Gorillaz for the Twitch generation is something I’m still not sure I need. Still, I guess that’s what I’m getting playing Team OFK’s interactive visual novel We Are OFK — a story about a four-person virtual band navigating life as creatives in Los Angelis while creating their debut EP.
Virtual bands aren’t exactly new phenomena. I mean, it’s hard to believe that the idea of creating a band without bodies evolved out of a 1958 studio “mistake” where an audio engineer in California sped up his voice, thus making Alvin and the Chipmunks and effectively ruining Christmas from that point forwards.
In the sixties, The Archies leapt from comics and convinced us that all you need is a good girl and some candy — a message that I guess was very much of its time.
Or finally, as I stated at the top of this review, in the late nineties bored British musician Damon Albarn used modern stage technology and some personal creativity to blur the lines between real music and virtual performance. Points if you see what I did there!
So OFK has company. The band and the game come to us from the mind of Teddy Dief, who is practically indie game royalty now for their contributions to Hyper Light Drifter. But it’s truly brought to life by Team OFK — a large collective of creatives backed by a community that has come to love and respect them, one-half of the New Zealand band The Naked and Famous… oh, and a bunch of money from Sony and Sony Masterworks.
The result is a game that has sparse gaming aspects to it that move along with an episodic story about what it’s like to be on the hunt for a life successful and stable.
Things are sometimes hard to “Follow/Unfollow”
As of writing, We Are OFK tells its story in four episodes varying in length from 42-62 minutes — with a fifth episode coming September 8th.
Everything plays out as a very diverse set of stories that are very much informed by the life of 20-somethings in L.A. right now.
There’s lots of commentary on doing something you hate as a day job while silently slipping your passion projects into the mix, finding love on dating apps instead of IRL… wait, are dating apps IRL? There’s way too much talk of boba and yogurt-based alcoholic drinks. Oh, and things like crunch in video games, working hard versus having dumb luck and networking to make a living find their way into the mix.
For an interactive experience based on hooking you to its story, We Are OFK does a fine job of being an origin story for the band.
However, I love the parts of individual exploration more than the band. Together they are a cringe-inducing group of Netflix romance movie characters. Alone they are strong individuals who explore relatable human conditions.
Each episode focuses on one of the four members of the band dealing with the hooks keeping them from totally being a member of the band.
Itsu is a pioneer who escaped her family restaurant and small town to chase her dreams in the big city. But she’s held back by missing home and ironically worrying about failing and having to go back.
Itsu’s childhood friend and co-worker at Riot… I mean Leviathan Games, Luca, isn’t motivated to take care of himself or explore the world of singing and songwriting, so he’s settled into being bullied, overworking and writing words that aren’t his own.
Jey is Luca’s former music TA and a production wunderkind. She’s just moved from New York and is trying to escape a family and a culture that misunderstands her. She’s finding relative success, but in doing so, she’s creating a misunderstanding for those around her.
Carter is Luca’s roommate. They are a calm and collected individual who always appears to be working on something new. It seems that they have it all figured out, and they are unbothered by the world, but their problem is that they need to learn to let go.
To borrow the name of the band’s single, there’s a lot here that I’m finding easy to follow. However, there’s a lot I wish I could just unfollow. While characters are richly crafted and realistically conflicted on their own, OFK as a whole can, at times, feel cultivated and cringy in the way they interact with one another and the broader world around them.
I find myself easily relating to Itsu, as I’ve also been motivated by escaping my small town… and I’ve been hung up on an ex at times. Her story is on the weaker side because it also serves as exposition for the rest of the band… oh, and it’s also incredibly cringy at times, but I feel close to her.
I’ve never really felt like an imposter, and I was not at all lucky on dating apps, so Luca feels kind of alien to me. His trait of being unsure of himself and self-deprecating is one I understand, but it plays a second chair in his overall desire to be husbanded up and secure.
Jey is very much a character informed by a culture of family demanding perfection and success, which is not something I’m entirely versed in. As someone who has grown out of a family that seemingly still can’t believe I’m married, living in the big city and semi-self-sufficient, I never felt truly connected to Jay. I respect the ideas that her episode expresses, but the whole time I was watching it, I found myself yelling at her to just come clean with her family and friends.
Player-controlled dialogue most often comes in the form of text messages or in-person chats where you can choose a 10-second timer or unlimited time. Still, even that isn’t an entire decision because none of what you choose matters ultimately. It may change how a character talks or texts with you. But at the end of each episode, the story has to march on to its conclusion. And so it will begin to bend all of your choices back into its overall narrative structure.
That model feels incredibly stifling for a game made by a bunch of diverse creatives.
This whole visual novel serves as a vehicle for promoting OFK’s five singles. So each episode features a song break closer to wrap things up, add commentary on each band member’s unique condition and a little more interactivity to the mix.
I can’t deny that the songs are great, and the music videos are creative, but I still find myself craving something more — something like rhythm gaming elements. Clicking or dragging my mouse to add sand to a music video or boxes around stars isn’t the interactivity I’m looking for.
OFK’s Unreal Artwork
Let’s get back to what works: the environment.
I’ve been to L.A. twice in my 30 years on this planet so far, and I’ve strongly disliked it both times. So I will transparently admit to being an unreliable authority on the Los Angeleno culture that We Are OFK cashes in on.
You are given the option to have decisions on a 10-second timer or unlimited time, but even that isn’t a full decision because none of what you chose ultimately matters. It may change how a character talks or texts with you. But at the end of each episode, the story has to march on to its conclusion. And so it will begin to bend all of your choices back into its overall narrative structure.
For a game made by a bunch of diverse creatives, that model feels incredibly stifling.
This whole visual novel serves as a vehicle for promoting OFK’s five singles. So each episode features a song break closer to wrap things up, add commentary on each band member’s unique condition and a little more interactivity to the mix.
I can’t deny that the songs are great and the music videos are creative, but I still find myself craving something more. Something like rhythm gaming elements. Clicking or dragging my mouse to add sand to a music video or boxes around stars isn’t the interactivity I’m looking for.
OFK’s Unreal Artwork
Let’s get back to what works: the environment.
I’ve been to L.A. twice in my 30 years on this planet so far, and I’ve strongly disliked it both times. So I will transparently admit to being an unreliable authority on the Los Angeleno culture that We Are OFK cashes in on.
We Are OFK presents an L.A. pretty on the eyes with lots of pastel colours and fuzzy textures. When paired with an original soundtrack from Omniboi that captures the tonal colours of the game’s Unreal Engine pop art well, it’s moving.
Aside from a few visual stutters mainly confined to the music videos, We Are OFK is a feat for the eyes, with characters benefiting from the depth of Unreal’s foundations in Flash.
L.A. and its various environments can at times feel like window dressing backgrounds, but I apricated the group hangout locations of Carter and Luca’s house, EDM bar Katasie and bubble tea parlour Bobapocalypse as calming and grounding presences that feature unique themes. The latter features an absolute banger that rivals “Every Day is Great at Your Junes” for bop on your brain status.
Merely taking in the minute-long episode title sequence will likely convince you of how well-put-together We Are OFK is aesthetical. The smooth day-to-night transition at 45 seconds pretty much carries through the whole game. There’s no denying this game is a looker.
We Are OFK is fully voice-acted, with some big names like Erika Ishii and Yuri Lowenthal dropping by to add some life. And it is quite a lively vocal universe where characters speak with emotion you’re sure to feel. I’ll credit Dief and their friends for bringing this game to life through the use of their voices. Primarily because I don’t think this game would work as a partially-voiced experience. I’ve enjoyed how We Are OFK paces itself in terms of voice, story and environment, which I’ll get into later. I’ve already talked about how the writing can, at times, feel like it’s comprised of stuff no human says, which is a shame when you are listening to a cast that’s so present in today’s media landscape.
At 30, I realize I’m on the cusp of being this game’s demographic, and so a lot of what’s voiced speaks to me and equally as much doesn’t. As I’ve said before, I find that We Are OFK’s voice resonates best when it speaks as the individual members of the band and not the collective group, which feels… virtual.
This takes me to my final thought.
Sony-sponsored indie
The things I’ve struggled with most here are the messages this game leaves you with.
Team OFK wants you desperately to feel like this is an indie game about an indie band that’s slugging it out in the trenches and dealing with how to become successful. Yet, it does very little to grapple with the fact that it’s an interactive ad for a Sony-sponsored band. The team behind this game is already wildly successful. The band’s debut EP is coming out on Masterworks, which I can tell you from my days a lifetime ago back in indie music journalism, is literally part of Sony’s Pepsi to Universal’s Coke. One-third of OFK’s musical composition crew is Thom Powers of the Naked and Famous, which is no small band… especially not to those of us who grew up playing Amped and only had “Young Blood” on repeat.
Now, this isn’t to lessen where Team OFK have come from because lots of the team had done their time in the trenches. But it becomes harder to appreciate the product being truly indie when it’s not. But I will give credit to Team OFK for acknowledging how large the scope of this project is in the credits of each episode, where they appear genuinely thankful. So let’s call this what it is: a Sony-sponsored project that’s provided for a team of independent creators. Come to think of it that sounds similar to the messages of this game.
But who knows, this could be the TikTok and Twitch generation’s “Feel Good Inc.”
The Gorillaz’s seminal song is one of the 2000s most recognized tunes… and every bass player’s second learned song after “Debaser” by Pixies… it was mine, at least. While “Feel Good Inc” sounds on the surface as though it’s a meaningless song about sex and windmills, Damon Albarn has been open over the years with saying it’s anchored in understanding that his days in Britpop band Blur were him being at everyone’s beck and call… oh, and not to mention this vices that go with being a rock star. It’s about the sex, drugs and rock and roll we saw in the media of the time. It was also ahead of its time. It hit number two on the British “Top 40” charts and 14 in America — charting the first time a song of Albarn’s hit the “Top 40” at all.
The thing that “Feel Good Inc” work is that it’s unforgivably Albarn doing what he did with Blur on his terms and with a musical style that spoke to a generation of late 20-somethings who were in the clubs and the mass-media music market like himself. However, take a look at the comments or people’s blogs and you’ll see it resonates with people who can’t remember when it opened an hour of requested music video’s on MTV. I’m not sure OFK and this game have the same staying power, and won’t end up being to video games what The Archies are to comics. It’s too routed in what 20-somethings today are into.
Verdict
We Are OFK has me conflicted. Reviewing visual novels always seems hard than reviewing traditional games because it requires shifting the commentary of a review. Not to mention they so heavily depend on the personal emotional connection they make with their audience. So, on the one hand, I think there’s some great character exploration and social commentary here that’s, unfortunately, hidden behind some cheesy dialogue and a heaping slice of interaction that exists for the sake of making things interactive. For fans of the band or those looking for five-plus hours of pensive thought on what it means to be young and conflicted, this is something you’ll want to check out. But this is also an experience most gamers looking for a physical challenge aren’t likely to vibe with.
[A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]
Reviewed on: PC
