The founders of Oxenfree II: Night School Studio discuss the expected sequel

Oxenfree is a graphics adventure computer game that appeared in 2016 by Developer Studio Night School Studio for Windows, Macos, Linux, Xbox One and Playstation 4. Since 2017, the game is also available for the Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android.

In July, ComicBook.com spoke with the founders of Night School Studio to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the first game of the study. Sin oxen. During the interview, we talk about the possibility of a sequel. The Founders Adam Hines and Sean Krankel told us that they had discussed the idea and fought to specify what an OXENFREE game defines. Was he the main character, Alex? Gameness? The adjustment? A few weeks later, Night School Studio revealed oxenfree II: lost signs during a presentation by Nintendo Direct, suggesting that they had obtained an answer to their questions about the identity of Oxenfree.

Any character who is going to be protagonist in an Oxenfree game will go through his own eldest time, Krankel said when we meet with him and Hines again in October. And that could be in his 30th. That could be in his adolescence. That could be wherever, but they will be going through a rather crucial challenge. And the world of Oxenfree is a really hard, strange and surreal mirror to sustain them, to force them to reflect, change and make great decisions in their lives at that time.

Oxenfree II: lost signs takes place five years after the events of the original sin oxen. Players control Riley, who returns to his hometown of Camena and begins to investigate some strange events in the area involving a cult group called Parentage who has been interested in temporary anomalies that were first introduced in the original. Sin oxen.

Riley ranks more closely the protagonist role occupy Alex in the first game. However, Hines says that one thing that distinguishes the sequel to his predecessor is the cast of the whole dealing with the giant problem of this huge portal on Edwards Island and how that is spreading and making all these people really re-evaluate aspects From their lives or deal with an immediate extremely dangerous problem with which Riley needs to go out and help them. Riley is definitely the Alex of this game, has his needs and desires of focus, and is definitely at a time of his life when the game begins and at the end of the game, the player has really determined and defined his feelings about it, what You will want to do, how you will want to address that.

But besides that, Hines says: It was very fun to be able to say, well, what happens if a 70-year-old person meets a portal of time? - What if a retiree? kid? - And be able to meet some of these characters in real life, but above all interact with them in the walkie and choose how to help them and guide them through these things.

The Walkie Hines that he mentions is a new incorporation into the game. Riley carries a walkie-talkie that allows him to participate in the same real-time conversation dialog characteristic of the original. Sin oxen, but with the broader cast of characters distributed by Camena.

«It feels really simple, [but] drastically changes the way the player interacts with the world, explains Krankel, because now I am communicating with people who are physically there with me, but I could also be receiving a call from someone in That moment that I can choose to accept and make things interrupt and interact with them and their own history, while they are in another place in Camena. Or I can choose to call people and interrupt my own progress in the game because I want to talk to someone who is familiar with this location. I know that this person knows well these forests. I bet if I call them, I can learn something. The walkie was a container for tracks, but it became a container to interact with new characters. It became one thing to do things even more creepy sometimes, what you will see much in the game, and it also became a method to tell new stories.

The Walkie helps achieve one of the design objectives of the Night School team for the sequel. They were not interested in reinventing the wheel, even with the addition of the Walkie-Talkie, the talks in missed, take place in the same style as the conversations in the first game, but they wanted to open the game, giving the players more agency.

«At Oxenfree 1, there is a great time you can choose whether or not to prioritize Ren or Clarissa, and we wanted many more», says Hines. We wanted many more times when you clearly have two options: you can do this and that could help you, or you could do this and that could also help you, and really put emotional space at any of those things. I think when players share their stories about what they did and how they achieved it, it will sound quite changed.

The other significant addition of the game are tears of time, which allow the player to cross the tissue of time and visit different eras. The mechanic is open enough to have a variety of applications.

Once we got to tears of time, they became an attractive set for many of our design aspirations, says Krankel. Time tears really became something new that is changing and growing organically throughout the night events, and that can house anything, from a strange puzzle to other characters who deal with their own problems. Therefore, the cast does not only exist in Camena at present. The cast also exists in several timelines. Therefore, those tears of time, who explore those timelines, either through narrative or puzzle purposes, accumulate throughout the game.

The atmosphere and aesthetics are the other signature of OXENFREE. Visually, the founders of Night School previously described the vibes of the game as nostalgic without being a period of time, accentuated by a murderous score of the SCNTFC composer, who is creating new music for the sequel. They wanted to improve that appearance of the game, going so far as to consider taking the series of 2D graphics to 3D. But, as with the gameplay, they decided to improve what worked in the first game instead of drastically reinventing anything, and finally stayed and refined the OXENFREE 2D graphics.

In the first game, all the funds are totally static, says Krankel. «This game, all the foliage, the trees, everything moves and there is a lot of movement at stake. Then, if a portal opens, the trees can be seated and cut in half. The amount of parallax you see in this is much more. This is at 4K, the original was not. All who return and play the first now that they have been working on the second, they say, Wow, my mind filled many gaps in this first one that I thought it looked like the second, but in reality, the second is much more ambitious, in Terms of effects and type of depth within the game. There were many things on the table, but this is where we landed and we felt very well about it because they feel that the two games give their hand in a pleasant way.

But although they wanted the progression of sin oxen for missed, to be natural, one thing that the sequel has in the original is a significantly greater sense of scale. Krankel and Hines say that the map is approximately double large and script about twice as long, although giving players more options about the management of the game means that they will not necessarily experience all of that script in a single game. But Night School also did not want to sacrifice the intimate relationship that the first Oxenfree created with its interpreters, compared to listening to a favorite disk in repetition.

We want to make sure not to inflate our games too much, says Krankel. I do not think there s any version of an oxenfree game that deserves a duration of 30 hours. It is not the right thing, especially because this is another game that happens with this real sense of urgency. With sin oxen 1, it was, damn it. Before the sun comes out, we have to leave this island. And this is, damn it. What are these fatherhood fans doing? We have to stop them, now. We are not going to take a week free to talk about that or jump to a horse and ride and talk about that. You will keep you concentrated. Adam and I are parents, so I do not even think we can endure games that last more than 10 hours. Definitely, our intention is that a single game is really convincing and quite small. However, we definitely have layers in many more reasons to reproduce it.

Night School fanatics will know that the company is now the first game study acquired by Netflix as the transmission giant begins to expand in the Games Industry. We could not let the founders go without mentioning that and, although it is not something that they are willing to speak at this time in detail, they did have great things in front.

«It is something that we generally prefer not to talk, but I will give you a brief answer, which is that all our intellectual property has been something we have been trying to explore to take off in other ways, and there is definitely a lot of interest around both sin oxen and after the party «, says Krankel. For now, nothing has been announced, but we have not created these things to keep us in the form of a game. Although if they do, we are also happy with that.

What you think? Let us know in the comments. Oxenfree II: LOST SIGNALS REASONS IN PC, PLAYSTATION 4, PLAYSTATION 5 AND NINTENDO SWITCH EN 2022. The quotations of this story were edited and modified for greater clarity, extension and fluency.