Mixtape is a narrative adventure game developed by Beethoven & Dinosaur and published by Annapurna Interactive. Set during the last night of high school, it follows three friends as they revisit memories connected to music, youth and leaving home. The game combines story scenes with playable vignettes, including skating, parties, and other moments, all framed by a licensed soundtrack.
Beethoven & Dinosaur has crafted the finest example of a narrative driven, interactive experience, melding elements from both film and video games as art forms, with a killer soundtrack at its core, Mixtape is a smash hit.
Mixtape is one of those games that will either captivate you from the very first frame and leave you with a genuine sense of admiration, or come across as a boring project with minimal interactivity that doesn't deserve the press's rave reviews. Which category you fall into - you'll just have to find out through experience.
Mixtape, from The Artful Escape studio Beethoven & Dinosaur, is a delight. It's a celebration of teenage life that makes its point, aptly, just as a teenager would.
While much of the industry seems intent on recycling formulas and chasing after others' successes, games like Mixtape remind us of something essential: that there are still video games capable of making us feel something different. Of moving us. Of transporting us to another moment in our lives. Of making us breathe a little easier. And in times like...
Lovely, beautiful, heartwarming, and unable to convince me it needed my input as a player at all.
