selenicdistance]

Oh, cool. That kind of engagement from other players is always fun, in mostly single-player games. My favorite example is probably Journey, where an anonymous fellow player gets matched with you, and, if you're on your first playthrough, generally ends up playing the role of a helpful guide, leading you through the relatively short game as best they can, given that there's no means of text or audio communication.

On the other hand, there's games like Dark Souls. So, y'know. You might be right to be paranoid!

[rionaleonhart]

To be honest, I never played Journey because I was scared I'd let down my mystery fellow player, so I was startled and alarmed to realise that this game had a form of player interaction and that I'd presumably be in the role of advice-giver later on. What if I accidentally give a stranger bad advice? I can't take this level of responsibility in my videogames!

[selenicdistance]

I figure it's better to give bad advice with good intentions than to give it because you're a mean jackass. At least you'll have tried, right?

[magistrate]

I am so glad you're experiencing Oxenfree! I haven't played it, but I have been entirely captivated by playthroughs. And I can't wait to see your reaction to other things coming up.

If you can, I also highly recommend going back and playing again and making different choices, and just... seeing how things turn out.

Also, that's a really good picking-apart of the reflection mechanic, which I hadn't thought that deeply about as a viewer. I'm kinda envious of your first-person experience, now...

[rionaleonhart]

It's so interesting! Thank you for letting me know it was something I might enjoy. I'm both looking forward to and nervous about playing more.

Spoilers for Oxenfree

[rionaleonhart]

Finished the game! You're the only person on my flist who's actually experienced the game and could read anything I put behind a spoiler cut, so I'm just going to reply to your comment for now, rather than making an entry.

After all that time wondering whether I could trust the reflections, I ended up at the point where I could give my own advice and went '...well, I actually don't have enough information by now to know whether I'm giving good advice at all? Er, EVERYONE JUST DO WHAT YOU THINK IS RIGHT AND DON'T PUSH PEOPLE TO MAKE SPECIFIC DECISIONS.' It's a weird time to have to give advice! At that point, if you've let Jonas 'talk to his mother', it seems like it was a terrible idea - he's disappeared! - but after you give your advice it turns out to be fine. And one of the things you're giving advice on (whether to tell Michael to stay or go) hasn't even happened yet!

I told Michael to go, because that was what my reflection told me to do. Afterwards, I watched someone who'd told him to stay on YouTube, and he never drowned! (If I hadn't received advice on this from my reflection, I'd probably have done the same thing; there was a part of me thinking 'he drowned on a last swimming trip before he left, so what if...?') I suppose that's technically the best ending, but a part of me was weirdly sad about it, because you've rewritten the past so Jonas isn't your stepbrother and you never had all that bonding time. Michael replaces him in most of the photographs! I, er, realise that Michael's life is worth more than spooky stepbrother bonding, but it was still oddly sad.

Even if I missed out on saving Michael, I'm satisfied with the ending I got. My goals were 'bond with Jonas', 'make up with Clarissa' and 'don't end up in a romantic relationship with Ren' (I don't think the last of those was even possible, but it was nevertheless one of my goals), and I managed all three. Success!

You know, if - if you ignore what happens at the very end.

If you have any questions about anything specific, ask away!

[(Anonymous)]

This is pretty interesting when you think about it! The Walking Dead season 3 (video game) is actually doing its own Schrodinger's backstory. Let's put it vaguely. The protagonist for the second season is also a main character in the third season, but not as the view point protagonist. At the end of the second season, said main character ended up in very different places - yet has still got to the point where they now are in the third season. What's changed is the backstory flashbacks and the attitude of that character depending on who they stayed with. Very literal Schrodinger's backstory: your choices years earlier impact the person that character later becomes.

Can't quite think of a game that does the reflection thing like Oxenfree, though. The closest I can think of is a sequence in Escape From Monkey Island which is probably easier to see than explain: https://youtu.be/NMhlFfmOhmY?t=1h1m26s

(Watch til about 1 hour 5 minutes, this has a more immediate callback.)

Certainly when you first play that it's confusing as hell and you wonder whether to trust it or not, but the scenario is probably the closest I can imagine to your reflection one. (Also an interesting one for Schrodinger's choices: your decisions at one point alter what is the correct decision at another point. And this game also uses some puzzles where the answers are randomized on a new playthrough, so it's starting a new game that decides answers... really quite interesting when you think about it.)

Oh, and I can finally show you a proper Persona 5 trailer or two - want to see what you'd think! (Persona is a standalone series, you don't need to know anything about it.) Persona 5 has had approximately 30 videos about it (only slightly exaggerating!), but finally been able to narrow it to two to actually give you an idea of both parts of the Persona concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63nm7n8Kd_U - Persona 5 Palaces Trailer (effectively combat trailer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elmlxR4kdC0 - Persona 5 Story Trailer

LOOK AT THAT BATTLE EXPERIENCE SCREEN. IT'S STYLISH AS HECK.

:D :D :D What do you think?

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

'Hey, I've got one more thing for you.'

I'm ashamed to admit I was disappointed that Guybrush didn't make out with himself then.

Ooh, Persona 5 is a really stylish-looking game. The story trailer's not particularly gripping me (although I like the concept of anime cutscenes), but maybe I'll pick it up if the price falls? I've never played a Persona game, so I am a bit curious to know what all the fuss is about.