Welcome to Oakwood
Oakwood is an indie first-person Survival Horror made by the two-person team Breaking Dimensions, released in December 2018.Arriving late to the abandoned Oakwood campground where she was supposed to go camping with her friends Zoey, Dylan, Carter, Emily, Liam, and Hannah, what was intended to be an innocent three day vacation suddenly takes a dark turn when player character Madison finds the violent remains of her friends' campsite. As she starts exploring the forest and the dilapidated lodge within the campground immediately after this discovery, she learns the hard way that prehistoric predators now hunt the grounds. From there, Madison finds herself forced to explore the dark depths and ominous history of Oakwood in the search for her missing friends, while also trying to survive the prehistoric creatures hunting her down. Can she save her friends and make it back out alive? The odds do not look high...
Tropes appearing in the game:
- Abandoned Area: The titular Oakwood is an abandoned campground, which became abandoned after a lot of unexplained disappearances happened there. Of course, as it turns out the disappearances are a result of dinosaurs making their home in the area. And despite this, someone is strangely still inviting people to come to the camp every seven years...
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The fourth level of the game takes place in one of these, with a dilophosaurus using it as its lair.
- Action Survivor: Armed with only her wits, the environment around her, and a flashlight, radio, and pair of Night-Vision Goggles discarded by her friends Carter and Dylan, Madison manages to survive the night against a single dilophosaurus, an entire pack of velociraptor, and at least two tyrannosaurus rex...or at least until the end of the game. Madison's six friends are similarly lucky enough to at least survive the entirety of their first night at Oakwood without Madison around before their own luck likewise runs out one by one the very next day/night.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Madison ends up forced to crawl through the air vents of the Oakwood Lodge Community Hall multiple times for the sake of avoiding the pack of raptors stalking the lodge's interior.
- Apocalyptic Log: There are a few of these scattered about the campground. One can be found in the sewer, written by Madison's friend Dylan, and it ends abruptly.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: The dinosaurs featured are based quite heavily off of the ones from Jurassic Park: Tyrannosaurus rex that can only see you if you move, raptors that resemble scaly and oversized Velociraptor (with some feathers along their backs), and frilled Dilophosaurus that spit venom (it's accurately sized, though).
- Compromising Call: In the very last level, Madison is at one point standing very still as a T. rex slowly stomps along past her from outside a cliff enclosed path that she herself needs to later travel through...only for her friend Zoey to end up making one final call on the radio before the beast can fully depart from earshot, forcing Madison to hurriedly run through the path the creature had just left to avoid getting eaten.note
- The Conspiracy: It is indicated by the ending that someone has been luring groups of people to the abandoned campground to sacrifice them to the dinosaurs in the forest from as far back as the 70's, perhaps even longer if the tribal markers at the end are any indication.
- Death of a Child: It is mentioned in a few notes scattered around in the Oakwood lodge that a few kids at a summer camp went missing in the woods. Given what's in those woods, it isn't hard to guess what really happened to those kids. It begins with "om" and ends in "nom nom". And in the event that Madison and her friends are either young children or teenagers themselves, then the deaths of Madison's friends and later Madison herself also qualify.
- Don't Go Into the Woods: Especially when it's inhabited by prehistoric predators.
- Downer Ending: Madison reaches the location of her friend Zoey, the only survivor left at that point besides her, immediately after she's already been eaten by a Tyrannosaurus. She doesn't even have time to fully process the presence of the tyrannosaurus and Zoey's fate before she then turns around to see a pack of raptors surrounding her. And then one of the raptors lunges upon her.
- Down the Drain: The fourth level takes place in a Absurdly Spacious Sewer with a Dilophosaurus patrolling the dark tunnels.
- Dwindling Party: Played with in that the 'party' in question is never actually seen completely together over the course of the entire game. At the beginning, Madison arrives late to the campground a full day after her friends Zoey, Dylan, Carter, Emily, Liam, and Hannah have already arrived and ended up forced to desperately attempt to survive against the dinosaurs at the camp themselves. From there, Liam is heavily implied to be heard screaming over the course of being killed while Madison is in the midst of inspecting the abandoned campsite not too long after she herself has arrived, Carter and Hannah are heavily implied to end up killed off by the raptors inside the Oakwood Lodge Community Hall (with the latter being heard asking if anyone's there after hearing Madison moving around and then letting out a despairing 'HELP' as the raptors find her and subsequently kill her), Emily is heavily implied to die somewhere in the forest behind the lodge (although unlike the rest of the group, there is no evidence of any blood around the site of her potential death), Dylan gets killed and eaten by a dilophosaurus in the sewers not too long after ending up separated from Zoey, and Zoey herself meets her end at the jaws of a tyrannosaurus rex. And all of them die before Madison has any chance to reach any of them before she ultimately joins them in death at the jaws and claws of the raptor pack at the same area where Zoey herself was killed.
- The Ghost: All six of Madison's friends are never seen once throughout the game, with only Zoey and Emily (plus potentially Hannah) even being heard speaking.
- The Hero Dies: Madison is heavily implied to die at the very end of the game due to the story cutting to end credits immediately after she finds herself surrounded by raptors and subsequently gets lunged upon by one of them.
- Infinite Flashlight: Averted. The flashlight Madison acquires in the abandoned trailer in the game's first level ends up running out of battery power in the 4th level. The Night-Vision Goggles she obtains in said 4th level likewise runs out of power within minutes after she's made it through the excess water disposal system to escape the dilophosaurus and sewers altogether.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Dylan and Zoey both end up suffering this fate when their luck runs out. In Dylan's case, he is killed by a dilophosaurus before he can finish writing his Apocalyptic Log. Zoey, meanwhile, is heavily implied by the sound of a t. rex roaring at the very end of her last radio call to Madison interrupting her right before she can finish her last sentence to have ended up eaten by said t. rex before she could finish telling Madison something important.
- Killed Offscreen: All of Madison's friends are killed in this manner throughout the game. The only real signs that they were even there are items they happen to drop upon being killed.
- Late to the Tragedy: Madison doesn't arrive at the Oakwood camp until the very day after her friends have already arrived, just in time to find the remains of their camp. Similarly, she only manages to reach the respective final locations of each of her friends after they've already been tragically killed.
- Living Dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurus rex, velociraptor, and dilophosaurus have somehow managed to thrive within the Oakwood campground past the KT event in this game since at least the 70s, and possibly even earlier if the tribal looking markings at the end of the game are any indication, all the way into 2018.
- Lost World: In a few notes scattered about regarding unidentified animal droppings (which are obviously from the dinosaurs) and mysterious flora growing in the woods, it is speculated that there is a pocket ecosystem somewhere hidden within the depths of the forest. Some notes from a professor and his assistant can be found, detailing how they went looking for this pocket ecosystem. You can find one of these notes in the secret area, written by the assistant — who is clearly freaked out — about how he is aware of something watching him and how he just wants to go home.
- Night-Vision Goggles: Madison ends up using a pair in the sewer level to navigate the pitch black tunnels. It had previously belonged to her friend Carter, and was also previously used by their mutual friend Dylan when he himself ended up exploring the sewer after being separated from their friend Zoey.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: At no point does Zoey ever refer to the dinosaurs as such over the course of her frantic attempts at contacting Madison. She only calls the raptors "things" and the T-Rex "that giant thing". And there's also a couple points where she refers to the creatures as "monsters" instead of dinosaurs.
- Plot Coupon: Carter's radio communication device that Madison acquires in the camp's main lodge building proves useless in that Madison proves unable to actively use it for communication herself, but it does allow her to overhear her friend Zoey's desperate attempts at calling for help while also informing anyone who might be listening of her and Dylan's whereabouts.
- Prehistoric Monster: All three species of dinosaur featured in this game are remorseless and bloodthirsty carnivores that are all too happy to try to chase, kill, and eat Madison on sight.
- Raptor Attack: One of the main threats of the game are a pack of Velociraptor stalking the camp lodge and the forest.
- Run or Die: Since Madison is completely unarmed throughout the entire game, her only chances of survival whenever she ends up encountering the dinosaurs are to run and hope she makes it to safety in time.
- Searching the Stalls: Seemingly invoked, and then ultimately subverted, with the second to last raptor encounter in the camp lodge building. When Madison enters a secondary girls' bathroom in the lodge, the sound of a raptor banging on the door to the restroom's secondary entrance and trying to get in causes her to hurriedly run inside the only stall with a functioning door attached and use it as a hiding place. She hides there just in time to avoid getting immediately caught by the raptor upon its eventual entry, at which point it briefly stalks through the restroom before eventually leaving through the already open entrance Madison had already entered through without trying to see if she was inside the single closed and locked stall.
- Sound-Only Death: One of the first things the player hears while they are looking through the deserted campsite of Madison's friends is the distant sound of someonenote screaming in agony. It isn't too hard to guess what happened. Likewise, the luckless survivor in the camp lodge building (heavily implied to be Madison's friend Hannah) who's briefly heard calling to ask if there's anyone present in the lodge alongside her after she overhears Madison moving around nearby is subsequently only heard subsequently yelling a despairing 'HELP' before she's dragged off and killed by raptors offscreen.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The possibly first of two t. rex Madison encounters in the final stage proves so eager to eat her after her cover's accidentally blown by Zoey that it somehow manages to burst through a wall of rocks obstructing a natural cave entrance she initially crawls under to escape it in order to attempt to continue the chase, only stopping once Madison ends up jumping down a small drop from the cave's back entrance in time to avoid getting trapped by a second rockslide that obstructs said back entrance.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: The tyrannosaurus rex is by far the biggest and most physically powerful dinosaur encountered in the game. And every scene featuring it is 100% Played for Horror.
- Toxic Dinosaur: In the penultimate level, a Dilophosaurus based heavily upon the portrayal from Jurassic Park faces Madison in an Absurdly Spacious Sewer that runs underneath the campsite. If it catches sight of Madison in its lair and she's unable to escape from it, it spews its venom right into her eyes, at which point the players only see the night vision goggles she's wearing at the time flicker out from her POV before then being treated to the game over screen.
- Violation of Common Sense: Not too long after Madison narrowly avoids getting caught by the first duo of raptors she encounters in one of the camp lodge's kitchens, she finds herself face to face with a third raptor that abruptly lunges into view from an open doorway leading out of a different kitchen area. Is she supposed to escape it by running back the way she'd come? Nope! Turns out, she has to turn immediately to the right of where this raptor entered and hurriedly run down the subsequent small corridor to a conveniently located Air-Vent Passageway with incredibly limited time to make it there before the raptor catches her.
- The Voice: Zoey's role in the game in a nutshell. While she is never seen once in the entire story, her voice is heard over Carter's radio multiple times as she increasingly frantically either tries to call for help or at least let anyone who might be listening know her location. Another survivor inside the camp's main lodge building (heavily implied to be Hannah) similarly only gets heard first asking if someone's there after hearing you moving around in the building and then later screaming in terror as the raptors find her and come upon her. And finally, at the very beginning of the game, the players hear a voicemail from Emily informing Madison how she and their other five friends are nearing the camp, plan to leave the key outside the gate for Madison, and that they're all looking forward to her joining them the next day.
- The Voiceless: Madison never speaks, or even makes any vocalizations, the entire game.
- We Need a Distraction: The very last raptor encountered in the camp's lodge building takes up a position literally right by the exit of a kitchen-based Air-Vent Passageway that Madison ends up having to crawl through from the opposite side of the room they're both in. How to get past it? Well the easiest way, as it turns out, is for Madison to activate a microwave nearby the entrance of the Air-Vent Passageway so that the noise it makes upon the timer reaching its end causes the raptor to leave its post in favor of rushing off to attack the microwave.
