Oxenfree borrows from a number of other recent narrative-driven games. The way it introduces its characters is reminiscent of Until Dawn, its exploration and coms towers call back to Firewatch, and its horror elements crib from any number of recent indie horror titles. However, despite its influences, Oxenfree is very much its own experience, perhaps because of its stripped down approach to gameplay and stylization.

Of the four face buttons on Oxenfree’s interface, three of them are devoted to selecting dialogue options. That leaves only one button for physically interacting with the environment, along with a shoulder button to bring up a radio (which is crucial for many of the game’s puzzles and events), and another shoulder button for the map. Given the limited and seemingly wasteful control scheme, it would be understandable to assume that Oxenfree is poorly designed or, at the very least, under-engaging.. However, because half of the game’s buttons refer specifically to dialogue and character interactions, they end up emphasizing that portion of the game and re-orienting the player away from traditional game elements and toward narrative and conversation.

During gameplay, hardly a minute goes by without some degree of conversation between you and your companions. You are frequently learning more about your friends and defining your relationships with them, even while you’re exploring the game world or attempting to complete objectives. As mentioned above, the early-game conversations recall Until Dawn (another game about teenagers going out to party and being beset upon by supernatural forces) in that they gradually introduce you to the new characters and give you one-on-one conversations with each of them. It sounds simple, but having the player engage directly with each character before the story swings into motion is integral. It helps define them as individuals from the start and clarifies the changes that they all go through later.

Another way that Oxenfree sets itself apart from other games is through its visual presentation. It utilizes a combination of 3D characters and two-dimensional pre-rendered backdrops that’s been largely out of style since the early Resident Evil games and the Playstation-era Final Fantasies. The low-polygon character models appear tiny onscreen, and I believe this is intentional; it makes the locations that they explore larger than life, and their tasks ahead even more daunting.

Oxenfree also cribs a bit from The Sims in the way that character dialogue and thoughts are expressed. Because the character models themselves are tiny and low-res, their faces can’t be animated. Instead, a text-chat icon appears over a character’s head while they’re speaking, clearing up any confusion, and when a character’s feelings about another character are changed, the latter’s head will pop up in a thought bubble above the former’s head. It’s a simple affectation, but it works here, providing clarity without detracting from the experience.

Oxenfree does have some weak points, however. For one, while the story is engaging and the characters well-written, it does sort of taper out in the end. The central mystery is never fully explained (even if you go about collecting the 12 notes supposedly explaining it), leaving something to be desired in the game’s supernatural elements. It feels a bit like the writers came up with a cool half-formed idea and then never quite figured out how to complete it. Its narrative logic also breaks down in the very end, with new rules that never quite make sense and are immediately negated after being introduced. It’s possible that the developers had one ending in mind from the start, and then altered it to give players something a bit more positive.

This is also a pretty short game. I completed it AND found every hidden note and “anomaly” in a single afternoon. Brevity isn’t always a bad thing; I actually enjoyed having the full experience of Oxenfree in a single sitting, knowing that I got everything I could out of it. However, it can be difficult to justify spending full price on such a short experience, even at a relatively-cheap price of $20.

Oxenfree isn’t a revolutionary title, but it’s yet another entry in a growing trend toward narrative-driven games. For decades, stories in games have been a supporting element, helping give context to the gameplay mechanics that really drove development. It’s exciting to see more and more titles in which the reverse is true. In Oxenfree, story is king.