Wanna get into the Halloween spirit but are a bit of a wimp (100% guilty), or just struggle with horror games in general (1000% guilty)? No worries; I got you. Here's a list of the best spooky games for non-horror fans.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Halloween, I just don’t want to have the bejesus scared outta me, you know? I like games that give me a lil bit of spooky-ookiness, but not like bone-chilling, stomach-churning, nightmare inducing, wont-sleep-for-a-week horror games. Absolutely not. You won’t find any Resident Evil or Silent Hill recommendations here! Feel safe knowing that the spooky-not-scary games you'll find below will get you thoroughly into the Halloween mood, just without all the over-the-top violence and buckets of gore. Enjoy!
]]>Night School Studio are "joining the Netflix team." The developers of Oxenfree and Afterparty are the first games studio to be bought by Netflix, with founder and creative director Sean Krankel writing in a blog post that they'll continue working on the in-development Oxenfree 2.
]]>The makers of Oxenfree have started teasing the upcoming sequel via audio transmissions in the original game. Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is set to arrive sometime next year, and it'll feature villains who're causing mysterious radio signals that mess with electronics. But it seems they're already up to no good, because an update to the original Oxenfree has introduced these spooky transmissions, which you can hear in several different areas in the supernatural thriller.
]]>Walkin' and talkin' mystery game Oxenfree has just announced an upcoming sequel with a new cast of talkative spook hunters. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals will follow new characters, but include that natural dialogue system of Night School Studio's original Oxenfree and their more recent Afterparty. You can catch the first spooky trailer right here for the newly-announced sequel that's coming later in 2021.
]]>Microsoft have announced what games are joining and leaving Xbox Game Pass in February. It's a decent selection, including the still-smells-new racing game Dirt 5, the battered old heaps of Wreckfest, and the exact kind of game Game Pass is best for, the anime soulslike Code Vein.
]]>If your friend asked you a question – innocuous or not – they wouldn't just sit there, quietly, waiting for you to answer. They'd continue the conversation with a follow-up query or statement, or they'd change the topic.
The point is: they wouldn't just... wait. But that's what video game characters regularly do when players are given dialogue options. NPCs shut their traps, eagerly awaiting the cue line that allows them to open their mouths again.
The teenagers of Oxenfree don't do that. Their chats are interruption-filled messes. And it's pure magic.
]]>Night School Studio's new game, Afterparty, just came out, and since it involves you drinking your way around literal hell, it would seem every bit the fitting Halloweeny treat. But taking a look back at Oxenfree, the point and click mystery that was the studio's first outing, it's impressive how much it stands up as its own spooky experience. It's not just spooky either, but funny, thoughtful, unnerving, and outright terrifying.
Early on in the story, deep trauma is revealed, relating to grieving and touching most of the central characters: Alex, the protagonist, lost her brother Michael, while her new stepbrother Jonas (who is now occupying Michael's old room) lost his mother. Both appear to be dealing with their respective losses as well as can be expected. But there's a lot there - and it's at the heart of the game. Because while Oxenfree has its supernatural elements, its horror doesn't come from traditional jump scares or big toothy monsters. It comes from how the weirdness that transpires teases and pulls at these complex, bottled feelings.
]]>Night School Studio’s follow-up to the fabulous Oxenfree is finally out. Afterparty sends two friends to Hell, which is not somewhere you’d expect to find the drinks flowing, not unless they’re filled with maggots and an off-brand coke. But flow the drinks do, because the only way to get out of there is to out-drink Satan and his relatives.
No need for a wristband, no need to prove who you are, and no need to bribe a bouncer. You’re in, and you want to get out.
]]>Another month, another big video game publisher puts a great big dollop of video game music online for zero pennies. This time, it's Bandai Namco, who have just uploaded every single Tekken soundtrack onto Spotify because, well, apparently everyone loves Tekken. I've never partaken in a Tekken, but with track names like "Massive Stunner" and "Lonesome City Jazz Party 1st", I'm already 100% convinced the music must be great.
However, given my rather lacking expertise in all things Tekken-related, I thought that instead of doing a big Tekken musical breakdown like I did for Capcom and all the Final Fantasy games, I'd take this opportunity to celebrate some of the other great gaming soundtracks you can currently listen to for free right now, because boy howdy are there loads of 'em. So bang on those headphones and turn up the volume, folks. It's head-banging time.
]]>It has happened. The day spoken of in legend. After two years, I am finally to be set free of the Curse Of Steam Charts. All its taken is entirely leaving my job in four days time to end this purgatory. The only decision left is to whom I shall pass this vexation. That, and how to avoid mentioning the actual games for one more week. And this time I've come up with a self-indulgent doozy.
]]>Not every problem in games needs to be solved by shooting, stabbing or going very fast. Sometimes you just need to stop, listen and talk things over, like in Oxenfree and Tacoma, two lovely story-driven games that you can snag free right now and keep forever. Contemporary teen ghost story Oxenfree by Night School is the current fortnightly giveaway over on the Epic store, full of sass and supernatural weirdness. Sci-fi mystery Tacoma by Fullbright is a little more grounded and quiet, letting you explore the lives and recorded dialogues of a space station's crew after some manner of space-disaster. Grab them on Epic and Humble respectively today.
]]>While it still bears some reputation as a scrappy little browser-game toolset (and that's no bad thing - it enabled much of the GMTK 2018 jam recently), ubiquitous game development platform Unity has spread to all corners. While I don't have a single creative bone in my body, the Humble Unity Bundle contains a pile of Unity tools and assets to build your dream game. Even if you're not the creative type, there's some good Unity-based games in here too, including ninja sneak 'em up Shadow Tactics, teen horror adventure Oxenfree and moody tearjerker The Last Day Of June.
]]>Like it or not, subscription services are becoming a greater part of the gaming sphere with each passing month. Humble Monthly, Origin Access, the XBox game pass (which now includes PC games) among others. Many of us already have a subscription to Amazon Prime, which brings with it a slew of perks and giveaways on streaming mega-hub Twitch.tv, and now you can get a monthly bundle of games as part of the service.
The first month's lineup is an impressive lot, including time-bending FPS Superhot, teen horror adventure Oxenfree, Hotline Miami-esque Mr Shifty, board-game adaptation Tomb of Annihilation and (last, but by no means least) brilliant Japanese-themed Commandos tribute Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.
]]>Few games nail the ebb and flow of conversations like Oxenfree, the supernatural drama about a group of teenagers on a deserted island. The cast speak over one another, cut their friends off mid-sentence and leave realistic gaps of silence that stretch on awkwardly until somebody says “so...”, and moves on.
]]>Hello chum! Sit down and have a nice glass of water and a pack of Bombay mix. That's how we greet our closest friends on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week, best pals John and Brendan discuss how friendship is handled in videogames, and what characters felt most like close buddies. John felt a kinship with Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins, and sees Lydia from Skyrim as Wilson the football from Castaway. Whereas Brendan felt a habitual closeness to the undead woman in Dark Souls who sold him poisonous arrows. Takes all sorts, really.
]]>Oxenfree is my favourite game of 2016. Unfortunately I didn't play it until the very end of 2016, so didn't know to bellow about it when the time was ripe. The time, people, is ripe once more. Oxenfree, the best game of last year, is free right now on GOG! Oxenfree, you might say, if you were a twerp.
]]>The makers of creepy/lovely adventure game Oxenfree have announced their next game, Afterparty. It will send us on a pub crawl across hell with the ultimate goal of out-drinking Satan to save our souls. I'm in. That's all I need to know. But wait, there's more: every dialogue choice will offer the option to drink, and different drinks give different moods/social powers. If I'm focused on the laddish side of the game, it's probably because I spent the night in a Brighton hotel room overlooking a kebab shop on the high street. The rest sounds good too, but we'll need to wait until 2019 to play.
]]>Have you heard the one about Humble making a new Bundle? It's a good one. Rather, it's a Very Positive one.
Following on from the original 'Very Positive' Bundle back in May this year, Humble has brought the idea back for another go - in the Humble Very Positive Bundle 2, funnily enough. The collection of games brought together here all feature Steam ratings of 'Very Positive' or above and while we can't always rely on those ratings as proof of a game's intrinsic qualities, as recent happenings have taught us, rest assured these games are quite good.
]]>One of my favourite things about end of year lists on RPS is they never match the personal list of any individual writer. They're a compromise between us all, an erratic, uncoordinated vote where consensus sees games of real worth rising to the top and filling our annual advent calendar. It makes for a list that's far more broad and useful to the largest number of readers. And because it's driven by nothing other than what we've all enjoyed that year is equally likely to be filled with the tripliest of As and the most obscure of indies. Still though, it leaves me wanting to say, "But! But there are THESE games too!" So below is my list of my favourite games of 2016, far less useful to far fewer readers, but goodness me, a collection of games that deserve adulation.
]]>If you're someone who loved the atmospheric point and click adventure Oxenfree [official site], then I have some good news. Last week Oxenfree received a free update that added a new game plus mode full of new story bits and locations to explore. The new content isn't substantial, but if you've been staring at Oxenfree in your Steam library, wondering if you should give it a second playthrough, now's the time.
]]>I came to play Oxenfree [official site] just after finishing a podcast series called The Message. The Message is essentially an eight-part radio play. Its central mystery involves a strange broadcast, possibly from outer space which seems to carry with it a curse. If you haven't listened to it I'd recommend it.
The reason I'm bringing it up ahead of telling you anything about the game is that I feel like Oxenfree is actually closer to that kind of unnerving or slightly creepy radio play which is packed with subtle interpersonal stories than it is to other games I've played. I also think that part of why I enjoyed it so much was that I was treating it in that same way, letting the characters chatter and the story unfold where I might otherwise have become impatient.
]]>A group of ex-Telltale and Disney developers have come together to form Night School Studio. Their first title, OXENFREE [official site], is an adventure game about a group of teenagers who accidentally get into some spooky goings on while spending the night on a deserted island. The main character is Alex, who has brought her new stepbrother Jonas along for the ride. Announced at GDC 2015, check out the trailer and some more details below.
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