The concept album has been around for decades as a way for musicians to focus their work on a central theme. But what if the concept album was actually a video game?
That’s what We Are OFK is trying to achieve, although it’s not the first attempt. Björk’s 2011 Biophilia album came with an interactive app, while Sayonara Wild Hearts (2019) is a music video game that lasts as long as the album and is worth repeating.
With We Are OFK, the OFK team created a visual novel that sets the EP in the background, detailing the story of their fictional band. The music will be officially released, in the style of its anime bandmate Gorillaz. As a visual novel, it offers endearing teen drama and a welcome presentation, but as an interactive music game, it disappoints.
In five weekly episodes, the story follows four young Los Angeles-based musicians who form OFK. Itsumi is a sweet, innocent classical pianist; Luca is an egocentric, aspiring songwriter. Carter is their smart and mysterious outsider friend; Jey is a producer with more mature concerns about her career (she turns out to be the most relevant to me).
Each episode lasts about an hour and ends with an interactive music video. It’s here that We Are OFK falters: minimal video interactions are so simple that they don’t affect the music in any way. Essentially, it just lets you do things with your fingers while listening to music, like pop bubbles or collect cats. It adds very little to the experience, so it feels gimmicky. Sayonara Wild Hearts uses unique visuals and interactions to punctuate the music, Rez provides musical feedback for its gameplay, and We Are OFK provides some simple controller taps and your toes.
However, the music itself is good! The bubbly dream-pop vibe is suitable for a teenage story, and the bubbly synth is matched with the clean pastel artwork. So far, Follow/Unfollow is the only official release, a bittersweet song about young love with references to social media, gaming, and appropriately catchy hooks. It epitomizes everything that we are OFK.
In terms of story, we are OFK full of teenage angst, emotions and heavy sighs. OFK themselves are thirsty, misunderstood 20s full of dreams and self-doubt as they try to leave a lasting musical legacy. They’re balancing day jobs (again, games!) with their passion for music, their relationships, and parental expectations. Sad Boy Overthinking is related. It sometimes feels similar to the Netflix animation Carol and Tuesday, or Life is Strange: The Music Industry Edition, just without the supernatural.
Much of the story takes place in the way Gen Z communicates inwardly: texting. It’s really kind of annoying that these characters are overly philosophical about life in group chats or lyrics when they’re not sending each other drunk or horny text messages full of cute expressions. The references to Cinnamongram, Twibber, and Vidworld give a sense of parallel reality, but the video game nods are more interesting: there’s a Tabemon character named Pikanood, which makes me laugh out loud, and I appreciate the JRPG references. There are even characters called Biggs and Wedge.
It’s fun to read through the dialogues and choose dialogue options, but there’s no way to change the soap opera. You can’t make a choice and you can’t interfere in the careers of these young people. Instead, they mostly passively watch when they err, but somehow still release some catchy tunes.
It raises the question: what exactly does the game add to the music? It certainly offers a delightful story that adds depth to an otherwise frothy pop song. The music was the focal point that reflected the mood of that episode. But as a game, its appeal is limited. I think we’re still some way from virtual pop bands that really break into the mainstream through gaming.
The game’s greatest success, though, is its realism. LGBT+ is doing very well, with different roles normalizing queer relationships. The developers’ commitment to authentic 20s reference points is commendable. With so many musical stories pushing songwriting and acoustic instruments to something more “real” than making pop music, the secret to success here is simple: be yourself.
