Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
0 
Report this post
I like your explanations. But all theories will remain speculative until we either find something in the game or hear from the developers themselves.
I find it reasonable to assume, however, that the story touches on the Many-worlds interpretation rather than time travel. MWI explains the wave function collapse with a possibly infinitve number of different objective realities and "waves" and "the wave" feature prominently in the game.
The most interesting question for me is whether there is more of the story to discover inside the game. I finished the game twice and got the "grocery store ending". Yet you can continue the game/timeline and start on the ferry boat again. Is this so that you can try other endings or can you really do things differently? Some things did change from the first playthrough. And the "ghosts" drop all sorts of hints in the second playthrough. They tell me that hopefully the next Alex makes fewer mistakes. They tell me that we can consider ourselves actors in a play but they also say that it is nice to break the script for once, implying that it is indeed possible to deviate from the script.
I would be nice if the devs would write down their thoughts about the game one day. The story is just too good.
I DO have a new fun theory linking the story to the players: you know how throughout the game you speak through a mirror with another Alex, and the dialogue you choose doesn't always match what that other Alex is saying? It doesn't even match your choices at the end of the game when you become the Alex in the mirrors. The other thing is that when you make the choices, your Steam username appears above Alex, and the mirror-Alexs you get have their own names (which change everytime). I wrote the names down, and all of them are in fact actual Steam usernames. So the "advice" you get is actually the advice another Oxenfree player gives you! It doesn't really tie into the story but I thought it was a nice, funny touch ^^
It might also imply that Alex's multiverse is in fact composed of all the playthroughs of all the real-life people who've played Oxenfree...
I think the "breaking the script" thing just relates to the fact that in this moment the "ghosts" have interrupted the usual development of the story to talk to you (and offer you The Deal).
The grocery store ending (aka the new beginning) is the one you get everytime starting on the second playthrough. For me it is the definite proof that there is no "time loop", because whether you save this "Other Alex" or not does not impact the next playthrough: you've merely saved one Alex in a million.
I really don't think the devs will give anything up, since that would basically kill any need for more than one playthrough, which is kind of the point... (I'd still be overjoyed to hear from them, but the game would be ruined for the people who haven't played/discovered the game yet). But hopefully they might publish updates which offer new content or stuff, like they do for OneShot (if you haven't played it and enjoy the timey-whimey-not-sure-what-is-going-on games as I do, I HIGHLY recommend it).
I've also been fiddling with the name "Oxenfree" : I suppose it comes from the childish saying "Olly Olly Oxen Free" which signifies a game is over, and that everybody is "free". But the game doesn't seem to end, so I feel like we're still missing something... It might be a touch of irony from the devs' part, but that would just be mean of them, wouldn't it ^^
I'm glad this was of some use! :) My obsessiveness thankfully comes in handy from time to time! ^^
I really like your explanations of the magnetophones and Clarissa, so thanks for that!
About the different Alexs, what I mean is that although you can affect your next playthrough in very limited ways through the radios, for all intense and purposes all of your playthroughs are independent, because they're all different Alexs from a different reality. You can "save" a whole bunch of them, but at the end of the game when you're looking at the last photo, you switch realities and find yourself with a brand new Alex who hasn't lived through all of the events yet and who isn't affected by the fact that you just saved everyone (how frustrating ^^) . There is basically an infinite supply of them (ghosts refer to this a few times, "maybe the next one will do better", etc...)
I think the devs' intention was to confuse players and push them into multiple playthroughs to collect as much info as they can and explain the game. Having the characters rationalise things in the wrong way serves that purpose, and also shows impressive character realism since that's probably the easiest way to explain things first off in that situation, before you as a player learn to know better :)
I see in one of your comments you’re wondering about the name, and I did notice during my play through that when you see Clarissa after she jumps out the window whilst possessed then levitates in the air, before she disappears she says “calling all the outs in free”. I picked up on it because this phrase is where the saying olly olly oxenfree comes from and it means in other words, all who are out may come in without penalty. Still not so sure what the significance of this is though?Maybe the crew members encouraging Alex to keep exploring as she won’t be in harms way? I don’t know, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts if you do see this! ^^
Yes I was never really satisfied with my understanding of the title, but I'd never noticed that sentence you just said! It's definitely not just chance that she says those words.
It makes me think that the trapped spirits who are talking through her are sort of calling out "the end of the game", warning Alex that soon they'll all come out through the cracks. Which figures, since the crew has seen a plethora of Alexs come and go and time means nothing to them, they already know the time-line of the game, of the story.
While i like the 'alternate realities' bleeding into one another theory, and think it has some credence, I've got one or two gripes with the theory, well maybe not gripes... but i think there's a mixture of time looping and alternate realities going on. After all, the mere ability to change time creates alternate timelines and thus alternate realities.
The main gripe, which feeds into others; if the games starts with an alternate 'reality' Alex and not a 'looped' Alex, then why does she have deja vu?
Time Loop Theory & Deja vu
Deja vu is easy enough to explain in the time loop, as Alex being so woven into the process of the time loop and being the one to effect it with her radio and choice; it can be rationalised as subconscious memory, and that is generally how dialogue about it seems to lead the player ("Weird the things that stick to your brain" - Paraphrased snippet of Alex remembering the Ferry announcement.)
In continuation, in a time loop it makes sense to slip a message back into the past to prevent the timeline ever occurring; though it still does reoccur, I reconciled this with the alternate timeline-reality divergence theory: Loop Alex prevented past Alex from starting the loop, but past Alex then went on into a new timeline/reality and looping Alex is in a loop at the end of a string... you can send a message back down the string to make a thread, but alex is stuck moving forward in time and so simply repeat the circle/loop at the end of the string.
The problem, which i'm not sure I have the ability to write comprehensively right now, is... where does the loop begin? When you open the source? On the Ferry? (which also makes sense as Ren says you've zoned out for like 10 minutes) Before then? (In theory, in a timeline where micheal is alive, wouldn't he also be waiting at that grocery store... but he never seems to be, so he's still dead, which implies the loop has already begin... unless we subscribe to the alternate reality theory)
Alternate Reality Theory & Deja vu
But deja vu is less easy to explain if this is indeed a new alternate reality each time. If each game start is a new 'one of million' Alex realities, why does she have these inklings of memories?
My only theory thus far is that as the holder of the radio, and so many other Alex's who've gone through their reality experience already, those realities are somehow 'emitting' or 'bleeding' into her reality... or perhaps the collective reality experiences of the Alex's is 'imprinting' into her memory passively through waves... its the waves we think.
(After rereading the original post, I realised that the OP already had an explanation for this, which might invalidate a whole load of my yammer... oh well)
This would make some sense actually, as throughout new game+ runs the screen buzzes and this occurs sometimes before Alex has deja ve speech prompts mid conversation, and sometimes she even has a prompt to 'feel' it happening.
But! If this is so, how come when you're heading into town other characters seem to recall to you that this entire sequence has happened before? In a time loop this sort of makes sense, as after so many loops even the characters who had little involvement might have some memory of it, but in an alternate reality theory how come they seem to also have memories?
I have no theory to explain this yet. Ren and Jonas had been possessed by time they make this recall speech, but Nona as far as we know never has been (but i actually only went with Nona on the first play-through, so don't know if she'd give the recall speech.)
This is why i believe there still has to be some element of time looping, just maybe not at the megaphone sections.
"We've watched the universe fly from its conception to its demise over, and over, and over"
The ghosts, if they're not talking out their ass or are confused somehow (which is possible, since they died rather horribly, don't entirely understand how it works, and as one of the letters suggests might have a reduced intellectual intelligence) seem to live though the entire... timeline of the universe, and it does infact seem to be looping.
... something something 80 years something blink of an eye to us (I have horrednous memory, this is me paraphrasing ghost talk)
All the theories are... Banana Bread
So i'm too scatter brained to really formulate in words what my point is exactly, only that there is something I feel is still missing in the alternate reality theory.
In some theory, which i might try to post links to in time, there's some idea that Nona is just a representation of Clarissa's dog, and that Jonas is actually the representation of the very first Alex to start the loop, and that by the time we play for the first time the loop has already occurred several times... In the very first run, before we play, Clarissa kills herself (it is hinted at some junctures that she has depression or what we might call 'issues' and she has told us that she has tried therapy, but it didn't work) and Ren drowns (which we see in a vision... an Jonas actually says that in his vision he see's alex with a battleship? I thought maybe he meant the submarine... but doesn't take me to be someone who'd mistake a submarine for a battleship, then again i don't think anyone in that group would make that mistake... so ether it's something weird... or... battleship??? - The point is that he might be recalling another 'Alex' memory)
There's also some questions regarding Jonas even outside that theory, about how he shows up even if Micheal is around, which enforces the theory that Jonas isn't real but some subconscious creation out of a constantly looping Alex for a brother/stepbrother.
Like ahhh, i can't put together all the stings right now, and my brain being the way it is i'm not sure I ever will be. So if anyone see's this and has input then we thank you for your good service
I still think it more likely that what is going on is a succession of alt realities though (the Crew sees all of them, hence the feeling of repetition, especially since they're going insane by now). And my biggest problem with the time loop theory is that things are constantly moving around, including characters, we see things we've never seen in any playthrough, and the time-travel, all of which wouldn't be happening if time simply looped. One of the biggest clues I think is the fact that you see and talk to another Steam player's Alex during the game (I checked the user names several times, all real Steam accounts that had played Oxenfree), if that's not an alt reality what is!
Alex being at the epicentre of the cracks in reality throughout the story, she retains memories (and the closer others are to her the more they remember as well), which explains her little deja vu in the beginning in my opinion (she always has a camera,
Or walkie or radio, which emit the specific wavelength I mentioned).
Then again, the story is complex enough to allow for a bunch of theories and explanations, so who's to say
Yeah, my whole spiel was written on a mad burner mindset, thoughts kinda just everywhere, so sorry you had to read my maelstrom of badly connected thoughts. I agree with you pretty much, now that i've read it all again without being sleep deprived, so thank yee.