A mixtape is a musical portrait of a young person’s life

To play Mixtape it’s like playing a high school video game. Children talk about the meaning of life with theme songs that can be played as they walk around the room. She is worried about looking good at a big party. They are busy getting alcohol. But underneath all these tropes is a very rewarding story about desire, friendship, and teenage frustration – and it’s all supported by a great soundtrack full of great vibes.

Mixtape takes place during a summer day. You play as Stacey Rockford, a music lover and high school graduate. Rockford is leaving his sleepy California suburb for New York City the next morning to pursue a career as a music manager, and he and his two best friends – the down-to-earth Van Slater and the rebellious Cassandra Morino – are leaving just one day before the big party in the evening.

Rockford, Slater, and Cassandra really feel like three teenagers. For one thing, most games are spent hanging out in their bedrooms and wandering around. They talk to each other about music and life, their future and dating, and whatever else is on their minds, all with the soaring confidence of teenagers who also know they don’t know what they’re doing. Rockford especially likes to show off his knowledge of music, often breaking the fourth wall to speak directly to the camera about his current music selection (which includes songs from legends like Portishead, Iggy Pop, and The Cure).

Meat of Mixtape he’s wandering around like Rockford looking at various things, like a CD or a map of the planned tour, and listening to the trio’s comments. Think of nostalgic games that run slowly like Life is strange or I have gone to their home – Mixtape they have the same speed. Sometimes, looking at an item will take you back to a previous playable area, and this will have some variation or mechanics. It was so specific – mixing slushies in a convenience store, drunkenly stumbling around the video store, taking pictures with a device like the Game Boy Camera and entering dinosaur fun – that it always reminded me of my teenage years in the countryside.

As the story progresses, the game adds layers of imagination to each character. Rockford, after persuading Slater to play one of his songs, asks him why he makes music, which makes me realize that Rockford, for all he knows about music, doesn’t play anything. Cassandra struggles with a desire for freedom as a way to push back against her oppressive parents. Slater, despite looking dead, proves to be a very kind and thoughtful person. Even Cassandra’s father, a party-loving cop who serves as the game’s arch-nemesis, gets a moment of light.

A lot of Mixtape it is, on the face of it, ordinary. At one point, I spent 10 minutes skipping stones – the shortest amount of time in a game that I completed in about four hours. That nature, however, is what made the game so real. My high school experience as a member of a gang didn’t involve any kind of shenanigans Mixtapethree are leaving. But I still connected with the story of a group of kids hanging out, looking back on the time they spent together, and nervously looking ahead.

^{Mixtape now available on Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.}