#early early oxenfree

[dreammeiser]

I see a blue jester next to Earl’s symbol in the line up. Does Earl have a brother?! Earl representing the comedy mask while his sibling represents the tragedy mask, I love that. Or does he have some sort of alter ego like Bertie does?

Earl is Earl! He has no siblings... no one really knows how he came to be, to be honest. He just appeared one day, introduced to Archie to be his friend! Little guy has the Melpo (the crying mask) and Thalia (the laughing mask) masks to represent the performing arts...

... And Earl is constantly giving a performance, in a way. Other puppets don't know what he's truly feeling or thinking, and he has trouble even communicating what he's feeling or thinking... you see what's happening with him a little bit? <:'o) Babyman is not okay in more ways than one.

But he copes because he must.

[shantimochi]

I had to make a doodle in celebration of the best boy and his birthday today!! Kaloo Kalay!

May you all have a fun and silly day! 🎈🎪🧡

Early Early Oxenfree from Dream Along With Me belongs to @dreammeiser

[justmwahstruly]

Oh, a dream! See how it gleams? They don’t stay pretty forever, however…

more!!

you’ll never guess who my favourites to draw are,,,,,

Dream Along With Me belongs to @dreammeiser !

[pickleypotpie]

EARLY EARLY OXENFREE!!

Gift for @dreammeiser once again!!

🧡

💛

💙

[dreammeiser]

IT'S EARL!! My Sweet Cheese! My Good Time Boy! Oh what a treat to come back to!! Thank you so much for the incredibly sweet gesture, I love it so much!!!!

Decided to draw some more fanart for @dreammeiser 's DAWM!

[mintmentos]

Oh my god they’re 3am food friends if anything happens to Jacob I’m gonna lose it

[roots-symphony]

its (finally) time for

🌊🤿💤🐠Oxenfree👻🔊📤❔

[lakemojave]

Mojave's Top Ten Games of 2023 (3 of which actually came out this year)

I figured I should make a list like this at some point, but I didn't actually play many new games this year. Well, I played tons of games for the first time and loved so many of them, but few of them were new releases. At my current stage as a game critic, I'm playing a lot of catchup, trying to get context for current games, playing the classics and the seminal franchises of the medium. I do not have a game of the year pick. Even though I was behind the curve, I still wanna talk about the experiences that moved me this year.

Honorable mentions:

Baldur's Gate 3 (2023): One of the densest, fleshed out, satisfying narrative RPGs the gaming industry has seen in years. Immersive, well written and charming, no two people can have the same experience with this game because of how much variance and player choice is accounted for in the gameplay and script alike. It's for that reason it's not on the list though--not only have I not finished it, I'm also not doing it singleplayer, and am missing out on much of that juicy story content in favor of me and my group's meta-narrative.

Black Mesa (2020): The remake of the first half life is sharp, smooth, and immersive, combining what was visually and narratively compelling about Half Life 2 back into the original story. It has some of my favorite setpieces of the entire half life catalogue now, which is saying a lot. It's off the list in favor of the original.

Dead Space (2023): A triumphant return to the horrors of the Ishimura incident, with insidious twists to the game design and story that disrupt a fan's familiarity with the game world time again. It scared the fuck out of me so many times, but the bittersweet feeling I get thinking about the fate of the Dead Space franchise means RE4 gets its spot.

10. Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals (2023)

The long awaited sequel to 2016's Oxenfree caught me by surprise after playing the first game just before it. Playing the original teen horror, I'm struck by how grating some of the dialogue can be, how sophomoric and cheap it can feel without drinking deep of the content. What makes this version of teen horror so compelling, though, is that through sympathetic participation with Alex, you catch yourself from griping at the young characters for making foolish choices, which is very effective.

What's stunning about this sequel is that in the 7 year gap between games, it's not just the team and the audience that has matured, it's the writing all around. Your character, Riley, is in her early 30s, returning to her hometown and feeling very existential as she peers into the past, the future, and the unknown in between time and space. The world of Camena and Edwards Island is expanded on those lines, the thematic focus becomes resonant and emotionally devastating, and the dynamic with young characters, familiar or not, demonstrates how strong this second chapter to the oxenfree story really is.

9. Resident Evil 4 (2023)

Look. I love a horror game. 2005's Resident Evil 4 may be among the best of them, and it may be timeless in its own right, and it may be foundational to so many other games I love today, but god damn is this remake fun. With sharper visuals and atmosphere than the original, intricate new resource systems like knife durability and parries, and some updated character work, it's safe to say this is a categorically different game than the original. Plenty of material was cut from the main game, like the IT fight or the laser hallway, which found their way into the DRASTICALLY improved Separate Ways expansions, starring Ada Wong. It's not my favorite Resident Evil, and it's far from the scariest, but it's the one with Leon's spin kick, and there's nothing more satisfying than that.

I do maintain a lot of early gripes I had with the remake. When Resident Evil 8: Village came out in 2021, it borrowed a lot of mechanical, narrative, and aesthetic tropes from RE4, updating them to a new game in the wake of the remakes of RE2 and 3. Those remakes were truly transformational masterpieces, blending all of Resident Evil's best aspects to create new, distinct experiences. RE4, the original, didn't really need much updating, it's been ported to hell and back already and is so ubiquitous that there was no real need to bring it back into the zeitgeist. Nothing can really be gained by this remake except for a victory lap for Capcom.

Cynicism aside, FUCK YEAH, TWO CAKES!

8. Mass Effect (2006)

I should say that the version of Mass Effect I'm playing is not the one that came out in 2006. The Legendary edition does a bit of graphical and mechanical tweaks to update some of the dated aspects. That's kind of a shame, because the dated aspects are what's so fascinating about Mass Effect. Between Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, and now the early Fallout games, I find myself taken by classic CRPG design, which accommodates such a wide variety of player choice. Mass Effect doesn't have too much choice in it--the progression and ending are pretty much fixed from the beginning, you basically choose what flavor of the script that you want.

In that way, I like Mass Effect as a transitional piece--an attempt to bring the aspects of early CRPGS into the modern, console games market, with all the budget EA would give them. The writing and design are...satisfactory. The shooting could be more robust, the characters could have more personality, and to the series' credit those things do come about in Mass Effect 2 (which I'm sure I'll gush about when I finish it).

It's the presentation I love here. Mass Effect has maybe one of my favorite sci fi settings I've ever seen. A vast array of alien civilizations, a rich history filled with interesting lore, a competent portrayal of intergalactic politics, all delivered by characters that are deep and interesting. The voicework is also some of the best I've ever seen, and although there are many standouts, Jennifer Hale's Shepard is just tremendous. Actually playing Mass Effect may be a slog, completionist play might require some of the worst loot grinding I've ever seen, but that is all secondary to the way I was captivated by Mass Effect's version of the final frontier.

7. Half Life (1998)

I did a whole ass 5 hour video essay about Half Life, and I don't wanna belabor how much I like this game and series too much more. I loved Half life 2 and the portal games for years, but it was only for that project that I actually got around to playing this. It's a real bonafide classic, containing so many tropes of modern immersive action games WAY ahead of their time. The setting of Black Mesa is deep and engaging, the environmental storytelling is strong, and the voicework is natural and believable (for the most part.) Sometimes as a game critic I have to give some allowances to an older game for some of its jank and some of its rough edges, let myself see the thing just for what it is without all my modern hangups. I don't have to do that with Half Life like I do for other games. There's parts of it that are rough, like the Interloper and On a Rail chapters, but Half Life feels just as good to play now as it did 25 years ago.

6. Dredge (2023)

There's an old tumblr post that proposes a fishing game that's secretly a horror game. That post imagines a game that starts out normal and comfortable, but as the game goes on the player would catch stranger species of fish, soon finding monsters lurking in the deep and hidden secrets. It got a lot of peoples' imaginations going and engaged a lot of fan artists and even more comments riffing on this idea.

Dredge is that game. I was so gleefully surprised to see this game go through every single one of those steps in the first region alone. The game has a strong atmosphere and great art, leading to some real weird and nasty fish to catch and fill out the weird and spooky encyclopedia. Fishing at night gives you different and weirder fish, but it also raises your panic meter, which can cause hallucinations and open you up to monster attacks. It's a pretty ambiently scary game for the most part, and I almost chalked it up to being more horror themed than actual horror, until this one lagoon where a giant tentacle suddenly shot up at me out of a sudden drop in the ocean floor. I fuckin yelped, actually screamed in a way only two other games have gotten me to do this year.

5. Alien: Isolation (2014)

I have never, in my life, felt more powerless in a game than when I played Alien: Isolation. I'm used to games like Resident Evil, where you have a toolset for survival that is limited, but allows you to give actual pushback towards the zombies trying to get you. I played Amnesia: The Dark Descent this year too, the opposite of this dynamic, where you have NO means of resistance whatsoever, and the binary outcomes of monster encounters of that game completely broke my immersion.

Alien: Isolation actually gives you myriad crafted tools to overcome your obstacles, from human scavengers to androids to the xenomorph herself. Yet, the impossible speed and predatory senses of the monster means that one slip up means instant death, and the death animations are pretty brutal. Through cunning and cautious play, you can slip past the Alien enough times to where you get a flamethrower, which will repel her in a pinch. However, her AI is advanced to the point where she will learn your habits between deaths, look for you in lockers if you hide in them a lot, resist certain tricks like noisemaker bombs or flares. It's in keeping with how the 1979 movie presents her: a perfect killing machine. In fact, its the way so much of the Sevastopol resembles the aesthetic of that early film that not only helps the atmosphere, but makes the alien's power more believable. Immersive and terrifying, Alien: Isolation is a horror triumph.

4. Undertale (2015)

Yeah that's not actually a joke. I really did only play Undertale this year, and I was really actually completely blind going into it. Of all the games I'm happy I got to experience fresh, it was this one. Undertale seems tropey in its game design, story beats, and writing style 8 years later, but that's because so much of its design has been cannibalized by indie developers going after this aesthetic. As a bullet hell, it's...fine. As a meta commentary on retro RPGs and on the act of violence in video games in general, it's incredible. It legitimately gave me immense joy to reach the end and have my stubborn insistence on pacifism challenged even further, and then rewarded in the best possible way. I got to experience it on stream, too, with some friends who had played it previously and one who did not, and we all did the common thing and did funny voices for everybody. It's created some real cherished memories for me, memories that wouldn't have hit as hard if I did not wait to play Undertale.

3. Metal Gear Solid (1998)

Now here's a game I truly thought I'd never get around to. I'm a big fan of the Metal Gear series and when I learned that konami was releasing the master collection pack of the first 3 games, I was fuckin' stoked. If there's one other game that dictated the trajectory of storytelling and presentation of modern games like Half Life did, it's this one.

Having played the first two metal gears, the 2D ones from the late 80s, I was struck by how much of the basic design beats of Metal Gear come directly from the early titles. Seeing them translated into 3D is just incredible--all the prototypical stealth design transcribed so seamlessly into a much more legible visual language to me. The shooting may feel like ass and the bosses may have healthbars the size of Alaska, but the moment to moment sneaking in this game is so intricate and thorough that you really do feel like a tactical master as you go about it.

None of that touches on what's most memorable about Metal Gear Solid, and that's the presentational aspects. The animations and models might be worse than Half Life's, but the writing and voice acting is just world class. David Hayter as Snake, Cam Clarke as Liquid, Christopher Randolph as Otacon, and Patrick Zimmerman as Ocelot (hell even an early Jennifer Hale role) are astounding performances, even today. The cutscenes and dialogue are certainly oversaturated and long, but goddamn if I don't like watching and listening to them. I love this damn game.

2. Bloodborne (2015)

Bloodborne has been more of a myth and less of a game for me. I played some bits at a friend's house in 2017 and never owned a PS4 so I never thought playing it would be possible for me. I obsessively watched lore videos and playthroughs which got me into Dark Souls 3, then Sekiro, then Elden Ring, which has fueled much of my activity on twitch and as a game critic in general. It was only this year that that same friend lent me her PS4 and I played Bloodborne 3 whole times until I 100% the game in a matter of months. The experience was so meaningful to me that I ended up scrapping my first bloodborne video and starting from scratch, this time with Bloodborne Kart dev Lilith Walther as a guest.

I have never been more immersed in a game world than I have been in Bloodborne's. Yharnam is not only such a dense and intricate city, it is drop dead gorgeous in such a grotesque and macabre way. Many words and many writers have already described the surreal hypergothic smokescreen shrouding the insidious cosmic beings steering the terror and bloodshed from out of sight, so I won't repeat them here. You don't forget the sights and sounds of Bloodborne--they linger in your imagination, the visual language shapes your own ability to conceive of images and ideas in horror fiction, twisting the familiar into stranger shapes and forms.

Plus it just feels so fucking good to play. I like From Software titles and their style of combat, and I like how fast combat works in Sekiro and Elden Ring, but neither of those games accommodate brutality like Bloodborne does. You're meant to attack recklessly, cravenly, no blocking, just press the attack again and again until you're drenched in the gore and blood of your foes. You feel like one among the beasts--after all, what difference is there between a predator and the man that hunts them?

1. Signalis (2022)

I have not stopped thinking about Signalis since I played it the first time. The game is like a fucking honeypot for me. It's got Resident Evil style tank controls as an option, with similar combat and inventory management, themes and presentation similar to Silent Hill, and a sci fi flourish akin to Dead Space. So what, it's every great horror game jammed into one retro style amalgamation? Sounds like a great time for me!

That's just the surface, the hook of it all. While the game certainly uses this familiarity to pull you in and make you comfortable and excited for its own terrors, there's a creeping feeling of unease as you continue to revel in the horror and gore that's taken over these halls. Your character, Elster, is a special ops android in a fictional fascist regime, who has abandoned her post to search for her human partner, whose identity eludes her as she slips into delusion. After reaching the depths of the first area, where the space mine turns into a hall of flesh and viscera, the very walls pulsing and dripping, the world suddenly resets, and you find yourself back in the very first zone, now covered in the same blood and gore. The characters cry out in pain at you, begging you to stop, to turn back, to stop prolonging their hell with your own pursuit of an ending. A chalkboard in a classroom with a pretty frivolous note early on now reads "YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE."

If I go on I'm gonna spoil the whole game, but that part there is the essence of Signalis to me. Many games will challenge your own enthusiasm for playing, question the time you spend in the game rather than like, going outside or something. Few games will actively blame you for prolonging the suffering of the game's inhabitants and creating a self contained digital hell. Few games will ask you "why do you want terror?" in the way that Signalis does.

Signalis is a triumph of horror game design. The imagery is horrifically cryptic, the worldbuilding is dense, the monster design and soundscapes are creepy and effective, the gameplay feels desperate and every bullet fired feels like a scream for help. Signalis is my favorite game I played this year, hands down.

[dreammeiser]

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH... Golly I love how he looks in your style, he looks so fun and cool!!!! I’ve been staring at this for a good 30 minutes now, look at how cute Beau drew Earl!! My soft and jolly little guy with his Helping Hands!!! Thank you Beau!! <3<3

Earl, oh Earl! What is it with you and those silly helping hands?

Are they really helping at all?

Little doodle before bed 💖 This guy lives in my brain...... Earl belongs to @dreammeiser !!🌙🌈

[potato-lord-but-not]

Can you share some really old art? Your art is amazing and I've absolutely convinced myself that you were born with talent. I decided I needed to scroll down to some slightly imperfect art so convince myself that, in fact, it is possible for me to one day ascend to your level. I've been scrolling for twenty minutes. I haven't even made it past last year.

SERIOUSLY WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT ART TELL ME YOUR SECRETS!!!

look thru the rdr tag !! Or oxenfree!! or even oc !! That’ll take you straight to like early 2020 if you’re curious!! and it’s literallyyyyy just practice. drawing all the god damn time for most of my life. not an easy solution but it is my experience,, thank you tho!!

[demonyawa]

this is not much an ask but I just want to say thank you and all the people in the Until Then Dev Team for making such a wonderful and awesome of a game. From the story, ambience, color, to the music, background (omg I just go nut on how the background just have that realistic but familiar pixel vibes to it), funny quirks and emotional moments, the game just flow at such a pace that just completely got me hooked from start to finish. Especially right at the last chapter where I continuously played for 5 hours straight without leaving my seat and didn’t notice it was early morning until I notice the bright morning light and heard the sound of the morning roaster wikdkdkxmx

But yeah, thank you and the Until Then team for an incredible experience. Hope you guys can pop off even more and looking forward to more projects from you or any of the Until Then peps :DD

(P.S: I didn’t know that we can still continue even after the ending. So I guess new game plus in the second loops wooooooo)

UNTIL THEN GAME SPOILERS

Helloooo sorry for the late answer ngl life got the best of me! I just want to say a sincere thank you for this message and I will pass it along to the devs. We really love how much you believe our work has touched you and ig also thank you for appreciating the backgrounds!!! (hehe me and colleagues worked hard on making them feel like home : ]) I hope you can play things like To the Moon trilogy, Oxenfree, or Life is Strange which were also influences for Mickole in the writing, music direction, and aesthetic of the game. Thank you!!!!

[dreammeiser]

Kaloo, Kalay! Earl Conversational Sprites hastily put together for his Birthday Ask Session, which was on June 1st! Thank you to everyone that wished him a happy birthday and visited with him on his special day <:o)

[shantimochi]

You’re going to be seeing a lot of this guy from me… I have a huge soft spot for this silly Jester!

Early Early Oxenfree from Dream Along With Me belongs to @dreammeiser

[greatbigfeeling]

the indie game oxenfree is (maybe) getting adapted into a netflix series and im hoping its like… good and not like cancelled after 1 season like half the stuff netflix produces

esp. with all the stuff going on with awful pay and conditions from netflix i feel bad that this amazing IP has been bought out and may never be used due to continual delays :/

what worries me as well is that it gets really good and gains a cult following (much the same way the game did) and then gets dropped (unlike the way the game did) due to reach being not wide enough etc etc

see also: anne with an e (2017) , tuca and bertie (2019 but luckily got given another 2 seasons by adult swim), i am not okay with this (2020)

[bazwillendinflames]

nightmare scenario (Oxenfree Lost Signals)

When Jacob wakes up to a voicemail from Riley about having a nightmare, he takes her rather literally. But for once it’s not ghosts or teenagers bothering. Instead he’s faced with a far greater challenge - IKEA furniture. 

Read on Ao3

(02:09) Three Missed Calls - Riley

(02:14) One Voice Message - Riley

The first thirty seconds of Riley’s voice message is a compilation of every curse word she seems to know. It was the end of her message that worried Jacob.

“Look, I’m sorry to bother you- this whole thing- it’s a nightmare! You’re the only one who can help.”

Jacob didn’t need three guesses to know what her nightmare must have been about. Their night in Camena hadn’t been all bad - he’d gotten a friend, a better appreciation for life and the push he needed to really push himself with his art. But Jacob had also been left haunted by red eyed figures and cracked moon shaped masks and itchiness under his skin as time pulled at it. So he knew about nightmares.

Riley had them too and it wasn’t the first time she’d called him after one. Afterall, they had experienced that awful night together. They both carried the weight of what had happened to Olivia, to Alex, to them.

He called Riley back but she didn’t pick up and her voicemail was full. Clearly she didn’t share the same diligence when it came to checking it.

Jacob called again, although he was already on the way to his truck. He called a third time on the drive to her apartment, only to be met with the same automated message informing him that Riley needed to clear out her voicemail.

Jacob ran up the stairs at her building, slightly regretting it once he remembered that Riley lived on the sixth floor. He was out of breath when she answered.

“Hi?” Riley said. “You good?”

Jacob finally caught his breath, feeling a little silly once he saw that Riley was okay. She was in sweatpants that were a little strained around her bump and a faded band shirt. Riley looked at him expectantly.

“You called,” he offered weakly.

Riley slapped her head. “Right, of course. It’s nice of you to come so early. No tools?”

“Tools?”

“For the crib?” Riley added.

“I thought - you said you had a nightmare,” Jacob said. “I’m starting to realise you didn’t mean that so literally.”

Riley winced, standing aside to let him in. “Bad wording. I got this IKEA crib for Rex,” she touched her stomach briefly, “and it was a bitch to set up.”

“And I’m a handyman,” Jacob finished.

“Yeah,” Riley smiled, a little sheepish. “How about I fix you a coffee first?”

Jacob sat in her living room as she brewed it. He had been to Riley’s place before and he liked how homely she had made it. There was a knitted blanket on the coach that he folded away.

“Here.” Riley offered him the cup. “Man, I miss coffee. I’m getting sick of sleepy tea.”

“Does it work?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes. I, uh, don’t sleep so well anyway. I was staring up at the ceiling last night and figured that if I was up anyway, I might as well be productive.”

“You started the crib alone?”

“Rookie error,” Riley admitted. “Since you’re here anyway…”

“I’ll help,” Jacob promised. “I keep my toolkit in the truck.”

“You’re the best,” Riley said.

The pieces of the crib were scattered across Riley’s bedroom floor. She clearly hadn’t gotten far because the only two pieces together were held by duct tape.

“I tried,” she offered, with a shrug.

Jacob started by undoing the mess she had begun and rescuing the instructions from a crumpled ball under her bed. He also unearthed three socks and a KitKat wrapper in the process.

Riley sat at the edge of his bed as he worked. Occasionally she passed him screws when Jacob needed one, but mostly she kept him company. They caught up on what they had missed in the last three weeks since they last spoke. Athena’s interest in a neighbour’s new kitten, Riley’s latest craving, bumping into Eveyln and her girlfriend in the store.

When the crib was half finished Jacob took a break to stretch out his sore muscles.

Riley inspected his work. “It’s hard to believe he’ll be small enough to fit in there,” she said. “Babies man.”

“Well, when you need a racecar bed built next, I’m your guy.”

She groaned. “Don’t even. Even though I know how he turns out - or a version of him, at least - I can’t imagine him growing that big.”

“Can’t imagine him small, can’t imagine him big?” Jacob teased. Riley chuckled. “I know, I know. I guess the whole having a kid thing is still scary.”

“That’s fair.” Jacob wiped his brow and sat down. “I think you got this.”

She looked at the crib again. “I… Thank you. For the crib. And for running here when you thought I needed a friend.”

“It’s what friends are for,” Jacob said. “Uh, that was cheesy.”

“I’ll allow it,” Riley said. “Same to you. Cheese and all.”

When Jacob was sent his first picture of Rex, he was lying in the same crib, his eyes closed. He looked tiny and peaceful.

I’m holding you to that race car bed, Riley texted.

[anyotherstar]

Going live in the early zone or just the normal zone for the british among us. Going to try and finish at least this run of Oxenfree (my first one!) and maybe start another where I don't screw up so bad lol. Poor Nona. Poor Jonas. Poor Clarisse even at this point bro. Join me at 11am on 1/2 on Twitch for radio lockpicking, probable boat theft, and definitely lots of ghosts!