Getting around the Outer Banks is easy — if you know the right people. See, life in the OBX all depends on which side of the island you’re from. Netflix Stories: Outer Banks is driven by the choices you make. Are you hanging in the lap of luxury with the Kooks on the north side of Kildare Island? (While the Outer Banks is a real location, Kildare Island is a fictional town.) Or do you prefer doing whatever you want, whenever you want? If so, the island’s south side will be more your thing, and you’ll become fast friends with the Pogues. Use this guide to sidestep the “touron” label and help get in where you fit in.

Love against all else

The new game Netflix Stories: Outer Banks is, at its heart, a tale of adventure and forbidden love. Along the way to finding your dad and hundreds of millions in lost gold, you’ll fall hard for one of John B’s best friends. Will it be Kiara, JJ, or Pope? That’s up to you.

Unlike other Netflix Stories games, in Outer Banks there aren’t any on-screen meters that indicate your standing with any particular character. Nor is there an easy way to see how the rest of the cast thinks about you. You’ll have to trust your instincts when “talking” to the cast. When you’re wooing your boo, you’ll have to pay attention to how they react to your dialogue choices, listen for audio cues, and watch for changes in the game’s user interface. Kind of like real life. Well, except sometimes you’ll see hearts magically appear when you’re talking to your crush.

We recommend making a choice about who your object of affection will be early on and sticking with it. John B’s strict “no Pogue-on-Pogue macking” rule can be bent — you don’t want to date around in such a small group and cause drama when lives are at stake. There are enough people on Kildare Island with the Pogues in their crosshairs already.

And if you can’t pick just one crush? Well, you can always play again, making different decisions about life and love while being chased down by Kildare’s criminal element. You can replay the game one chapter at a time, too. Meaning, if your choices didn’t go exactly how you wanted, you won’t have to restart the entire game from the beginning. 

Custom closet

Like the other Netflix Stories games, in this mobile version of Outer Banks you can outfit your character pretty much however you’d like. Wanna rock more of a Pogue-ish look for your first pre-storm rager? Maybe avoid picking anything with a collar and buttons. Maybe you’d rather try going undercover, fitting in with Sarah Cameron and the rest of the Kooks to see if you can learn some inside info. A striped seersucker number would help an awful lot. You won’t have to stay in the same duds for long, either. Every couple of scenes gives you the chance to switch up your outfit.

Cinematic storytelling

Netflix Stories: The Outer Banks switches up more than the ways you interact with potential paramours. Now, during key dialogue scenes, the camera zooms way back to give a cinematic view of the story as it plays out. For example, when the HMS Pogue suddenly stops short because it hits something in the water, and John B wants to investigate, the screen is overtaken by a wide overhead shot of the boat and a pared back dialogue interface. Sometimes, as you’re speeding away, the camera cuts to a view of the helm with the Atlantic splashing over the sides as you and the rest of the Pogues make it to safety.

Big moments

If you’re familiar with the series this game is based on, it’ll be hard to catch you off guard. However, Netflix Stories: Outer Banks does play with the show’s lore in interesting ways to accommodate for the fact that you’re playing as John B’s long-lost half-sibling. 

Maybe the biggest narrative tweak — aside from the whole estranged sibling subplot — is that Big John’s heirloom compass arrives back in the OBX when you step off the bus and onto Kildare Island. That’s right, this time the Pogues don’t find it while exploring the Grady-White’s sunken hull. And it turns out that it’s not the only compass. 

It’ll be you climbing the Redfield Lighthouse with John B, infiltrating a Kooks party in a historical disguise. You and your love interest will investigate Scooter’s room at the Seahorse Hotel, too. You’ll be one of the suspects when Sheriff Peterkin is gunned down. You’ll chase down Ward Cameron before he can flee, after framing you for Peterkin’s death and taking off in his plane for the Bahamas with his daughter and Kook princess, Sarah, by his side. 

So if you’ve ever wished you were hunting down sunken treasure, running from real life pirates, and doing it all on a freewheeling island of haves and have-nots, you’ll be smiling an awful lot in this game. 

Check out all the games on Netflix right now.