Oxenfree

0:37 An old school title, a new school title, or like an indie darling, like the one we're talking about today, or take you through the production, the creation, and then the actual game itself. Yes, we are. And if this is your first time with us, you can check us out at theothercastlepodcast.com. That's the othercastlepodcast.com. Over there, you can check out things like our Patreon, where you can sign up for just $2 a month, and you'll get monthly episodes over there. We also have our Discord, which anybody can sign up for. Yes, and this is actually a very special episode because a member of our Discord, Allie, hi Allie, asked if we could do Oxenfree, and I was like, you know what? I did play this, so I'm doing it for you, girl. So if you want to hang out with us on Discord and suggest games you want to hear us do, that's an option.

1:18 I won't always take them seriously, but you know. Yeah, we can't take every single suggestion that's thrown at us. No, I just, the pigeon fucking games. I don't understand it. I respect it. Like if that's your jam, fucking cluck, cluck, bitch, let's go, but I want to shoot something. I don't want to date the bird. Like honestly, also, Tom and I have been together for a very long time. I've never had a dating app, so I don't think the gamification of a relationship really hit for me. Tom and I started dating before Tinder existed, just to date that. But like by two months. But still, that shit still counts though. So yeah, just the gamification of finding a partner or navigating a relationship, like that's not fun for me.

2:06 I don't understand this world at all. That's fine. We're doing Oxenfree today anyway, and I have no idea what this is about. So it could have been a dating sim, and I would not have known. This is a dating sim where you go hang out with a bunch of birds. Oh, really? No. Baby, sit tight. I'll tell you everything that's going on. So in June of 2014 in Glendale, California, home to possibly the better mall in the LA area, I think that the Americana is better than the Grove. I'ma throw it out there. Hot take, everyone. Two cousins met up and started a video game company. Fucking dream, right? Yeah. These cousins are Sean Crankle and Adam Hines. Both of these boys had experience in video games prior to starting this new company with Sean working at Universal Interactive, where he worked on some of the later generation Crash Bandicoot properties, and Adam coming from Telltale, where he worked on The Wolf Among Us.

2:58 That's really cool. I mean, he worked on one of our favorite games of all time then. Oh my God, right? I love The Wolf Among Us so goddamn much. It's so good. And he was a writer on there. And a big part of his whole deal was the dialogue that makes things feel real, which we'll pay off later in this, I promise. Okay, good. So with their powers combined, the team made up Night School Studios. Now, Night School Studios very quickly ended up using Sean and Adam's impressive resume to sell their first game. So they really were like, hey, homeboy from Telltale writes a new game. Please give us money. And I get where they're coming from because it is an indie title and it's very difficult to break through. We just did Fort Solace, which was Fallen Leaf Studios' first title, and they had to book the best talent in the entire fucking genre to help sell units of that.

3:45 That's true. On March 1st, 2015, the team pushed the first Oxenfree trailer on their YouTube channel. The trailer to date is still under 400,000 views, which feels kind of wild. Wow. Yeah, because it's such a big game and it's been around for so long and people really do love it. I'm surprised that the original trailer's not popping off on YouTube. The trailer was accompanied with this description. Night School Studios' Oxenfree is a supernatural teen thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghost rift. Players control Alex, who brings her new stepbrother Jonas to an overnight party gone wrong off the coast of their hometown.

4:25 Alex and Jonas, those are great names. Yeah, and if I want to give you, because you haven't played this, right? No, I have nothing on this game. Okay, I've played this twice. I played this a couple of years ago when my friend Anna was playing it and told me I had to. And I kind of was like, great, put it down, moved on with my life. And then I picked it up in the last week or so to run through again, to finish it for this episode. So I've run through it twice, and from doing some research, I'm pretty knowledgeable. But coming from the outside, Oxenfree doesn't look like it's about a lot of stuff. So I wanted to give you Night School Studios' perspective on what the game is about and what those core values are, since you probably haven't seen a ton about it in the media. Yeah, I mean, hardly anybody's seen the trailer, so.

5:07 You are amongst the populace. Yeah. The video also included a note on the studio itself, which read, Night School is an independent studio. We make stories, games and story games. Established in 2014 by Telltale and Disney alumni, with a perchant for entertainment filled with wonder, danger and humor. That very much is kind of like a Telltale sign of a Telltale game. Yeah. You know, like, that's exactly how I would describe that. That's perfect. So internally, the team really wanted to recapture some of that, like, Telltale artistry, like you said, with what they've called a Spielberg-esque 80s era, like, nostalgia for the world.

5:49 Oh, 80s is so popular. They also, the team has gone on saying that they did the 80s nostalgia thing before Stranger Things. Like, they've made it a very big point to combat that energy right there. I mean, it's not like Stranger Things invented the idea of setting things in the 80s. I thought they invented the 80s. I was born in the 90s, so I wasn't around, I can't tell you. But that's kind of the energy we're looking for through this. So when we're talking about the game, we're talking about a lot of showing off character work. And in addition to that, Adam from Telltale was able to reunite with video game performer, Erin Yvette, who was Snow in The Wolf Among Us to helm the role of Alex in Oxenfree.

6:31 Oh, wonderful, that's great. So we're getting a Telltale Queen alum doing kind of an open dialogue character study. It's also just a sign that these are people that are good to work with, that people are willing to work with them more than once. That's a fact, and I think that's an underrated quality in performers and creators of saying, oh, if you guys can continue to work together even outside of contracts with studios and things like that, that means you trust each other. Yeah, entirely. I love to see it. Now, the game itself really centers around Alex, who the team modeled a bit after the main girl, Lindsay, from Freaks and Geeks. Now, if you're reasonably too young to have seen it, I think I'm too young to have seen it, to be real.

7:13 She's an awkward teen who's leaving her childhood behind to figure out who she is, which I guess if you're Gen Z, that's Lady Bird. I didn't like Lady Bird. One big feature of this game is that Night School really wanted to avoid falling into being just a cutscene chaser. A major aspect they wanted to bring through for the characters is to be able to have a conversation while moving around the environment, rather than like walking and standing here and being stuck just not moving while I talk. Like, that sucks. They didn't want that. It's a walk and talk simulator? Yes, and it's fucking great. They wanted the player to be able to dramatically storm out of scenes, which I think is so fucking funny when you can just be extra shit in the video game for no reason.

7:57 I'm out of here. Yeah, flips a table and shit. The team developed Oxenfree and its following sequel, Oxenfree 2, on the Unity engine. And we are gonna get a little timely right now and talk about the Unity engine. So we are recording this as of early October, 2023. That's where all my information is in. So don't come for me in a couple of years if this is all fucked up. Yeah, right. So in a quick summary, during the team's development of Oxenfree and its sequel, Unity was a platform that would charge developers a rate off of the net sales of a game that was made with its engine after a certain threshold only. So like, if I make a dollar, you're not coming for half that dollar.

8:39 But if I make a million dollars, we're going to talk about cutting you a check. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's pretty common within the engine world to give it for free, and then anybody that makes a lot of money off of it, get a cut of it. Unreal works in that same way, right? Yeah, definitely do. Yeah, and this structure also works great for indie developers who don't necessarily want to bog down their game with a bunch of microtransactions, shit like that. They're kind of like, well, if we get there, we'll get there, but I can kind of keep the lights on, just kind of rolling with this shit right now. Yeah, it still costs money to make a game. Right, well, on September 12th, 2023, Unity announced that they were adjusting their model to charge developers a rate based on how many times the game would be downloaded instead of how much money the game net.

9:21 Oh, it's such a horseshit plan. So tell me why it's a horseshit plan. There's so many reasons why it's a horseshit plan. Like you're charging them every time it gets downloaded, not every time it gets bought. That's, ugh, you can really screw over a company that way. Entirely, if you say put out a game for free, it gets downloaded a million times, Unity charges a dollar for each download, you're on a million dollars. That's obviously a very general ballpark example, but that's an example to show how this can fuck people over. Right, but the problem being is, let's say you only sold 100,000 copies, but it still got downloaded a million times. Exactly, you're at negative money now. That's a possibility. Ugh, well, it's fucking wild, but on September 22nd, 2023, Unity published an open letter to the community where Mark Whitten, the head of Unity Create, apologized.

10:08 They backtracked, reset how they're doing the charges, and basically tucked their tail between their legs and said they fucked up. It was like when Sonic got redesigned in the movie. It was beautiful. I was thinking like Watsi when they walked back their whole bullshit plan as well. Oh, with the Dungeons and Dragons mods and shit like that? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so just in the trail up to this game, it's littered with wild shit that's in the news that I'm just also dying to talk about. So thank you for indulging me. But also don't let anybody ever tell you that your voice doesn't matter. It's because of all these voices rising up that this changed. Absolutely, that's true. Now, we've covered Among Us and our Patreon, and I did bring us up through the uni drama where one of the heads of Innersloth, the developers behind Among Us were like, well, you're gonna force our hand, like fucking boss the wall all about it, it was so cool.

11:00 And then they dropped the fungal two days later. Yeah. So back to this game. So we've got some serious talent from Telltale alumni, a vision of a quirky, personal, character-driven interactive piece. We're set, we're in a good place. Night School Studios released Oxenfree on January 15th, 2016 on PC and Xbox One. A few months later, they expanded to PlayStation and then the Switch in 2017. Now, as the game was released, something truly magical happened that we have to talk about. Hidden within the game was a secret ARG, an augmented reality game that culminated in a real life experience for some fans.

11:40 You love a good ARG. Oh, bitch, I love a good ARG. Now, I'm not gonna spoil anything yet, but within the actual game, there was a code players could interact with to find a phone number. The phone number findable in the game was 916-936-3733 or 91-OXENFREE. Nice, sorry, they started it with 91? Is it Sacramento area code? Yeah, I don't- Okay, it just feels very dangerous lying to walk. It is. For players who found this phone number and called it, they would hear a song from the game's soundtrack. This specific song, Beacon Beach, has a Morse code message embedded in the beat that spelled a character's name over and over again.

12:23 Holy shit. Two weeks after the game had launched, any players who called that Oxenfree phone number got a mysterious text on January 28th, 2016 that had a Morse code. The code translates to Good Work, DLBB, Listen Close. Now, the curious part that people were pouring over was the DLBB. Like, what does that mean? There's a full subreddit losing their minds over this. I can imagine. I mean, I've seen some mystery subreddits and they do lose their minds. I'm immediately trying to figure out what DLBB. I'm thinking, like, download baby butt? I don't know. Download the baby butt. You're not wrong.

13:04 Okay. Drown little baby butt. It is DL for download. But wait, the song on the answering machine? That was called Beacon Beach? Yes, it was. Okay. The DL was download Beacon Beach. If the song was downloaded on Bandcamp, the Morse code in the song was different this time. It was a completely different file. Fucking different file for different places that you play it on? Isn't this so fucking cool already? Holy shit. Instead of the Morse code being that character name over and over again, the code had a different message. Search Twitter number four, N-U-M.

13:44 Search Twitter four. So now we have to search Twitter for a number, but what could it be? Aha, it's the phone number. So players searched for the phone number on Twitter, and there was only one account with that number, at X-Ray with the phone number. Right now, that account has about 1.4 thousand followers. That's it? Yeah. I mean, this is an indie game ARG from 2016. The world was different. That's fair. It's just funny that it's just such a low engagement on this thing. The feed of that Twitter page consists of reports of the date, time, city, state, and transcript of any messages that came into that phone number from fans.

14:26 What does it all mean? So if you're like, oh, I found the phone number, let me call. And then you leave a message being like, hello, Oxenfree. It would automatically tweet it saying, we got a phone call from this fucking city with a message saying, hey, what's up? It's Oxenfree and shit like that. Okay. Oh, it's so fucking cool. The feed would, however, delete random tweets here and there. So the subreddit, it was like, holy shit, we have to document this. We have to get every screenshot of every fucking tweet. Of course. This went on for a few more weeks until February 11th, when the Night School Studios composer for Oxenfree tweeted, again, reminding gently, Beacon Beach from the Oxenfree soundtrack is a free DL.

15:08 And then he linked to it. Why would he say DL and not download? Right. Because he's in on it. So the players were like, okay, we know about the DL thing. We have to download it. Wait, what if we download it again? This is the sound guy. He's changed the file. So the players went back to that link, re-downloaded Beacon Beach, and lo and behold, the Morse code had changed. On this new version of the song, once downloaded, the code, that Morse code that had different Morse code throughout the song this time, it had two messages. The messages were, deletes not needed, please stand by, SOS. So I think they're talking exactly to Twitter, being like, don't trip on when we delete them.

15:50 Sometimes people just want their message deleted, like calm down. And then on the other way of the Morse code, it said, SOS Caneloa, SOS Caneloa. So from here, the ARG went fucking wild. These cryptic puzzles were dropped on the Twitter page, and sometimes the phone number's voicemail message would change, sometimes it was music, sometimes it was in-game characters leaving messages in the phone number, fucking crazy. And people are losing their minds, fully capturing all of this as we're going forward. All 14 of them. It got so wild that Night School Studios actually reached out to one of the participating members of the mystery-solving subreddit and their Discord, an alternative version of the PS4 trailer of this game.

16:37 Because again, no one's seen it. Right. Which had a secret code that translated to a secret website. Oh my God. Too much moving the goalpost, holy shit. So there were a lot more puzzles, especially on the website, but it all culminates in the community who had been following along, being invited by Night School Studios to Bainbridge Island, Washington. They took a ferry and landed on an island where they were able to interact with in-world clues on an island similar to the one the game is fully set in. What the fuck is going on? The wildest shit a marketer could do. So all these people, if they actually managed to get to that location, they got to just go on this trip?

17:21 Yeah. The island had music boxes with music playing from the game, letters from characters and other in-world totems that they could take home with them after experiencing the game in real life. Although I do want to tell you, I watched a video about this, and there was one lull, and they were kind of just walking around, and one guy goes, Shit, is this Firewatch? So the walking sim energy is a little there, but that brought me so much joy. I was like, you're my Henry. Now, even with this wild as fuck real world game element aside, the game did pretty well across the board. It was scoring a solid four out of five stars and got nominated for like a handful of awards.

18:05 Nothing crazy. The only one it did take home was the Excellence in Visual Art Award from the Independent Game Festival, which is pretty cool. Visual art's really important in a video game, so I'm really happy that this game did something different. Absolutely. Following the success of the game, Night School Studios also sold the rights to an adaptation of the game as a movie. In 2016, it was reported that the writer of The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, was working on this project. Over the years, this would fall apart, but keep this in mind for later. By October of 2019, three and a half years after release, Oxenfree crossed the three million copy mark. Oh, damn. I was really expecting this not even to sell a million copies.

18:47 Oh. The hype train is a chewing, though, and in September of 2021, Netflix bought out Night School Studios and brought them under their wing under that Netflix gaming umbrella. This made Oxenfree 2 one of the first waves of Netflix games, and while we're at it, the Oxenfree project has been revived as a TV show, allegedly. I'm sorry, I'm still reeling over a Netflix video game. So you remember, oh, goodness, was it called Bandersnatch from Black Mirror? So they have that. There are some trivia games, and there are some kind of Dora the Explorer-esque games and Netflix kids, but they are exploring with interactive content.

19:30 How have they not done Dragon's Lair yet? How have they not done goddamn any Telltale? Just buy out the old catalog. Seriously. You cowards. Netflix video games. I thought it was weird when Amazon got into video games with Valorant. We all still kind of think that's weird. No one's really taking it seriously. Respect to Valorant players, but come on. It's an Amazon game, guys. But then I guess Oxenfree 2 is gonna be a Netflix game, so who cares? Yeah, and it is. It's out. It did the thing. There's also talk of some development of After Party, which is a game that came between Oxenfree 1 and 2, and that may also come out as a TV show, also from Night School, so they really were just like, give us the catalog, we'll figure it out, fuck it.

20:13 Oh, a different After Party TV show? Right. Okay. In 2021, Screen Rant declared Oxenfree as the best game you should know nothing about before playing. Oh, I love those games. So this is your last final fucking warning here. Point and no return. Because this is Oxenfree. I'll let you know right now, there are multiple endings to this game. Hell yeah. You love when you have to do that. I fucking don't. It's a lot of work and I, you know, I'm very dedicated to this, so like I'll watch every play through to see how to split hairs. I'm tired. You're already tired. Usually when I have a game that I cover where you do this, I try and also tell you about all the endings and what to do and how to pivot.

20:59 I just did the fucking quarry. You want to hear how that goes? I'll tell you all about how that goes. It sucks. It's so long. Anyway, I love gaming, though. I do this for experience. I do this for the fun of it. I do it for the study on stories. But for this one, and you're gonna give me this one, I think it's more interesting to go over what I as a player would do. Okay. Now, the first time I played this game, like I said, was years ago, and I just remember that I didn't get a good ending. But it's been years. I barely remember the game. I was like, radio's on an island, got it. But I forgot that this is also considered a horror game. Oh, is it? I was gonna ask too, how many endings are there?

21:41 A handful. It's more of like a configuration. It's certainly not up there with the quarry. Where each character has nine to 10 deaths, but you know, there's a sprawl, and I think I got the worst one. You really went for a theme this season, didn't you? No, I didn't. I didn't mean to. I just promised Ally I would do this, and I don't want to be rude. And I also didn't try to get a bad ending, to be very clear. I was reacting how I would react, and I'm kind of a butthole, so I apologize, but you know what? I played with flair. I left it all in the field, and at the end, it was just a game, so it's okay.

22:21 That's how I want to emotionally prepare us going into this. Your mom did congratulate you just this week for not getting in a fight at Costco. I have a reputation. To uphold. In this town. So aesthetically, when we look at Oxenfree and not me fighting someone in a Costco, this has a dreamlike softness to the world. Colors and movement are gentle and delicate in a way. Okay, so this is gonna be the pretty game half of the season. Yeah. All right. The game opens with a foggy scene of a boat and some teens talking about an island. They're talking about Edward's Island. It's 8 p.m. and we take control of Alex.

23:02 She's 17, she has cool blue hair, and she's on this lonely ferry with two friends. The chatty and sweet Ren, who likes to smoke weed and chill. He's pretty awesome. I like Ren. And someone she just met today, actually. Jonas. Jonas is Alex's step-brother, and they are literally just now meeting for the first time. Oh, damn. It was weird with shuffling school schedules, and their parents had kind of a fast wedding. So for some reason, today is the first time they're ever seeing each other. Even at the wedding, one of them missed it. Yeah. These teens chat a bit as the ferry comes up to Edward's Island, a former mining island then termed former military base, then turned into a tourist trap that has since kind of run down.

23:49 In our world, it's implied by the ARG that this is a Washington slash Pacific Northwest Island. Within the conversation, Alex can react to other people in different ways, or even decide she's over a conversation and can just fuck off. And instead of having a silent option where the other characters nod, they're like, okay, whatever. These characters go, oh, you ain't got shit to say to me? You're just gonna walk away, bitch? They will heckle you. I love when a game does that. When a game will heckle you? Yeah, I think Cyberpunk does that too. If you just walk away while somebody's talking, they're like, okay, I guess I'm done. One of my favorite ones in Red Dead 2, where Arthur, you go to camp, you talk to Dutch, he'll ask you a question, and as Arthur, you wander away, Dutch just screams from across the camp over all the tents, well, fuck you too, then.

24:38 And it's like the one F-bomb you get from Dutch. It's so fucking fun. That's great. So Jonas, new brother, asks Ren and Alex how long they know each other. You guys seem pretty close. And Ren says, oh, we've known each other so long. I've seen her in a bathtub and it was never weird. It's weird to say it. As Alex, I screamed, why are you talking about this? And then stormed out of the boat onto the deck. Damn right. I think my Alex is a little bit of a drama queen, but I love this for her. It's you. What? Wren has the three take a selfie before the boat gets to docking at Edward's Island. Wren asks Alex if she brought that portable radio with her because it's important for the plot.

25:21 Your quick tutorial is a local radio station hosted by Wren's friend, dedicating a song to Wren and everyone who's going to the beach bash tonight. When people talk about Oxenfree, radio is inevitably come up. You, the player and Jonas are gonna wonder why. Wren goes on to say that there's no radio reception on the island, and Jonas and you are gonna be like, so why the fuck are we talking about radios? They don't work. And Wren is like, you'll see. So mysteries abound already. Yeah, what the fuck's going on with radios on this island? As the ferry approaches the dock, we see that selfie that Wren took with him right in the middle, and Jonas and Alex smiling on either side of him.

26:05 After leaving the last ferry of the night, Wren tells the other two to take in that clean island air, just, ah. Jonas goes, yeah, it's great. I need a cigarette. Does anyone want one? And when you're 17, cigarettes are fucking currency. Yeah. Holy shit. And I think the age now for tobacco is 21 in the States. Which is wild to me. I'm amazed that passed, to be real. Couldn't believe it. As a teenage cigarette smoker, I was like, this is like a holy grail to pretend I'm 18 to buy fuck cigarettes. Now I'm like, I have to pretend I'm like paying taxes and already dropped out of college and shit. What the fuck? You know, there's just a big maturity jump, but I get it. Don't smoke tobacco.

26:45 No, that's gross. Wren is like, hey, I just talked about how clean the air is, so no, I don't want a fucking cigarette, new guy. Alex is like, I want a cigarette, abso-fucking-lutely. Again, my Alex. So she goes up, has a cigarette with Jonas, puffs and immediately crumbles into a coughing fit. Oh, so she doesn't even smoke. No, she just wanted to look cool in front of her new brother-in-law. Wren leads Jonas and Alex through the landing area of the island. Right when you get there, there's a small town with some tourist traps, but they're all closed. He says that the place has become a ghost town, and there's only one resident on the island, an old lady named Mrs.

27:27 Adler. Mrs. Adler? It is not Sadie Adler. Are you sure about that? Yeah. But also, why is there only one resident? That's so creepy. Her family owned the island, so she was like, yeah, I'll just fucking live here. No one else can. I hate neighbors. I mean, I get that. Oh, you're like, I fully understand Mrs. Adler on her shit. All right, that's a weird stance to take so early in the game. No, hating the neighbors. Oh, fair. Wren goes on to say that it's a long local tradition for high school kids to come out to the island to party, and he intends on holding up that tradition. He reiterates the island is completely empty, so they don't have to worry about the old lady or fucking anyone else.

28:12 There's no security. It's just teens here to party their stupid fucking faces off, as is their right as underaged kids. And also, aside from the partying, just one more thing. I do want to check out the Weirdo Caves. The Weirdo Caves. Wren explains to Jonas here that if you pick up a radio into the mouth of the cave, sometimes you can pick up signals from radio stations that don't exist. Don't exist. Yep. Like aliens. Aliens. Alex is like, it's probably echoes from the rock, you know, like fucking up the waves or some shit. And Wren and Tom clearly go, it's aliens.

28:54 Yeah, it's obviously aliens. So you're just fully Wren, like you have associated with the one character that's a chill guy that smokes a lot of weed, and you're like, this guy's onto some shit. Yeah. Remember that. I think Wren probably looks like the aliens guy from the fucking meme. I'm not gonna fight you. God damn it. But as a teen, anyway, Alex is like, it's not goddamn aliens, but whatever. All three of them hop a fence, and they get down towards the beach where the other drunk, horny teens should be. As they get closer, Wren subtly tells Alex and Jonas to be cool, but he's also not being cool about telling them to be cool. He's really just like, be fucking cool.

29:34 Because there's a girl that he has a crush on, and she's gonna be there. Her name is Nona. She's super fucking cool. Also, Nona brought Clarissa, and Alex is like fucking Clarissa. She's such a know-it-all. So we get up there, and we meet the girl Wren has a crush on, Nona, and a girl that has, well, a complicated relationship with Alex. Now, Nona is like this sweet, cozy, core, girly, she's probably Animal Crossing, Nintendo Switch, one of those clacky keyboards kind of energy. And Clarissa has a fuck-ass bob, and just seems cunty. Upon hearing that Jonas is Alex's new stepbrother, complicated Clarissa is upset.

30:19 She is like angry, smoking a cigarette, and interrupts everyone, and is like, okay, whatever, I guess this is fucking happening. Alex brushes it off, and she's like, okay, well, where is everyone? This is a fucking rager, right? There's five people here. And the whole group is like, yeah, there's five people here, and you guys took the last ferry, so no one else is coming tonight. Oh no. And we are trapped here until the first ferry together. So they're stuck here until dawn. Dawn. Shut up. Yeah, it's awkward. It comes out that Clarissa is only here because of Nona anyway. Oh damn it. Wren invited Nona out, and Nona was like, I wanna go, but I'm not gonna go alone.

31:01 That's crazy. I'm not gonna go to a beach overnight with a strange boy. Clarissa, you have to come with me. So Clarissa is only there because of Nona, Nona's only there because of Wren. And then Wren was like, well shit, if she's bringing a friend, I can't be weird and show up by myself. So Wren invited Alex, and Alex was like, hey, can my new brother come? We have to bond. I have to bring my little brother. Jonas is watching all of this happen, and he's like, so are you guys not friends? You guys aren't even friends and you're doing this together? And Clarissa says, no, I'm friends with Nona, and that's it. Alex refuses to acknowledge her because Alex is too good for this petty dumb shit.

31:41 Fully. Jonas is like, oh great, you all hate each other, except two of you want to make out, and now it's all of our problems. I hate this. I am just meeting all of you. This kind of sucks. Horny teens ruin the mood again. Again. They at least have a bonfire on the beach, and Clarissa gives us the news that old lady Mrs. Adler apparently died three days ago. Alex demands that they start binge drinking immediately and then stands up and throws rocks at the sky for most of the seed. You love Alex. I do. I love my Alex. Regular Alex can sit in the group and participate. Mine says, we should all binge drink and then goes over and throws rocks at the sky.

32:25 Goblin ass manic Alex. Not all the playthroughs represent this category of Alex, so I feel compelled to speak on behalf of the Goblin community. You're here to represent. Yeah. Representation matters, and the Goblin community needs it. Ren suggests a round of truth or slap, which is played exactly how it sounds. Truth or slap? Yeah. Do you want to play really quick? Never. Never? Truth. Well, you say it's truth, and if I can prove that you're lying, I get to slap you. Yeah, no, not playing that one. No? Fair enough. Don't play this with your friends. Clarissa goes, great. I'll go first.

33:06 Hey Ren, do you want to go out with Nona? Oh my God. Just open with the big guns. He stutters his way through this, and he's like, I mean, I think she's cool, but I respect her, and I don't want to get slapped right now. So can we do another one? And then Ren looks at Alex, his friend, his ally in this situation, the only person he trusts here, and he goes, hey Alex, marry, fuck, kill me, Nona Clarissa. That's not an underhand pitch to your friend, you know? No, especially when like, we haven't really established everybody's sexualities necessarily. True, and we haven't established everyone's relationships. Like, Alex really hasn't spent a lot of time with Nona.

33:46 We don't know what her deal is. Right. I went with marry Nona though, because I do like a quiet, cozy babe. Like she's giving some golden retriever energy. I said fuck Ren, because we know each other really well, so like less weird, you know? With friends, you can kind of roll off and be like, yeah, yeah. Yeah, toss a dog a bone. And obviously, I would strangle Clarissa in her sleep if I ever got the chance. Hell, she can be awake even. And then Alex goes, she got what was coming. Because my Alex is like, violence. This game goes on and on, and then Clarissa just like, Clarissa finds ways to just be cunty to Alex. And when she comes to her turn, she has this long roundabout way of asking Alex why her parents got divorced.

34:31 Holy shit. Which is so fucked. Alex is impatient and isn't here to play a game like with this kind of weird mind shit when everyone else is going, oh, you want a kiss? Tells Clarissa, well, you know, it's because my brother Michael died and they couldn't handle it. It fucked up their marriage. Straight up. Clarissa turns to Jonas, Alex's new stepbrother, and tells him, you heard it. If you don't die, everything will be fine. Oh my God. Do we hate her? We hate her so much. Fuck Clarissa. Holy shit, Clarissa. Keep your mouth fucking shut. I hope she told some lies because this girl needs to get slapped.

35:11 Like regardless of the game, we could be playing Monopoly. I don't want to slap this bitch. Jonas says, I'm ready to do literally anything else except for continue playing this game. Jonas is like, you don't know me. I could lie about everything. But I hate listening to all of you. I love Jonas. Clarissa says, well, you can all fuck off because I'm going to hang out on the beach and just be bitchy beach. Alex is like, well, you are annoying and you suck, so have fun doing that. We're going to go do cool shit. Wren, bless his fucking soul, is like, I'm just trying to have everyone be excited about beach night, so please stop fighting. Oh, hey, Nona, Nona, why don't we go for a walk?

35:53 Like, I want to show you the caves. Clarissa interrupts and says, she's not going because Nona has to sit by me. I'm very clingy. Ren, who is socially devastated, is like, all right, Jonas, you want to check out the caves, brother? I guess, and Alex is like, I'm going to, because otherwise I'm going to stab Clarissa. Right. Here's the thing, is that she was right to bring Clarissa, and I'm going to, you're going to hate me for saying it. No, I get it, because as a girl who's been asked on dates, there were a lot I should have brought a friend on. Yeah, and you need the friend that's going to kind of cock block you. Even if you're in high school, you know, like, it doesn't matter.

36:35 Just if you, especially if you're going overnight, that's fucking wild. Like, if it was to a concert or a club or an event, totally get bringing a friend, kind of making it a hang, whatever. If you're going to an island overnight, that's a whole nother fucking level. Your whole mother. Absolutely bring your friend. It's amazing she only brought one. Right. To be real real. That's why she brought her meanest one. Okay, so I'm arguing just for the existence of a friend. You're like, we should definitely bring the mean one. Yeah, you want the meanest one. Just to be like, absolutely not. Take your hands off my girl. Me. So Jonas is like, he's really trying to make conversation with Alex because he's like, hey, we're going to live together.

37:16 Are you cool or are you like fucked up? What's your deal? Which is, you know, great day one sibling shit. I'm an only child, so I don't know what this shit means. Wren apologizes to the group for Clarissa being Clarissa, and then he says some misogynistic shit. Okay, straight up, her gender has nothing to do with the fact that she's a fuckface fart fruit. She just is, okay? We don't need to make gendered comments about this bitch. But she's a bitch. In the mouth of a nearby cave, Wren whips out some homemade edibles that he refuses to share with Alex, even though as Alex, I said, gimme. Wren whole face fists his edibles and then calmly explains that in the caves, there's going to be some rock piles.

37:59 So he eats a handful of drugs and is like, tutorial time, kids. But like, who does that? Do it in quiet if you're not going to share. If you're not going to share, keep it to your goddamn self. Abso-fucking-lutely. And while we're here, Tom, I would like to introduce you to Edible Safety Corner. Alright, if you're going to do a drug, cut it in half and start with half. Figure out how long it takes to kick and then go from there. If you're taking a fistful of weed edibles all at once in two hours, you won't be awake. You'll have the best goddamn nap of your life, but you want to break it in half. See how you feel. Ease into it. The drugs will still be there. It's okay.

38:40 Take your time. You'll end up like Ness and his friends in Earthbound when they took too many drugs. Just in a vibe. Yeah, they just took a nap. Yeah, but this is not one good drug etiquette, two good drug use. There is healthy drug use, kids. God, I hope kids aren't listening to this. Fuck. I'm like, I'm gonna tell you about video games. Here's how to do drugs. Shit. This is so aggressive. This is like a sweet indie game. Anyway, Wren eats a bunch of drugs, and then he explains that in the cave, there's gonna be rock piles. Generations of kids before them would leave rock piles in places to get the best chance of catching one of these suspicious signals on the radio. So during the ARG, when the kids actually went to the island, they had these rock piles everywhere to indicate this is where you should look for a signal.

39:28 Oh, that's super cool. That's so fucking cool. On your first try, Alex finds a signal after tuning the dial. Your controller shakes. I played on PS5, so won't apply to PC. But the controller shakes, and as the radio plays, the strange tones from a mysterious source, a light deep in the cave illuminates. The sound is almost like a static moment. You kind of just get like a whistle as you get to the right place. But there are some visual clues, like on the radio dial, it'll glow red a little bit and get a little stronger in color, but it's nothing too crazy yet. They do this again near another rock pile, and Jonas is like, holy shit, this is fucking wild. Hey, should we go tell Nona and Clarissa?

40:09 Like, this is really cool. Even if you guys fucking hate each other, this is just a cool experience. Also, why do you guys all fucking hate each other? This feels deeper than high school bullshit. Alex is a big believer in honesty, so she says, well, Clarissa dated my dead brother when he was alive, and now he's dead. She never really liked me, so now we're here. God damn. Holy shit, the baggage. That is a lot of baggage, and I take it they were still dating when he died? Yeah, that's the implication here. Oh, why is she so mean to her then? Wren actually says that Clarissa never feels good unless she's being mean to someone else. But she picked Alex to be mean to?

40:51 Your boyfriend's little sister. That's fucked up. And they're probably like a year, maybe two apart, you know? Fucking, oh, it sucks. That's terrible. Alex triggers a third sound in the cave, and then Jonas notices something deep in the cave glowing even bigger, and it's like, it's almost like it's calling to him. He's like, hey, guys, we should check this out because it's fucking late at night, and the cave is glowing. That's fucking crazy. Maybe it's a watering hole or some shit. I don't know. I want to touch it. Wren is like, well, this feels like a horror movie, and my edibles are kicking in, so I'm going to sit down. So Alex and Jonas go off to explore together because she's like, well, somebody wanted to share their fucking weed with me, so yeah, let's check out the fucking cave, I guess.

41:37 Wren is like, that's totally fine, my edibles are absolutely kicking in, have fun. He just lays there and looks at the stars. Yeah, and also not a safe thing to do. If you are also on drugs, and as we return to Edible Corner, if you're going to do drugs that are new, don't do them in an island that you can't escape from. And don't tell people, leave me here, I'll be okay. He knows this isn't a horror movie, and he's like, let's split up. Like, no, dipshit. This is bad, and you're high as shit. Bad idea, bad, bad, bad. Between sequences, we see a picture that Nona took of the gang on the beach. It's now 10 p.m. Jonas has dashed down the cave to explore while Alex chases after him.

42:21 She catches up, and Jonas says, it's, swear to God, it sounded like someone was down here. The cave groans, and he says, that's what it was. Oh shit, we gotta go. He really wants to explore and see what's going on in here before they get back. If this was the quarry, they'd say, it's a bear. The bear slander in the quarry is unrelenting. Deep in the cave, they come up on this natural crystal area. The walls look like watercolor paintings, and they're lit up from deeper within the cave. Above at the top of the cave, there's a light in the shape of a triangle, and it's turning. That's so crazy. Jonas is like, is that one of those rainbow refraction things?

43:03 That's so wild. Wait, do you think they're related to the signals? Maybe you kickstarted this with the signals if the waves were kicking up through the cave. Alex says calmly that radio transmissions do not summon lights because that's not a fucking thing. Jonas is like, yes, OK, basic science, but hear me out. This place is weird, right? Just try it. Like, see what happens just for funsies. Just do it for me. Alex does and finds the signal, and as she does, the light begins to turn. It spins like it's waking up and then points down at Alex and Jonas. The triangle itself is red and yellow with like weird, warm undertones and a yellow and green tail dangling down towards Alex and Jonas now.

43:50 So like, eat shit, Alex. Radio transmissions can summon lights. Jonas is like, oh, I think you're doing it. Like, this is actually working. Alex turns the dial again to another station and the tail extends. It goes down into the cave and at the base, another triangle appears. Two triangles now with one light ray connecting them float up in the ceiling of the cave. Alex finds one more radio transmission and one more triangle appears along with tails that connect the now three triangles together into one big triangle. Between the triangles, the light glows green with a red tone coming from the middle. Through the triangle, we hear, hello?

44:31 Alex responds, hello, triangle. The triangle leaves them a message saying they're sleepy. It asks if leave is possible. It says it will see them soon. And I want to talk to you about how the radio talks to you. Please. The voices you hear are patchwork. It's what those ransom notes cut out with magazine letters would sound like. It's like the radio is using what it's heard before on broadcasts to patch together what they want to say. It's different voices and they're layered in a collage, not created with like one brushstroke. Okay, so the only thing that I can think of that operates the same way is Bumblebee in the Transformers movies. Okay.

45:11 He uses radio, like songs and radio broadcasts to string together what he's trying to say as well. Oh, yeah, dead on. The screen that you're playing in begins to twitch in static, and then suddenly we're underwater. Jonas and Alex are watching debris sink to the bottom of the river. And then the screen cuts to black. In the dark, Jonas yells for Alex. The screen lights up and tells us it's 11 p.m. and Jonas and Alex are outside of the cave now, out on another part of the island at the base of a trail. Jonas woke up first and is confused and is like, what's going on? And Alex is like, yeah, I'm catching up. I also don't know.

45:53 He's a bit frantic now, unsure of what he just saw or heard or even more so unsure of also how they got here, like they moved. And then he goes, you know what? I don't give a fuck if you think I'm a dork or a buzzkill. I need to get off this island. Yeah, I don't blame him. Let's figure out how to get to a comm station and reach out for help. Alex has a headache from whatever the fuck just happened, and she and Jonas both feel like their fingernails are shooting off of their hands. Oh, that's a literal torture method. It's so gross to say. I wrote it and was like, gross. And then I saw it in the game and was like, ah. And they both feel that? Yeah. Honestly, anytime you lose time is not a good fucking sign.

46:36 No, you want to take back to Edible Corner? Yeah. Just take a nap. I used to drink to a blackout point. It was scary every time. Also, what happened to blackout stony guy, Ren? What did happen to him? We left him earlier at the base of the cave, and then we wandered in. He's not here right now. Oh, shit. Jonas and Alex do find a comms tower, and they go up to look for walkie talkies or working comms or some sort of thing. This island isn't huge, but it does have stations throughout because it was a military base. So you should be able to connect with everything else here. There isn't anything fucking in this tower, though. There's a radio that is completely dead, a phone that doesn't dial out, and something that Tom's actually going to be a little upset about.

47:18 Oh, my God. Is there a goddamn generator? And a goddamn generator. There's always a goddamn generator. Alex tries to use the phone, but it needs a station code to work. She and Jonas are sad, but then their phone rings, and it scares the shit out of them. Alex picks up, and it's Ren. Oh, my God, it's Ren. They both confirm it's each other, and Ren goes, Holy shit, I am so glad it's you. You and Jonas went into that hole, and a bunch of weird stuff happened, and I just woke up 15 minutes ago. Explain the bunch of weird stuff, please. He does not elaborate. Ren is at a way station in the woods that can call other in-network facilities through the island.

47:59 He saw the light on in their tower and figured he'd give it a shot. He'd fire watch this shit. Ren has no idea how he got there, though. The other line rings out, and as Alex, I was like, you know what? It's probably Clarissa, and I hate her. So I never answered what she called me. I stayed on the phone with Ren the entire time. Ren tells Alex to heed these words, heed these words. Whatever you do, don't. And then the line cuts out. Of course it does. Because Ren is Jamie Kennedy in the Scream movies and kind of knows he's in a horror movie. Fully aware. Jonas and Alex strategize, and then in game, we get the prompt to save Ren on our map, which is Darling.

48:42 To get this to work, they have to kill the electric fence that's kind of keeping the island separated by turning off the generator. Well, at least we get to turn it off. This one's for you, Tom. Jonas and Alex take off towards the station Ren was hiding in, and it's now about midnight. Jonas is nervous about this whole thing. He's not an outdoorsy kid. He's not a forest kid. He's not a hiker. He's an indoor cat, and now he's trapped on an island. On their journey, Alex points out the smallest cemetery in the Pacific Northwest, all the way back from the 1800s. Next to the littlest cemetery, we run into our first anomaly. This is a pile of rocks, so in the Outerlands without a cave, we can catch a signal that someone has caught before.

49:27 You know, little pile of rocks, that means something crazy is going on. This one that we see here has something to do with the Abbot and a guideline book for monks, but these are collectibles, and these were related to the ARG, so collecting these were how people found the phone number in the first place. I would just be remiss to not mention that these are spread throughout, and there's all kinds of puzzles that people have activated through the radios in the world. It's really cool. Got it. You always feel like such a badass for finding these, too. Oh, yeah, especially when it's like not supposed to be found. Yeah, or it's just like a very small visual clue. You're like, I fucking saw that. I win. Now, to get to run, Jonas and Alex have to take this little island gondola through the forest up to where he is.

50:10 The power is out, so they go to a nearby control station, and Jonas flips the circuit breaker. He does this, and the lights go fully out. Jonas is like, ah, shit, I beefed it. And in the station, amongst this blanket of blackness, a table lamp glows pure red. Alex goes towards it, and starts tuning the radio. A station catches Alex, and the colors light up. And then it all goes out, and it is all black again. Jonas and Alex are silent. A little melody fills the station, and Jonas says, hey, that's something my mom used to listen to. Then the lights all kick back on, and scare Jonas out of his nostalgia entirely. He says, oh my god, this is ridiculous.

50:51 I'm so sick of this shit. And then the camera pans out to show that all the lights are now on. So, hey, sorry about the drama, but you fixed it, buddy. All good. Upon leaving the power station, there is a chair there in the trail that wasn't there before. Jonas is like, that's fucking weird. We were in there for two seconds, and now there's furniture that I've never seen before. Alex goes over to it, sits in it, pauses, and then screams as loud as she can, but just to scare Jonas. Jonas does not enjoy this and is not having a good evening. But hey, the gondola is working. They're an actual brother-sister relationship now. Just like, let me fuck with you?

51:33 Across the forest and using a gondola, Jonas and Alex get over and towards Wren, and then they start walking. They talk about Alex going to visit the island as a kid with her brother. They come up on a tent that looks like it was abandoned. It's dumpy and trashy, but it's still set up from a long time ago. There's some still water near this campsite. Then the screen statics out. Everything goes fuzzy. Then suddenly we're back to the gondola landing across the forest. Jonas asks Alex if she came here as a kid, and she goes, What? You just fucking asked me that. They come up on the campsite and Alex sees the fire burning. She says, this wasn't burning a minute ago. I was just here. What's going on?

52:14 What is the fuck going on? Jonas, like Tom, is very confused and is like, This is weird. I don't know what's happening. The screen statics out again. Everything goes fuzzy. Then suddenly we're back to the gondola landing across the forest. Jonas asks Alex if she ever came here as a kid, and Alex screams at Jonas. We're caught in this moment. We've done this before. We're in a loop. Jonas blows it off a little and says, Hey, you know what? My head really hurts. I don't know what's happening, but sure, let's look into your thing. Alex goes to the campsite and sees a ball. She had one just like it when she was a kid. She kicks it, and it rolls back. Jonas has a moment where he's like, Wait, that's really strange.

52:56 You kicked it, it stopped, and then it got kicked back to you, but no one's there? Alex kicks the ball, and it appears to go and reverse right back at her. Then, through the whispers of the trees, we hear radio static. Then the words fetch, fetch come through the night. Alex kicks the ball, and it rolls through. She's like, this is fucking weird. And then the ball snaps out of existence. The flying fuck is going on. Jonas tells Alex, I think we're dealing with ghosts. Something. I mean, I don't think it's ghosts, but this is fucking weird. You're like, it might not be a ghost though.

53:37 As he starts to explain, hey, it's ghosts, the screen statics out again. Everything goes fuzzy. Then suddenly we're back to the gondola landing across the forest. With each refresh, the screen looks more and more distorted, with some of the static lingering through the scene again. Jonas is not here anymore, and some of the static remains around the screen are actually gone. As Alex moves forward, her reflection in that still water next to the campsite glistens in the night. As Alex keeps walking, her reflection stops. Alex notices she's a few steps ahead of her reflection and looks back at herself. Underwater and upside down, reflection Alex shows some prompts to real world Alex.

54:21 Real world Alex picks a message of herself saying to tell Michael to break up with Clarissa. Alex tells her reflection, Michael is dead. What in the fuck is happening? This is just... There's some time travel shit going on. The screen statics out again. Everything goes fuzzy, then suddenly we're back to the gondola landing across the forest. Son of a bitch. Jonas is there and tells Alex, we've done this before. Alex is screaming, but I kicked the ball! Alex runs down to the campsite, and now there's a hand crank radio magnetophone thing. Alex gives it a crank, and then there's a flash, and the world looks less distorted now.

55:04 Jonas has a headache, but he's like, hey, maybe that tape player you just played fixed the loop. His hypothesis is correct here. And Alex and Jonas finally move forward. See, I thought it was kind of ambiguous whether Jonas was going through the time loop as well, but he clearly was. Yeah, and Alex is like, hey, by the way, do you believe ghosts are real? Jonas is like, you know, I don't know, but based on that, maybe. They could be real. What do you think? Alex, what do you think the ghosts want? Alex says, vengeance. This is my Alex, bitch. Deep in the forest, Jonas and Alex come up on Nona.

55:45 Nona is curled up in the fetal position in a ball, in the middle of a trail, in the middle of the night. She's alone, she looks cold, and she looks at them, and she starts stuttering. Don't come near me. This night has turned banana bread really fast, and I'm seeing things and forgetting things, and I've bumped into you once already, and it was horrible. Also, you're saying things like, tonight turned banana bread. That was in one of the trailers, and it made me laugh so much. Alex gets closer and closer to Nona to find out what happened, and Nona gets furious and scared, and just gets up and runs off deep into the woods. This pisses off Jonah, who's like, oh my god, give her space.

56:26 Now she's out there, and she could hurt herself. You shouldn't have rolled up on her so fast. Alex goes, well, if she ran that fast from us, imagine how fast she'll run away from actual danger. I fucking love Alex. You love Alex because you made her you. I made her cool as fuck. They get up to the way station that Ren was hiding out in, and Jonas is like, oh shit, I see it. Wait, why would this weird-as-fuck island even need a way station? What are they fucking weighing? Alex explains that before this was a military base, it was actually a mining island. Oh, okay. There are just all kinds of crazy haunted shit here. Yeah, haunted mines are very common. Right? Especially in a supermassive game.

57:08 Oh my god, every supermassive game. Jonas takes a beat, and he's like, hey, just as an analysis, do you think I'm smart or dumb? Alex is like, we just met a couple hours ago, and now ghosts are real. You seem average, you know what, you're mid. You seem regular. I'm not going to make that claim, because we've known each other for three hours, and two have been spent with ghosts. And he's like, OK, that's pretty valid, actually. OK, cool. Fair assessment. Alex enters the way station, and Ren is sitting cross-legged on the floor. He jumps up at Alex and is like, oh, thank god. I thought you were a werewolf. I thought I was in the quarry.

57:51 They all calm down, and Ren is like, OK, so tell me what's going on, like they fucking know. And then the static screen cuts in, and Jonas and Alex are at the base of this hill under the way station. What the shit? We're looping again. In another loop, they start down the trail towards the station, and then they see Ren. He's catatonic, and he's walking up the trail towards the station. Alex tells Ren, hey, you can have a drug meltdown on your own time, but right now, I need you to get your shit together. Ren stops between two tape players and turns them both on. Jonas looks on at Ren, who is dead in the eyes and completely unresponsive.

58:33 With the two tape players on, the screen snaps and Ren is gone. Jonas is like, oh shit, where did he go? What the fuck is happening? The radio's killed Ren. Inside the way station, Ren is also gone. He is nowhere to be found right now. The fuck? Alex clocks the broken phone Ren used to call them and is just like, god damn it. Jonas says the phone looks like it was smashed. Just past the way station on the edge of a cliff, here we find Ren now. He's standing, but he's slumped over and he's muttering to himself. Jonas looks at Alex and is like, bitch, you better be careful. Alex calls out to Ren, but he isn't looking up or even acknowledging her. There's a dark fog around him and he keeps muttering to himself.

59:17 Alex and Jonas approach Ren and Alex whips out her radio. Once again, she picks up a signal and a triangle appears. When she lands on the second signal and the second triangle appears, Ren's body is lifted off the ground. Oh shit. He gurgles as he levitates over his friends and below the triangles. The third triangle is formed and Ren struggles against whatever is inside of him. The lights in the triangle shine on and then they drop Ren. The cloud around him is gone and he is on his knees and then fully on the ground. Oh, I was worried he was over the cliff. The triangle says, Hard to talk through child. Alex stands up and asks if the entity, Hey, were you in Ren?

1:00:01 The entity says, Yes, sometimes, but don't be scared. You are dolls. Would never hurt you. Oh my god. The implications that are going on right now. Alex asks if it can help them because they're stuck and they just want to go home. Home. We will go home. All of us. Leave. Possible. Grounded by Adler. Margaret. Alex says, Maggie Adler? The old lady? She was young once. We were young once. The radio concludes by saying, Tag. You it. The triangle snaps out of existence, and Jonas and Ren come to Alex.

1:00:42 Ren screams causing Alex and Jonas to scream because he just really was like possessed, walked up and went, Ah! Ren is freaking out, and he's like, What the? What happened? What happened? Alex just goes, Well, the entire island is haunted as shit. Still don't think it's ghosts. Over some loudspeakers, Nona's voice comes over and says, Hey, hello, whoever can hear this? I'm at the comms tower on Edward's Island, and I need help. Please help me. SOS, save our ship. Jonas is like, Okay, good for her. She figured out something. Now we know where she is, and she can reach out if she needs something. Ren goes, Okay, perfect. Nona's at the tower, and Clarissa's at the other station.

1:01:23 And Jonas goes, Wait, how do you know where Clarissa is? Ren says he talked to Clarissa on the phone right after he talked to them. Jonas was like, Oh yeah, that's who was trying to call us. Now Alex goes, Yeah, fuck her. I figured it was her. That's why I didn't take the call. So with this, and knowing he's in a horror movie, Ren says, Okay, let's split up. He says, I'm going to go save Nona, my damsel in distress. You guys find Clarissa, we'll rendezvous and figure it out. It's 1 a.m. Clarissa has also managed to find a PA system and is screaming where she is and that she needs help. Alex says, even when everything is dire as fuck, she still finds a way to be so goddamn annoying.

1:02:07 Jonas looks at the station that Clarissa is in, Fort Milner. He says, hey, Alex, so what if this decommissioned military island wasn't decommissioned? Like, what if it was very much commissioned and they're doing experiments here or some shit? Like, this is a government island. And Alex goes, look around. Do you see any fucking security? Do you think the government would do a secret fucking experiment with no one guarding it and letting teens run around it? Alex clearly never watched Lost. Oh, is that a thing? Oh, very much a thing. Oh shit. I also haven't seen Lost. They find a door, but it's locked. Then they find a glowing red light in a tower.

1:02:50 At the top of the tower, the radio voice says, do you want to play a game? And then the door that was locked swings open. Jonas is wildly upset at all of this. As they pass into the building, the door locks behind them. It's pitch black in this decommissioned base, and Jonas finds a new level of frustration here. He's like, well, Clarissa is somewhere, and we have to find her. And the only drama between you guys is that she dated your brother? Like, seriously? Seems like some really petty reason to not like each other. And Alex goes, yes. It's super annoying. And I'm super petty. And I'm fucking here for it.

1:03:31 They go through these dark buildings, and then static comes across, and we see two red eyes illuminated across the hallway from them. Jonas yells out, Clarissa! And runs after her. He goes through a doorway that closes after him. Alex runs after them, and the door is now locked. The whole world is dark, and Alex can't see anything at all. Alex runs through more of the house, and through static, we see eyes looking in at her through the windows on the third floor. She manages to get the lights turned on through the house, and Jonas yells out at Alex that Clarissa's not even here. He can't even get out of this room. Alex comes back down towards the room Jonas ran into, and in this full-sized mirror on the wall, a figure of Alex looks out at her.

1:04:20 Real Alex talks to Mirror Alex, and Mirror Alex says, When the time comes, let Jonas talk to his mom. Jonas' mom died when he was young. What the fuck, Mirror Me? The figure leaves, and Alex opens the door to save Jonas. He says, Hey, there's a mirror out there, and it had a weird reflection on it. Alex says, Yeah, yeah, it talked to me and gave me some fatherly advice. We had a loading screen here, and we see a picture of Jonas and Alex, and in the background, there is a figure with red eyes watching down at them. In the next building, we actually see bitch-ass Clarissa scuttle down between buildings into the next one.

1:05:00 She's hurried, and she doesn't respond to Jonas yelling for her, so they're like, What the fuck? And Jonas goes, Wait, what if she's having an episode like Wren just had? A rena-soad? Maybe she's possessed. Now, are you playing as Clarissa here? You're only playing as Alex. Only play as Alex throughout the game, okay. We just see Clarissa, and we're like, Where the fuck is this bitch going? Got it. Through this area, they can still hear Clarissa yelling on the mic, so Jonas is like, Well, we have to find her. We're at least close, you know, and Alex just rolls her eyes because she wanted nothing to do with this. The next building is a school house room complete with children's handprints on the walls. You're out. Out. You're out. Not walking in that classroom.

1:05:41 Just fully done. Done. That's some Blair Witch shit. Well, that's what Jonas thinks because he's immediately on edge. He was like, This is terrifying. Above the handprints, a red light comes on from above. When we activate the radio here, the lights blow out and tells a story about the world's largest radio station for the Navy. Then on a chalkboard, a hangman game shows up. The radio asks the kids if they want to play a game. The radio asks questions like, Hey, where are you now? What's the name of the space? The radio statics out and goes back to that ghost voice and says, Do you think us cruel? A little bit. The screen flips upside down, goes completely dark, and a set of red eyes watch on as we see Jonas and Alex continue with the radio show.

1:06:30 There's a spark, and then the room is upright again. The lights are on, but now Jonas is floating and his eyes are glowing red. The tone from the radio station starts to come through Jonas' voice as he becomes possessed by the ghosts on the island. So it is ghosts. Yeah, it's fucking ghosts. Oh, man. The radio asks more trivia of the island and the military. As Alex, I got one out of three questions, right? Admittedly was not big attention. It's a fun game, I swear. After the exam, the radio cuts out and Jonas is slumped over standing, mumbling to himself just like Ren was. While the room is lit in the deepest corner of your screen, the red eyes are still watching on.

1:07:15 Just like with Ren, Alex uses the radio to create the Triangle of Triangles. In the process, Jonas is lifted in the air and then drops when the whole Triangle is formed. The radio ghost talks about the Navy, about how the commander looked out at the ocean when the USS Kanaloa was thought to be lost at sea. It was carrying a big radio like nuclear device. In reality, the ship was struck down accidentally by friendly fire, and 83 soldiers were killed during the capsizing. Hot shit. Most were very young. Alex asks, what do you want?

1:07:55 They say time. All we want is time. On the chalkboard, more and more hand prints appear on the wall. We snap back into regular time without the ghosts. Jonas is like, that fucking sucked. I want to get the fuck out of here. I'm with Jonas on this one. And to Jonas, he saw a wall half full with hand prints, blacked out and came back, wall was full of hand prints. Still, with more. He is fucking out. I also want to say that the USS Canaloa sank in 1947. So this is like wartime. It's been sank. Over the PA, Clarissa says, Clarissa is asleep.

1:08:35 Don't wake her. Alex hates her so goddamn much. Yeah, don't care what Clarissa wants. Quickly after this, Alex does find Clarissa, curled up in a ball on the floor. She says, how did you know I was here? They explain Wren and the towers and the radios, and Clarissa is just annoyed and is like, why did you save Wren first? Clarissa continues to be a bitch and continues to whine. And then a time loop starts just outside of where Clarissa was found. Oh, shit. Alex feels this, the static coming on, and she just screams out the sky, no! So the time loop is moving to different parts, though. Yes. Interesting.

1:09:16 They walk into a room, and Clarissa is hanging by the ceiling. Jonas asks, can we cut her down? What do we do? And then the loop starts again. They run in, and now there's just a tape player. Jonas is like, oh, thank god she's not dead. The tape player worked last time, let's fucking do that. Alex plays the tape player, and time snaps out of a loop. And we see Clarissa standing in the window sill on that third story, a hole above that tetanus-infected ground. Alex is like, hey, are you good? Are you okay? Clarissa says, Alex, don't worry. We know he or she is possessed by ghosts because she would never be this nice to Alex.

1:09:58 In a voice laced with radio feedback, Clarissa looks out and says, there will be other ships and other souls to sell to them. And then she lets go and lets herself fall out of the window to her death. Oh my God. Jonas screams and Alex starts going, holy shit, she killed herself. She killed herself. They made her kill herself. Jonas is terrified and says, we have to go, we have to get to the others. Alex interrupts and says, how am I going to tell her fucking mom? I was here. Oh my God. I was here. I watched it happen. Jonas says, hey, we'll figure it out. We will work together. We will let everyone know what happened, and we'll get off the fucking island.

1:10:38 Okay, let's get off the island. What are you going to fucking say, Jonas? She was possessed by ghosts, and they made her jump? It's not the first draft of the plan. Alex and Jonas run down to the bottom of the building, but her body is gone. Gone. Alex is like, how did this bitch do this? And Jonas goes, I don't know, she's goddamn dead, Alex. At this point, it's 2 a.m. They're like, okay, everything is awful. You know what? Let's go to the comms tower. Let's meet back up with Ren. He's probably got Nona there too, and they're probably hunkering down. This just sucks, but we'll figure it out, okay? On route to the comms tower, Ren comes running down saying, hey, are you guys okay?

1:11:23 Alex is like, kinda, not really. How's it going with Nona? And Ren is like, well, she gets stressed out, which stresses me out, and then she wants to people please and calm me down, but calming me down stresses her out, and then I get stressed out, seeing her get stressed out. It's a vicious cycle. They haven't had any progress in reaching out for help, so that actually really sucks. Ren is like, man, I'm really glad I ate that second brownie though. Dick is rubbing it in now. Okay, so edible safety corner, don't take this many drugs. If you are in a high stress situation, drugs may not be the answer. Probably not the right time. No, probably a bad idea.

1:12:05 Also, homemade edibles, unpredictable. Stop doing that shit. Fully unpredictable. You have no idea how potent that's going to be. I'm glad that we can bookend this pretty dark subject matter with talking about drugs. So the three of them, Ren, Jonas, Alex, they climb back up to the comms tower where Nona has been sitting and waiting. She's like, fuck this, I ran up here on my hangout. She tells them that nothing in the fucking tower works, and she's also like, hey, Alex, Jonas, I'm sorry, I was being weird. I'm having a weird night, and they're like, bitch, tell me about it. Alex is like, Nona, I get it. There's ghosts on the island. Ren tells the group that Maggie Adler had a boat.

1:12:47 Maybe they could go to her property, grab the boat and just take that home and fuck off out of here. He says his sister used to work on the island, and because Maggie Adler was the only citizen, they would deliver mail to her, so he knows that the city has a key to her gate somewhere. They figure they can get the key, get in her house, get on the boat, get the fuck out of here. Who locks their house if you're the only one on the island? Well, if it was a tourist trap and you're on a side, you don't want teens rushing in to steal your boat. I guess that's true. You don't want this exact situation. But she's dead now, so... Who gives a shit? So for some reason, Jonas and Ren have a little dude fight, and they're like, I don't trust you, I don't trust you, why should we be the alphas?

1:13:31 And like, shut the fuck up. And neither are alphas. Right, it's so annoying. So Alex is like, well, I'm going because I have the radio. Jonas, you come with me. We should bond as siblings now. For this one, you can pick any of the three to go with you, but I figured I want to bring my new brother, I want to get to know him, and I want to leave Nona and Ren together so they can make out. Hell yeah. I'm a girl's girl, you know? That bitch ass Clarissa's out of the picture. Ren is annoyed at this because it was his plan, so he wanted some of the glory, but shut up. I'm going to let you make out with baby girl. Nona says, hey, good luck. And then she and Ren hunker down in the comms tower.

1:14:11 As Jonas and Alex go out in the night to find the key to get the boat, Jonas is like, hey, by the way, I don't know if you heard, but I did go to Juvie. And Alex is like, damn, that's crazy. Why are we having this conversation right now? This seriously is starting to sound like it's going to end up like a Pornhub video. Ew, a stepbrother shit. The fuck? But Jonas is like, no, I mean, my mom started getting really sick. Like she was on her last legs. It's what took her. I was at school. This kid threw a ball at me and was teasing me for having a dying mom, and I just fucking lost it. Kick the shit out of him. And I went to juvie for a little bit. Alex is like, yeah, that's crazy. That's very Dom Toretto of him.

1:14:54 That is in Fast 9, if you are curious. I know that's like the one you haven't seen, but they do flashback and Dom does go to juvie. Maybe real jail? He does some time for an assault. He tells the story of it in the first one. Does he? Yeah, he says that he tells the full story of how he ended up in St. Quentin. Oh shit. Okay, so we see that in nine and I'm never going back. I love the Fast and Furious movies so much. I thrifted a Fast and Furious shirt yesterday. What's amazing is that you know the first one the least. Yeah, it's the longest since I've seen that one. I think I don't know. I just watch from five on. They're so fun, but they are completely different pace from this because now Jonas is like, Hey, Alex, are you religious?

1:15:39 And Alex is like, We are just jumping into this shit, huh? Okay, I'm not. I don't think I am. What about you? And Jonas goes, Well, I think I am now. Now the needle is moving towards maybe because what the fuck? Yeah. This confession of religion is interrupted when they get down to town and see Clarissa sitting on top of a street light, swinging her legs back and forth like she's goddamn Spider-Man. Just all hunky-dory. Alex is like, Hey, how are you alive? I saw you swan dive out of a building. Clarissa's eyes glow red, and Jonas goes, Oh, goddamn it. She's possessed.

1:16:20 Alex asks the ghosts inside Clarissa what they want, and Clarissa starts mumbling to herself. They talk to her a bit, but she doesn't answer. She just mumbles. So it's time for Alex to summon the spirits via radio. Before Alex can get to create all the triangles, the screen flickers, and Clarissa begins answering them. Clarissa is possessed, and she says she's full of anger and rage. She says some haunting shit and is like, If it's ghosts, you better sleep with the lights on. And then Clarissa falls off of the light pole. She stands up on the ground and is like, Oh, my God, I'm fine. See, I was thinking of like a light pole that's like 30 feet in the air.

1:17:02 I'm like, OK, so she's still dead. No, OK, she's she's up. And you're thinking of the right ass shit, like a street lamp, like outside, like, Oh, the lights are on. Go home kind of shit. She fell that far still. Yeah. And she just got up like, damn it. She got up annoyed and was like, Alex and Jonas are like, Do you remember what just happened? Do you know anything? She's like, I fell. I'm concussed. I don't know anything. She has no idea. And she's annoyed. And she's just like, I don't know. Why is this my fault? This feels like Alex's fault. The fact that she just wants to blame Alex immediately. That's all she has in her arsenal is like, fuck Alex. This is your fault.

1:17:42 She just admitted she knows nothing about what's going on. Except she knows Alex is behind this some fucking way. Oh, the mean girl is always so fun, isn't she? Then the screen statics out and we see the bonfire. And all five of the kids are together. Clarissa says, so it's my turn already? Alex says, guys, this isn't real. This isn't truth or slap. What the fuck? But they're not listening, and they keep doing truth or slap. Clarissa asks Alex what happened. Alex says, we tuned into something in the cave, and it woke something up, and I don't know what's happening. Bren tells Clarissa, it's not Alex's fault. But Clarissa says, no, this is Alex's fault.

1:18:26 Clarissa also says, you know what else is your fault? Michael dying. Jesus Christ. So she blames Alex for his death. Clarissa says Michael wanted to leave town and make something of himself, but just before he left, Alex insisted that they go swimming together, and he drowned. Oh no. Alex is screaming at Clarissa to shut up, but Clarissa keeps going. There is no reason Alex should have taken him swimming, and the only reason that Michael is dead is because of Alex. Jonas says, hey, calm down. Stop. We just need to get the key, and we need to go home. You guys can scream at each other later. Please, for the love of God, let me get on the boat.

1:19:08 Clarissa's eyes switch to red, and she says no. The screen statics again, then it's just Jonas and Alex again at the edge of the town area. Jonas is like, what the fuck? Clarissa was just here. Alex goes, well, we looped again, so who knows where she is? Here's the thing, these loops don't even seem to be going to the exact same, like, universe. Yeah, they're definitely different situations that you can see in all of these loops. Yeah, they feel like alternate timelines almost. Where they're blending together almost. Jonas and Alex go through the town, and they find another small pocket radio, but it has a way larger range of stations to pick up.

1:19:51 It belonged to Maggie Adler, which is weird. But actually not so weird, because Maggie Adler used these kind of radios to tune into gates and doors on the island and turn them on. So actually the radio is our key. Jonas also finds a letter from Maggie Adler saying that there are secrets on the island that others have been trying to cover up. She says she's left clues in a scavenger hunt around the island leading up to the truth about what's going on. Why don't you just write out what the truth is, bitch? She did, and then she made it a scavenger hunt. And then made it whimsical. It also says she is ashamed of the lies she helped preserve.

1:20:31 What the fuck, Maggie Adler? Maggie, what's some shit that you're up to? So this ends up being another collectible, the Adler letters. Some are just like her thoughts being like, huh, it's nice out, this shit cool. But some do shed light on what's going on in the island. Deep in the night as they keep going, Jonas stops Alex and is like, hey, why are you wearing that jacket? It's 75 degrees and the sun is out. Alex turns to him in pitch darkness and says, the sun is not out. But then the screen statics and it's 1 p.m. last year. A year earlier? It's Alex, Clarissa and Michael.

1:21:12 Oh, no. And they're exploring the island together. This isn't a flashback, though. Alex is lost in a loop she's never seen before. Alex asks Michael if he's a ghost and he laughs it off. Alex is like, you drowned in the lake. You drowned, you're dead. And he says, no, Alex, you're crazy. Alex insists she doesn't know what's going on. But Michael and Clarissa blow it off and they're like, oh, you're being silly. The three get to the beach and Michael is like, oh, shit, I left my phone on the ferry. I'm going to be right back. Leaving Clarissa and Alex alone. This Clarissa from last year doesn't know about what happened on the island.

1:21:52 She's sweet here. She thanks Alex for hanging out with them and bonding. She says Michael loves Alex a lot and talks about her all the time. Alex says she loves him too. Michael comes back and joins them on the beach, and Clarissa runs out to the little town square to grab a soda. Alone with Michael, Alex tells Michael she misses him a lot. He says he missed her too. They have a sweet sibling moment, and Alex asks Michael what he sees in Clarissa. Like, why date her? She's the fucking worst. Michael tells a story about how Clarissa dragged him to a comedy club and forced him on stage to do open mic. What?

1:22:33 And Alex is like, that is a fucking nightmare. You need to dump her. Michael then is like, hey, you're wearing my jacket. And this is the same jacket she's wearing in the present day. Oh, shit. The screen statics out, and we're back in the timeline, and Michael is dead again. It is 320 a.m., and we're back with Jonas, who's like, Alex, hey, you've been weird for the last five minutes. Are you good? So Alex has just been sitting there staring off into space. Fully, she said, I was fully gone. I leapfrogged back in time. And Jonas says, no, you've been standing here. And then she just goes, man, it really fucking sucks that Michael's gone. Alex and Jonas make it to Maggie Adler's house, and Ren and Nona are already there at the gate being like, hell yeah, let's go.

1:23:19 Nona is like, I'm really glad neither of you died. Alex goes, actually, we lost Clarissa, but that's not really a loss, am I right, ladies? Did we really lose Clarissa? Nah, fuck her. Alex uses a little radio to open the gate to the Adler estate, and everyone is like, holy shit, that was so cool that you opened a gate with a radio. On the estate grounds, they're met with the sight of a boat, which relieves Alex. Ren is in shock at how big the estate is. It's like the Knives' outhouse, like it's fucking huge. It's called an estate, it's gonna be huge. Yeah, I said estate, that should be clear. Now, the boat needs a key to operate, and it's not a radio key, so they have to go into the house to find it.

1:24:02 The Adler House is also locked by radio, which is wild and very cool to see. The four group up and go into the Adler House, where they're met by Clarissa. She scares the shit out of everyone. Still not dead again. Nona is like, okay, thank God, we're all together. Let's get the boat key and get the fuck out of here. Nona, Ren and Clarissa step aside to the boat while Alex and Jonas dig through the house. In the attic, Alex finds evidence that Maggie Adler knew about the ghosts and the radio frequencies. And also Jonas finds the boat keys, so like hell yeah. As they start to leave, the screen statics out. Alex is in the attic and her friends are spread throughout the house.

1:24:43 We see the house holistically, like a doll house with all the rooms visible. Nona, Ren and Jonas are all in different rooms, but are catatonic and unresponsive to Alex. Clarissa appears in the kitchen and tells Alex her training is almost over. Alex says, just stop and let my friends go. Clarissa says, your friends are as fine as they've ever been and it's nothing to bleed over. That Alex signed up for this by summoning everything with the radio and she's like, bitch, I didn't try to. Clarissa says everything will be fine. That the final test is to gather things in the house for the ghosts. And if she doesn't comply, there will be grim consequences.

1:25:25 There's a short game of possess Clarissa telling Alex to find things in the house. And if she doesn't find them, one of her friends disappears into the nothingness. This is some abusive behavior, like do as I say or bad things happen. Yeah, that's not that's toxic bitch. This all leads up to Alex finding a picture of Maggie Adler young and with a friend. Clarissa Ghost explains that's Maggie and her friend Anna. Many years ago, the two tried to sport with the ghosts, but only one survived. But in that process, the ghosts found a way to return, but it takes a lot of time.

1:26:05 Clarissa Ghost goes on to explain that the ghosts can ride the waves to take over the bodies of her friends and they can return to life. They said they tried it before with Anna, but they didn't do it right. And that's why Anna had to go away. Anna was eventually eaten by the rift that had eaten the ghosts, and now she's a part of the spirits that are trapped there. Sorry, there's like a spirit realm black hole eating everything too? Just the people that are like fucking with it. I mean, I get if you're living on this like fucked up, possessed island, you might as well try to live with it than work against it. Yeah, but this is Maggie Adler and her friend Anna were really trying to help fix the ghosts and like open up this portal to help them escape and find peace.

1:26:49 And it just didn't work out where Anna, instead of helping them get out, got trapped within. So they tried to open a portal to hell and then realized, oh shit, we opened a portal to hell. It's like island hell. It's like if Jimmy Buffett were an asshole, that's where he'd be. I think he's going to the good place though. He seemed like he did a lot for a lot of people. I think so too. So they tried to do this before with Anna. It just didn't work out. But they can take other bodies. They just need Alex to stay on the island. And they tell her this is actually a great honor for her. She said, whoa, no, you had your time. Don't take ours because you had an accident. Yeah, don't Johnny Silver hand me.

1:27:32 The ghosts say they didn't have time. It was ripped away from them. They say when our vessel smashed on those rocks, they had until dawn, and so do you. All of the teens except for Alex are now standing with their eyes glowing red. Alex goes, well, shit, I hate this. The house is empty and staticky again, and there are three tape players that Alex uses. After they're all up and running, the screen returns to normal, and the four of them, Alex, Ren, Jonas and Nona, are all in the house. No Clarissa. Nona crumbles, and she's like, oh my God, I'm going to be sick. And Ren is like, I do not feel good. They're all agreeing Clarissa was right here, and now she's not.

1:28:14 And oh my God, if we don't bring Clarissa home, we're going to be in so much fucking trouble. We need to get everyone off the island. No man left behind. This is fucking crazy. Yeah, we can't come back with fewer people than we left with. Alex thinks we can. Well, you hate fucking Clarissa. She's like, we should all leave. This is fucking stupid. There's four of us here. We have the boat. Let's hit the fucking not road, water. Let's hit the water. Nona says we cannot leave someone here. There's things killing her and trying to kill her, and she's just going to get sick. She's like, no, no, this is my fucking friend. And Nona did drag her here. So there's some sense of ownership of Clarissa's being a bitch here. It's the buddy system. That's the basis of the buddy system.

1:28:56 That is true. That is the buddy system. Ren is like, hey, you know what? There's a lot of military tunnels we can probably use to get around because actually after Jonas and Alex went through the cave, it fucking collapsed. Oh, shit. And Jonas and Alex are like, ah, damn, that's crazy. They're like, well, you know what? We're in the best possible place. Maggie Adler lived here. I'm sure she has a ton of the military info of how to get around. Let's figure out what she knows and use that to our advantage. They see a projector and a reel marked experiments and findings of experienced phenomenon 1952, and they pop that in the projector. They do find some mapping to get through the caves and into the bomb shelters and other ways that the military used to get around.

1:29:41 Then a slide on triangles called a temporal tear, and apparently these triangles can be used to transpose to the other side. It shows the triangle with the radio waves coming back and forth in a triangle shape, just like how Alex has gotten people out of being possessed, creating a triangle with the triangles. Nona is like, I think we can use this. We're on to something. She might be a little dumb. Jonas is like, all right, me and Alex, we're going to go back into the woods. We're going to use the radio to trigger up the bomb shelter so we can get in through the bomb shelter. That feels safe. And then we can get around, we can find Clarissa. And then we're in a bomb shelter. Yeah, also, that feels pretty good.

1:30:23 The thing with the bomb shelter is you need to have two different radios creating the right frequency at the same time across the island. So Ren and Nona are like, cool, we'll go to this comms tower. You guys go out to the one way the fuck out there because you guys are way more resilient. Ren's high out of his fucking mind. Nona's terrified. We're going to take the easier route. Let's split up the group. On the way out, Alex gets dizzy and appears to pass out. She sees a world filled with water. And in the middle, Ren drowning just like her brother. Oh shit. She wakes up and Jonas is standing over her like, you stay with me, Alex.

1:31:04 Come on, don't leave me like this. What the fuck? You're my new sister. I'm responsible for you. Alex is like, damn, I saw something crazy. And Jonas goes, yeah, your eyes turned red. You were possessed. Oh no. That shit's crazy, huh? And Alex goes, it is 4 a.m. Jonas and Alex make their way out to the right station to open up the bomb shelter. They get caught in one loop cycle and see Wren dead on the rocks in the water with Nona nearby. Alex is annoyed at being in another fucking loop, and then the screen statics out to another scene of Wren dead, and another and another. She's just seeing her friend die in different ways.

1:31:47 And then Alex is alone in a station with Jonas, and Jonas' eyes are glowing red and he is possessed. Shit. Alex looks at him and goes, I know you're not Jonas. Ghost Jonas says, soon it won't be pretense, it'll be absolute. Ghost Jonas then tells Alex, they have a proposition for her. They say Clarissa is gone and theirs, and they will control her through existence, and there's nothing that can be done about that. But if they let the ghost take Clarissa without any fuss or fighting, they won't slaughter the rest of Alex's friends.

1:32:28 Hmm. So Alex says, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, go ahead, take her. She's yours. Take her. If she's already gone, leave the rest of us alone. Deal, ghost dude, just go away. Sounds like her dying is a canon event, so just go ahead and let it happen. It's a fully canon event. Like, I'm not going to stand in the way of that. The ghost calls Alex very mature for her age and fucks off. You are very mature for letting her die. What a great 17-year-old child. Alex resets the scene with tape players, and Jonas catches himself mid-sentence, coming out of a loop. Alex is like, hey man, you're possessed. Super sucked. They let that shit go, and then Ren and Nona are heard over the speakers. Alex is just relieved to hear Ren's voice, knowing he's alive after seeing him die so many times so quickly.

1:33:14 But they're like, perfect, they're in position. Jonas and Alex get into the comm station, and they're able to connect to the system, talk to Ren and Nona, and boom, looks like it worked. They got the radios up, they got the bunkers open, we are fucking set. Hell yeah. Now all Alex and Jonas have to do is go meet back up with Ren and Nona, close the time hole, and save the day. Along the way, Jonas is like, hey, you know, I think it'll be cool to live together. I think we're gonna be friends, at least. Maybe not siblings yet, but friends. At 5 a goddamn m, Jonas starts glitching again. And then in a flash, Alex is in a memory with Michael instead of here with Jonas.

1:34:00 Again. Michael is giving Alex shit for letting a friend down, and they have a little heart to heart. Michael lets Alex know he took her advice and he broke things off with Clarissa. What? Alex comes out of this daze at 5:30 a.m., half an hour, with Jonas standing over her. They shake it off and meet back up with Ren and Nona down by the open bomb shelter. Ren insists on getting a selfie with the group before anything else happens. Ren also warns everyone that the bomb shelter is the point of no return. So if you have any other collectibles, go get them right now. Now I will discuss one thing quickly, and those are those Maggie Adler letters that we talked about briefly.

1:34:41 Yeah. They're kind of all over. It turns out Maggie Adler was on the island and saw a submarine and reported it as an anomaly and assumed it was an enemy vessel. The sub was shot down, and it was covered up saying, oh, a Japanese group shot it down. Oh, shit. To not showcase the big mistake that killed so many people. It's Maggie's fault. Fucking Maggie Adler. And then it was covered up. So everyone is like, damn, that's crazy, but only a couple of people actually know what happened and why all these kids are dead. Maggie knew, and Maggie dedicated all her shit to making it right. She knew she was responsible for these deaths, and she started catching hints of ghosts on the radio.

1:35:25 And she was like, I can figure this out. I can fix it. I'll figure out the rifts. I'll figure out the souls. I'll figure out a way to get everyone to peace. I owe it to them. And that's why she eventually kind of ran down the tourist traps and kind of stopped giving a shit about the island. She's like, let's keep people off this thing. I don't want anyone else to get sucked up into some shit after what happened to Anna. I need to protect this, and I need to fix it. But she died before she could do anything. Damn. Between scenes, we see the selfie that Ren had us take, and no one looks fucking happy. It's 6 goddamn a.m. And Jonas and Alex are going down a ladder into the bomb shelter.

1:36:07 Deep in the bomb shelter, they see barracks and beds and one of the tape players that have shown up in the time loops. This one starts playing the song that Jonas' mom would play for him, and he gets distracted. Alex and Jonas go up to the tape player, and Jonas is like, I swear, it almost sounds like a recording of her. He asks Alex to pull out her radio. They've been talking to and talking through ghosts all night. What if I could talk to the right ghost? Like my mom. Like a seance. Alex finds the sweet spot on the radio, and then Jonas is snapped away in his own memory with his mom.

1:36:49 Alex, though, is now alone in a bomb shelter. Alex asks Jonas, Hey, where'd you go? Oh, so this is what he was seeing of Alex when she was in her little memories? Of just gone. I'm like, fuck. Then alone, she enters the caves to save bitch ass Clarissa. In the caves, she does almost immediately run into a possessed Clarissa. Possessed ghost Clarissa is like, Hey, Alex, we had a contract. And Alex says, I can't leave. I have to get Clarissa because Nona is making me. The ghost says, then you have truly drowned yourself. Clarissa disappears and Alex whips out her radio.

1:37:30 She does one triangle in the air, and as she turns the dial to activate the second, a bunch show up in the air, unconnecting. When she does this a third time, one large triangle is formed with all of these multiple points, and everything goes black. Alex goes, oof, might have beefed it. The screen is completely black except for her. She runs looking for Jonas, for anyone, frankly, and then she finds herself on the beach. Except as the camera reveals more and more, she's underwater on the beach. And then as she's looking out into the ocean, she's looking at a huge submarine.

1:38:12 Oh, shit. She says, I'm underwater? And then the screen blacks out again. Alex and Clarissa are in a different part of the island, and ghost-ass Clarissa shows up and explains, this is happening. You don't have to die. You can still walk away. So I did. Alex walks through its hair created by the ghosts, and as she does, ghost Clarissa tells Alex, you know it was friendly fire that killed us. It was awful and they didn't deserve it. Alex tells the ghosts it was a catastrophic event. The ghost said, that makes it sound like it was fate.

1:38:53 The ghost warns Alex to leave because she's just getting way too close to the tear and the ghosts. The ghost warns Alex she has a minute to leave or she'll be eaten up by the rift and never go home. That's what happened to Anna, at least. So Alex leaves through the rift, and as she does, the ghost says, remember your friends as they were, because they will never be that again. Alex is gone. Then Alex starts appearing in loops, and not just any loops, loops she's experienced before tonight. Through water, she watches herself in the loop where she and Jonas got caught near a campsite. She talks to herself through the mirrors she thought she was talking to her through.

1:39:36 She was the ghost of herself just ahead of her own timeline on the same loop. What the fuck? Then she's in a white dreamlike world at her house, talking to Michael. Michael's room is illuminated in a triangle in the same configuration we've seen all the ghosts connect through tonight. Michael is thinking about college and leaving town after high school, but he doesn't really know what he wants to do yet. He has a free ride to one school, but he doesn't even know if he wants to go to that school. Alex tells him to leave town and see what happens. Michael starts giving Alex life advice, like, hey, watch out for boys.

1:40:18 He says, you know, it's just in case I'm not around. He says he loves her, and she says, I love you too. The screen comes out, and now it's 7 a.m., and four teens are on a ferry. Alex is like, are we dead, or are we in ghost heaven? Wren says, no, we made it out alive, but I feel like ass. That's just an edible hangover, you're fine. Jonas says, hey, you know what, whatever you did in the cage worked, because the ghosts are gone, and we're going home. Alex says, I saw Michael again, and I'm a little rattled. Jonas is like, damn, that's crazy, but it's over.

1:41:01 Jonas says, oh, my God, we have to tell everyone. Maybe I can go on a book tour. Alex is like, yeah, we have no proof, and we're not as smart as the teens in the quarry that took phone footage of everything, so this is not going to happen. You also need to write the book first. Then as teens do, they digress and start talking about prom. What the fuck? Alex is like, oh, my God, I wouldn't go unless I have a date, because that's so embarrassing to go alone. Which it's not, first of all. I don't think it's weird to go by yourself. It's super regular to go with a bunch of friends. Right. It's not like, what generation are you? Calm down. You don't have to be formally asked to go to a high school dance. You are entitled to go to as a high school student.

1:41:43 Shut up. Anyway, Nona is like, it is picture time. Tonight has been absolutely noteworthy, so why not? Nona moves everyone into the sunrise light, and they get ready for a photo. Nona takes a photo, says cheese, and the screen cuts to black. Then all we get is that last photo of Ren, Jonas, Alex and Nona. The screen lingers on this photo as they take the ferry home, and Alex comes over with a voiceover as she looks at the photo and talks about what happened to everyone. Ren ended up going to school in California, and he started a band. Nona moved away and went to a ballet academy?

1:42:23 Wild. But they kind of fell out of touch. They were never really friends, to be real. Yeah. Jonas and Alex hang out a lot, and he was the first one to refer to Alex as his sister, not just a stepsister. Oh. Alex talks about how what happened on the island that night used to cross her mind every single day, and then every other day, and then weeks would go by where she didn't think of it at all. She says she's taking some time off to relax and figure out what she wants to do with her life, and then she says, oh, shit, what time is it? I have to go catch the ferry. Wren's making me go to this beach bash thing, and I have to go pick up, oh, fuck, what's his name?

1:43:07 Jonas? Oh, my God. I hope it'll be fun. And as Alex leaves to start the loop over again, the screen statics out and the timeline resets, and we get the title card, Oxenfree. Fuck you, Bendy and the Ink Machine. You were very good about not bringing up Bendy and the Ink Machine in a time loop thing until the very end, and I'm very proud of you. So that is the ending that I got. There are multiple endings, however, for the most part, Alex is trapped in the loop entirely.

1:43:48 They do keep her trapped to be able to use her friends and harvest them for youth and shit like that. So that is like canon that you will always end up in the loop. For the most part. Now, the biggest differences you can get, though, aside from Alex is trapped, what happens to the gang? And there is a majority world where you can save Clarissa. Oh, really? So Clarissa can fully be saved in the section where I left the terror. I'm like, you guys fucking take her. I'm out. You can fully save Clarissa. But I was like, nah, she's been rude as shit. Let the island ghosts have her. So to go through the other opportunities, Clarissa can be saved and she'll be in the picture.

1:44:31 And she can be cool with Alex after all, or still fucking hate Alex. There's a world where Ren and Nona can be dating, or at least like heavily talking, although they are long distance. Okay, good. You can fully fuck things up with Jonas where he wants nothing to do with Alex. Damn. And most importantly, if you play your cards right, you can get Michael to still be alive. I was wondering if there was going to be an option where Michael was alive. That was what I thought all of it was leading up to. It can, and it just has Jonas being like, that's my friend from school. He just moved here. What's up? He seems fine.

1:45:12 Now, there's also one hidden as fuck ending that people largely say is the best one. There is a new game plus opportunity where Alex can send a signal to herself from the island loop. You get this scene. You're in a supermarket parking lot with Alex, Jonas and Ren before they get on the ferry. They're doing the thing where they're like, Hey, mister. Trying to get some beer? A little hey mister moment. Did you guys call it like a hey mister thing? No. We had scheme names. Like I'm gonna go pull a hey mister. Well, it was mostly like pull a hey mister or make Andrea do it, which I did not appreciate. Friends.

1:45:52 Yeah, we had enough people with fake IDs. That was me. I had fake IDs and like stretched out ears and like looked alt as fuck. So they're like, you seem like you're old. And I'm like, that's not a great thing to sell a 15 year old. But the amount of times I didn't get carted, it tracks. So my bad. Alex can whip out her radio while they're just sitting in this parking lot. And she gets a message from herself from the island loop. This message can convince the group to not even get on the ferry and just go get pizza. Yeah. And then they just don't have an Oxenfree. They just have heartburn. Like, it's fine. I also have two cultural pinpoints that I want to talk about now that we're on this side of it.

1:46:35 So in Life is Strange 2, which is a road trip story, in the very last episode, this is not a spoiler, there's a radio that you could listen to. It's like a police radio situation. It's like a flat thing. You can hear someone calling out for Alex and Jonas. Wait, really? Yeah. It's like, Alex, Jonas, copy, where are you? And it sounds like it would be Ren from a comms tower asking for them. It's a male voice, and it really aligns with all the times Ren has reached out and be like, hey, can you guys hear me? I'm looking for literally anyone. But this game is about radio transmissions and signals showing up where they shouldn't be. It's fucking perfect. Well, real life ghost hunters use radios all the time to try to find ghosts.

1:47:18 Like frequencies and shit. Yeah, they're on like certain frequencies, they think. Ghosts aren't real. I'm sorry. I'm just like, that's one of the reasons why I don't like horror so much is just that I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in monsters. I don't believe in goblins and shit like that. So like any of those kinds of horror things just do nothing for me. I think that's why I like horror, because I'm fascinated by these metaphors of pain and anguish, how they're manifesting and stuff like that. But when you put a dragon in front of me, my brain goes blank. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck that shit is. I want nothing to do with it. You said gnome, I'm the fuck out.

1:47:58 So even a horror is me to fantasy. So my other thing that I want to bring out with this property is how it has evolved. So like we know, in the ARG, the game was out, and it continued to evolve, dropping more messages and things. That's a core value here. So this game came out in 2016. In July of 2021, the Steam version of the game got an update. In the notes, Night School asked players to report any unusual radio signals, and within that message dropped a link to the Oxenfree 2 Lost Signals game page. Then, in September of 2021, a patch for Oxenfree was launched.

1:48:41 It came along with a note saying that something is invading the game's radio waves and that the team had tried but failed to stop the signals from breaking into the original Oxenfree. The fuck? That's awesome. These patches and strange radio waves were from Oxenfree 2 Lost Signals and did relate to the second game. That's awesome. That is super like what Portal did with their radio waves and stuff when they announced the second game in that. That's what I was thinking too. I was like, oh, Portal did this. It was so fucking cool. Like with radio waves too, which is even fucking crazier. Yeah, I mean, the one thought. We got there though. And it was for the Steam release.

1:49:22 Of course it was. But also, you know, I think there's just a special affinity from indie developers on Steam. They're like, you are the fucking bread and butter. You get the treat, you know? And that is Oxenfree, all the way up to Oxenfree 2 Lost Signals, which is now available. It is out, okay. And this was for you, Ally. And also for my friends at Viori, which make very comfy pants, but mostly for Ally. This is what happens if you get in the Discord and bully me into doing something. I will fucking do it. I will drop whatever Easter eggs I can find. I will drop a reference from another game into this. Like, I'll still go hard for you.

1:50:03 I feel it. And, you know, the first time I played this game, I didn't think twice about it. I was like, cool. That was a couple hours. Move on to the next one. This second round, when I was paying attention, I'm hearing myself say I paid attention. It was a better experience. But that's true. That's exactly what happened. I had a great fucking time, and I hope you all did too on the island with me. And I am so stupid jealous of the people that got to do the ARG. I fucking love ARGs. Yeah, no, that's really cool. And, you know, I'm sad that it was ghosts, because again, I kept saying, like, it's probably not ghosts. It's probably not ghosts. It was totally fucking ghosts. It's probably not ghost shadow. Yeah, no, it's fully fucking ghosts and possession and time loops.

1:50:47 I love the time loop aspect. I think that was really cool, because it's different from like Bendy and the Ink Machines time loop. It's different from Hades time loop. It's different from all the other time loops that we've dealt with. I forgot we did another time loop game. Not just, I mean, this season, I know we've done Bendy, and we did the second one earlier this season. But yeah, I know to the Hades point, it is just kind of a cyclical thing. But in a fully different lens. Supergiant isn't like a AAA studio, but they're relatively big indie. They're on the big end of indie. Popular indie, yeah. Yeah, at this time, night school, they were like, this is all we got. Let's hope this shit lands. And now they're doing Netflix shit. Yeah, right. I think this would also translate well into a Netflix property.

1:51:29 It sounds like it would. It doesn't need a huge budget. It's a really small cast. It's tight as fuck. And I think they could do some really creative things to tell this story in a sadder, more fucked up way than a four and a half hour game can do. And again, this is a short game to that point. You can do this in an afternoon. I think I did it in two nights because I was taking notes and looking things up and checking through everything and trying to figure out what my Alex would do in this situation. So it's a cool quick bench. Yeah, and because of the New Game Plus and being able to get different endings and get different collectibles, it has a pretty good replay value. I got this on Switch for 10 bucks, and I could easily play it a couple more times and get a completely different story at the end of it, so it feels like $10 well spent.

1:52:18 Hell yeah, 10 bucks is not difficult to spend on a good game. No, and because this one doesn't have online elements, like this could be an airplane game. Nice. And you know, you could get this done in a east to west coast flight easily. That's awesome. With room for TV. So that is Oxenfree. Well, thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed that, please make sure you like and subscribe and comment and do all the things. Yeah, ratings help us out and they make me happy, so I'd appreciate them. Thank you, friends. Yes. And then if you want to learn more, you can always go to our website, theothercastlepodcast.com. That's the othercastlepodcast.com that also links out to our Patreon. If you are on our Patreon, first of all, I think there's a week or two for free, so you guys can just get started and binge the old episodes, binge the exclusives.

1:53:05 We also have monthly exclusives. I just dropped Among Us on there recently. Yeah, that Among Us. Going through the inception all the way through fucking Benoit Blanc up to the fungal, baby. Yeah, we got really recent with that one, too. Yeah, that was really fun. Now, speaking of the Patreon, we'd like to call out some of our Patreons that helped make this episode happen. Thank you so much, Aaron, Cyrus, Trevor, Molly, Krisha, Molly Mock, Jackie, Ellen and Tijen. Thank you so much, friends. We appreciate you hanging out with us. It means the world. You're wonderful. So, so much. Thank you so much. And remember to find us on Discord, find us on Instagram, find us on all the things.

1:53:50 If you have a game that's awesome and I can play, especially if it's around $10, I'll probably play it for the show. At the very least, you'll give it a try. At the very least, I'll give you a thumbs up on Discord. But thank you so much. We are so grateful, and we are so happy you decided to join us today. All right, Goombas, until next time, this is Tom and Andrea reminding you... Ghosts aren't real. And don't skip the cutscenes.