Popular Reviews of Ostium Podcast

This fiction podcast is often mentioned in the same breath as Limetown and Black Tapes. Indeed it is an example of the conspiracy/horror story so popular amongst fiction podcasts. The male protagonist is deliberately an "everyman". He works a mind-numbing office job, has no appreciable social or family life, and finds himself addicted to an odd online game. He hops onto a mystery glitch in the game; this is attributed to the ineffable siren call of the eponymous town, but he doesn’t seem to have much to lose. Unbelievably, the writers of Ostium chose to go with the narrative of a chosen/special one for the male protagonist, whose first reaction to meeting a badass woman is "Does she like me?". Why are we still entertaining such stereotypes? The town has "some special connection" with him - exact nature unknown, naturally, but certainly he has few emotional stakes in risking his - and her - life exploring the town. What was ultimately the most frustrating for me was her validation with the "maybe he's not like other guys" stance. I would rather listen to her perspective: her motivation may be clichéd, but at least I can understand its importance to this character. As you can tell, I bounced hard off this podcast. There is better, my friends. There is better.

Whats behind the doors?I loved this show from it's inception, stumbing randomaly across it in my podcast feed.Sadly lost track of it for a year after some phone problems, but glad when I rediscovered it and could devour all the new episodes.I also am left wondering what will come next. Keep up the good work!

Awesome, so good it's one of the few I support on Patreon. Looking forward to next seasons!

Just when you think you know what's going on, there's a new twist. When explaining it to others, I say, "if you were a fan of Lost, then you'll like Ostium." It's a story that has you expecting it to go somewhere, and then shows you a completely new and unexected perspective. The style appeals to my own internal dialog way of telling a story.This is as much about "what" is going on as it is "why." At least if you let it be.

The first three seasons of this podcast were a great marathon listen of mystery and intrigue. I'm looking forward to the next season after the crossovers are done.

High recommendations made me very excited to check Ostium out, and the premise was absolutely perfect for me. Abandoned town, mysterious doors, unending number of possibilities. Yet Ostium fell flat for me and as such, is probably the most disappointed I've ever been by an audio drama.I have never been a fan of the single narrator format but it is particularly bad here. One voice actor and a seemingly-endless monologue usually exposes the lack of budget and production time. It also makes listening a chore; I would rather listen to events happen than being told that they did. Ostium makes matters worse with such a dull and dawdling script in which tiny, unimportant details are fixated upon and the story events are made to sound bland. The words sound like they are being read directly off a script and the voices sound utterly uninspired. There is little to no emotion expressed and I eventually just grew bored of listening.Some single narrator shows will at least use sound effects and music to heighten the atmosphere but Ostium's sound design is poor. The background is usually often deadly silent and lacking realism. Sure, there may be the occasional creak of a door or an object being placed but not nearly enough to bring the world to life.There are good ideas here but Ostium would have been much better with a small cast exchanging dialogue rather than one character blandly recalling events in hindsight. Each to their own but I'm really surprised how highly thought of the show is given its flaws. I have heard many far better shows.Also to note, the episode feed is an abomination. Whereas most series will simply have a trailer, a complete sequence of episodes and maybe some bonus content for each season, Ostium's feed us like a jumbled garage full if content dumped haphazardly. Bonus patreon content, director commentaries, announcements, remixed versions of previous releases and even other shows are just randomly scattered around. As of writing this there are 198 releases on the Ostium feed and yet the series has only 59 episodes. Over two thirds of the content is not part of the actual core show. Some may enjoy the behind the scenes stuff or the showcasing of other podcasts but to me it just looks unprofessional and messy.

What's behind the doors? This show is wonderful and you are not sure if it's purely metaphoric for Jacks mind, or if it really is "just" a weird town. Great voice acting and really well written. This show has multiple story lines, which make it multi dimensional and I look forward to follow the story.

Marathoning Seasons 1, 2, and 3 was an intense experience for me filled with so many feelings, unexpected twists and turns, and a story that instantly managed to grab my right from the first episode.

I really love this podcast. The story follows Jake who discovers a weird town while playing the game Geoguessr. He travels to the town and finds a strange place with many doors that open to other places and times. The story is so well written and the voice actors are just superb.

The idea is great but unfortunately this one doesnt do it for me. It is kind of flat and going through the doors and doing what they do somehow just feels so irrelevant. The „side episodes“ just add to this impression and it was quite a pain for me to try to keep up with the main plot untill I decide to stop this one and start with a different podcast. One of the very few I didnt finish.

I've listened to 2 episodes so far and while it's an interesting concept the narrator is bland and rambles extensively sometimes reiterating his point or a description 2 or 3 times. He just goes on and on. They need to stop describing every little thing they do and every little thing they come across. It's got potential but needs some serious polishing.

A great listen for anyone who loved "Lost" and is a fan of tangled mysteries. A great binge listen show, it really hooks at the outset and doesn't let go....ever....cause there's always some angle, or some perspective, or something new to consider and devour.

Stumbling upon this podcast and absolutely fell in love. I roped in my husband and we listen to it nightly before bed.

If you're into sci fi fiction with mystery & intrigue & can keep up with the twists & turns (don't try to predict anything, the less expectations, the better), support this show !!!

One original idea is being milked, until the cow runs dry. Worth listening to for the unique feeling it gives you.

I really wanted to like this podcast, but after episode 7 I couldn't take the horrible voice acting and soundtrack anymore. The premise sounded so interesting, but I could have found a better performance from bored teenagers being forced to read Shakespeare out loud. When the second character is introduced her dialog with the main character is unbearably awkward, forced, and clichéd. The soundtrack is passable until episode 7 when the repetitive upbeat backing track is at complete odds with the scene and dialog making the scene even more unbelievable. That was the last straw. I would have rated it one star if not for the interesting premise. Sorry, just not for me.

For a mostly single narrator driven podcast, Ostium is a compelling and enjoyable audio drama! As a huge fan and player of the Myst games back in the mid 1990's, which the podcast creator mentions as a dorect inspiration, this podcast has a similar mystery quest and isolation adventure feel. Really enjoying this podcast so far!!

I recommend plunging into Ostium with an open mind. If you go in expecting just one thing (like super serious drama) you may be disappointed, but it has so much to offer — dorky humor, fantastical concepts, WILD plot twists (there is a reason so many people have compared this to Lost!) — and there is SO much backlog. I recently carved out a huge chunk of time to binge all six seasons back to back and I had a blast. I can tell the creators poured so much love into this story and I kind of never want it to end. Even the season that was comprised wholly of crossover episodes with other audio dramas was tremendous fun, not least because I’ve listened to many of them.