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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. (more…)

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.

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