Just two years after their creation, Night School Studio burst onto the indie video game scene in 2016, releasing their critically acclaimed narrative adventure, Oxenfree. Now, three years later, the team once again looks to capture the hearts of the story-driven medium with their new title, Afterparty.
Does this mature dance with the devil live up to the hype of Night School Studio’s debut title? Find out here in a piece comparing Oxenfree and Afterparty.
Story
Considering both Oxenfree and Afterparty are both driven by their narrative, it is no surprise that their stories need to at least be enjoyable.
For Oxenfree, players follow Alex: a rebellious teenager that joins a group of her peers for a night of exploring a decommissioned island surrounded by ghosts.
As that description indicates, the story becomes supernatural pretty quickly, as the fantastical elements of the island and its ghost are sprinkled in as the game progresses.
I’ve always personally loved the sci-fi, fantasy genre, so it was pretty easy to be enticed by the time-traveling and paranormal elements that accompany the game. What sets the story apart, though, is its characters and story growth.
Alex is given a multitude of branching paths to go down in the form of dialogue choices. Depending on what is picked, these choices shape each character’s interactions with Alex, as well as her overall personality, throughout the rest of the game.
Different endings also occur as a result of the choices that are made, providing a lasting impact with each decision.
For Afterparty, the story follows a much more mature, millennial approach to things.
Night School Studio’s sophomore title is based around two best friends, Lola and Milo, who suddenly end up on the bad side of the afterlife, dead and in hell without even knowing why.
The only way they are able to recover their memories and possibly escape Hell is to outdrink the devil.
This story’s premise is wacky and amazing, featuring more of a modern-day approach to the famous song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
A premise alone does not an amazing story make, though, as Afterparty fails to implement much of a branching narrative at all, only really giving A or B choices.
While the characters, setting, and dialogue are all up to snuff, the game does suffer from a lack of exploration and freedom.
With that all in mind, this battle of plots goes to Oxenfree, as its depth and choices win out over Afterparty’s awesome premise.
Winner: Oxenfree
Gameplay
While it is true that narrative adventure games are usually more walking simulators than gameplay masterpieces, it still plays a heavy part in enjoying these types of titles.
The core gameplay of Afterparty generally tends to revolve around the mini-games strewn about different sections of the game.
Only four of these exist in the game: Blood Pong (Beer Pong), Shot Stacking, Dance Offs, and Drink Offs. Each game is pretty straightforward, with varying rule sets that won’t take much of a thought process to figure out.
There is also an element to gameplay where you have the ability to influence dialogue options by picking different drinks but it doesn’t change any of the conversations in any important manner.
On the other hand, Oxenfree has a few really interesting gameplay elements that make it feel a lot less like a point-and-click adventure.
The first worth mentioning is the game’s interrupt dialogue system. Whenever Alex and another NPC are talking, players have the option to wait for other characters to finish, to interrupt, or to remain silent.
While this may seem like a trivial thing, Oxenfree shows the effects of each choice through thought bubbles. These bubbles indicate that whatever option was chosen will have an effect on the characters’ relationship with her from here on out.
Oxenfree also features plenty of puzzles that can be solved with Alex’s radio or by winding up tape recorders at the correct speed.
In all honesty, I really thought Afterparty’s drink system would have rivaled Oxenfree’s dialogue interrupt up its release. In reality, not only did that dialogue system not measure up, but Afterparty also didn’t have anywhere near as many options when it came to puzzles in the game either.
Winner: Oxenfree
Replayability
In regards to total runtime, both titles on this list can be completed in under 10 hours. Not only does that make them perfect weekend titles to breeze through, but it usually also means there is some form of replayability.
That fact certainly rings true in Oxenfree, as the branching paths, missable puzzles and items, and multiple endings warrant more than one go around.
As we mentioned early, the dialogue system and the many choices it provides makes each playthrough feel a little different, especially since the choices influence the story.
Content from one ending also helps provide more insight on the story as well the second, third, or even fourth time playing Oxenfree too.
For Afterparty, while it may seem like there are a lot of different paths to go down with how many drinks there are, things really only come down to a this or that system.
Regardless of the choices you make, the final decision is the only important one, leading to one of two outcomes.
Couple this with the fact that the gameplay can be frustrating and replayability isn’t really going to be all that appealing.
Once again, it is pretty clear based on the above pros and cons that Oxenfree’s replayability wins out, with more than just A or B dialogue and story options present.
Winner: Oxenfree
Conclusion
In a landslide victory, winning Story, Gameplay, and Replayability, it is clear that Night School Studio’s first title was the superior one.
While Afterparty is by no means a bad game, its linear story and lack of fun gameplay elements ended up taking away from all three of these categories, especially when compared to the bar Oxenfree set two years prior.
If you only have time for one of these Night School Studio games, give the paranormal, time-traveling romp that is Oxenfree a shot; you won’t regret it.
Overall Winner: Oxenfree
About the author
