Go watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off now. Go on. I will wait. OK, now I need you to binge The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. Is everything done? NOuch you’re ready for Mixtape.
Mixtape is the latest title from Annapurna Interactive, the indie art publisher du jour, with developers Beethoven and Dinosaur taking inspiration from the ’80s vibe of John Hughes films. It means coming of age, rebellion, coming out, talking on camera, jokes and sarcasm, and a real look at what makes this time in your life so definitive. Oh, and it also has a killer soundtrack. Obviously.
The trio you’re about to get to know – quite intimately in some cases – is made up of the driven and pessimistic Sophie, the rebellious Cassandra, and the lovable slacker Slater. They’re just three American teenagers living in rural America in the mid-90s, doing what American countercultural cool kids of the time did: listening to music, getting drunk at parties, kissing the wrong person, skateboarding dangerously down the main road, and breaking into abandoned theme parks. They try to make the most of their last night together before Sophie flies to New York to become the music supervisor they always dreamed of, leaving her friends and her hometown behind.
As this final day together frames the events of Mixtape, you are treated to a series of flashbacks and memories at different times, exploring their homes and hangouts that spark journeys to key events and moments in their friendship. You’ll see Sophie and Slater dating before Cass arrives, a bittersweet view of their own friendship without a third party around, you’ll play softball with Cassandra, as she explains how detached she feels and has no idea what she’s supposed to do with her life, before seeing Cassandra betray Sophie by dating someone else. It’s perfectly weighted and exceptionally relevant – it’s the end of childhood, the end of adolescent freedom, and it’s at once smart, sharp, poignant and utterly joyful.
Each moment is presented as a track on Sophie’s mixtape – well, a mix CD on the Discman she has constantly attached to her belt. Beethoven and Dinosaur did a great job of channeling Ferris Bueller, or John Cusack in High Fidelity, in these moments, with Sophie explaining the origin of the piece, what it means to her, and then letting it unfold as you race down the streets on your skateboard, or as the backbone of the main memory you remember.
It oscillates between the introspective acoustic of BJ Thomas, the iconic 80s with Devo, grunge and alternative with Silverchair and The Jesus Lizard. To say more would spoil the surprise. There are some seriously deep cuts here, with at least two of the tracks on my all-time favorites list making me hit my jaw on the floor and the biggest smile spread across my face when they started playing. It’s not a mainstream soundtrack, but it is, as you’d hope, pure class.
The narrative is often played in a Telltale or DontNod style, checking points of interest in each area to understand the characters’ ideas, hopes, desires, likes and dislikes. Sophie certainly has a lot of dislikes; his harsh, critical outlook colors the entirety of Mixtape with a pleasantly world-weary attitude, but tempered by his focused, hopeful plans for the future.
Sometimes you’ll be exploring, the next you’ll be playing mini-games, like skipping stones across a lake, painting a door, or changing the batteries in an old-fashioned handheld. The mixtape often feels like an interactive music video, and these dreamlike sequences are extremely engaging, whether they’re floating and bouncing across meadows or rewinding in black and white after suffering a painful blow to a friendship. There’s no real goal other than to play through every moment while the music plays or the characters speak – aside, perhaps, from an unforgettable visit to a video store – but the narrative momentum and level of interest the developers have generated in these characters will pull you in dramatically.
I love the stop-motion aesthetic of the indie animation house that the team has created. It feels a lot like a more grounded sibling to South of Midnight, and you might also find a spot of Wes Anderson at work, especially in the game’s deadpan, more surreal moments. It has a real tactility that’s incredibly difficult to generate in a video game, and it adds to the reality of this pocket of suburbia. It’s probably no surprise that the visual design and music are out of this world when Beethoven & Dinosaur’s latest game, The Artful Escape, married the two so well. The difference here lies in the personal feeling of Mixtape, built on emotional foundations in which everyone can find some truth.
Sophie, like Ferris before her, is something of a natural philosopher. Of all his wisdom throughout Mixtape, the one that rings truest remains: “Nobody remembers shit.” Adolescent life can at the moment seem like a catastrophe, punctuated by moments of glorious abandonment, but we erase the negative aspects. Mixtape is a game that highlights all these glories, revels in them, turns them inside out and finds beauty, joy and comedy among the most painful. These “greatest hits” are what they bring together via Mixtape, cataloging the highlights – with Sophie’s musical selection holding it all together – and like any great album, each one supports and fuels the next.
