TLDR; If you like character-driven stories with meaningful psychological and emotional impact like Homestuck; ARG games like Shipwrecked 64; the feeling that every time you stop in your tracks and pay attention to the environment, a conversation, a background image, a voice, etc, you discover something new about the whole puzzle like in Blue Prince; if you're an artist and love to draw and do plenty of fanart of your favorite characters; if you like theory crafting, there are hundreds and hundreds of theories and conclusions you can make; if any of those things check, then this is the right place for you. All you need to do is give it a chance. It will slowly make its way into your heart, like a parasite.
This game is a hidden gem that definitely needs to be known by more people. oneway.exe is a callback to the early days of the internet, when things were simpler, you had a small group of friends who you felt really understood each other and it was you and them against the world, specifically if you liked some niche things and felt nobody else could GET IT like you do, except those friends.
This is a videogame and can be enjoyed as such, but it's also an ARG and encourages you to interact with the real life part of it. Doing so is not necessarily mandatory but it's a very rewarding experience and makes you learn more about this whole world building.
Before jumping right in, be aware that the game relies on reading conversations, so reading and paying attention is an important part of it. If you absolutely hate reading, then it's probably not for you. But if you're someone who doesn't entirely hate it, then I encourage you to give it a try. It's not like it has huge walls of text, and it's not a visual novel either, so it shouldn't be that off-putting.
With that being said, the game has a huge emphasis on character-driven narrative. We get to know some characters, and from then we try to understand what's going on with the game. What's it that we're being shown? Who are we? What happened to these people? Who are they really? Are they really just a group of friends? Is there anything they're hiding from each other? What are their relationships? What's happening on their minds? These are all questions that you will end up asking yourself sooner or later. And believe it or not, that's part of the charm. The characters are very well written, they have actual depth in their personalities, typing quirks, color codes, etc. If you're a fan of Homestuck you'll feel right at home, since it pretty much emulates that sense of getting to know online friends with a deep psychological development.
Some of the things that really stand out are the beautiful art style, the music, the presentation, and the old school internet aesthetic. The way the characters interact and their opinions on different 2000s internet types of horror tropes and mysteries are nostalgic and they do offer some kind of interesting points of view about how they were consumed and how they themselves saw them.
The entire game is presented in seven different sections, each one divided into two different parts. A thematic "Escape Room", each with its own different presentation and gameplay mechanics, with a charismatic in-universe horror character, each taken from a different kind of horror theme, be it old cursed chain email, amusement park animatronics, found footage, collaborative internet horror mythos (think about SCP and Backrooms entities), and more. After finishing said Escape Room you're met with a computer desktop section where you solve puzzles involving reading files, digging in folders and learning about the main characters who made this cursed videogame.
Then there's the ARG. This involves navigating different websites restored by The Restoration Team. They serve as a group of outsiders from the game's perspective who knew or learned about the main characters and are trying to restore the websites they worked on together. They seem to be working only with the intention of archiving and preserving the story without any subjective opinions. Or are they? You can interact with the members of the Restoration Team directly on their Discord server, and get to know them better. Because trust me, they're as interesting as the main characters in the game! Why are they doing it? How is it that they have access to the old websites of the main characters if they were deleted? What relationship did they have with them? And are they really impartial about the events that unfolded? Also, they don't seem to be aware of the events of the game, or that the game is actually playable by us. Ever heard of The Beginner's Guide?
oneway.exe introduces a whole universe worth exploring. From the main characters of the game known as Trio8, to the whole group of entities and horrors they reference in their videogame, and then The Restoration Team. Three sets of characters that deserve to be explored on their own, but that also seem to be related to each other in a very deep way.
You can seriously make lots and lots of theories and they all make sense, not because the story is very loose, but because the characters and the world are so interesting and deep that anything could work. I still believe that there's a single narrative truth, that we can all try to find out and reach together, because there's still more to come, as the game is still being updated even after launch.
The community is very warm and welcoming and the developers work tirelessly to create a product of high quality that can be really enjoyed. If you have bugs to report or any suggestions they're very open to listen and learn to make the game better, because it's mostly a passion project. It's a love letter to the genre, to the ARG, to games, to writing, and to all of us that are willing to give it a try. This is an indie project that in no way is trying to be cryptic or niche, but that somehow you know that no big company will ever try to make an experience like this. This project was born out of love and pure dedication. And I'm glad I purchased it on a whim without ever knowing what it was about.
One of the developers also made a create-a-website website called MyTekton where ANYONE can create their own page with interactive elements and templates without having to code at all. It also works as a kind of social network where you can follow other pages. It's well worth checking even if you're not a fan of the game since it's free.
