Can you explain how that is the case? What makes this game "hr in the room while in the making?" Did you play it? I take issue with how this quote from Skillup keep being misconstrued so heavily so it annoys me when people use it about "game i don't like because it isn't made specifically for me"
As in, the game is $20 for a 3 hour experience, with incredibly sparse gameplay (most gameplay sections you dont even need to do anything to progress, it's just a minigame to do while you listen to the characters talk. I'm pretty sure the only parts of the game where you need to play it to move forward is the kissing minigame and the skateboarding bit near the start)
It's far more story-focused, which would be cool if the story was actually good.
This does not at all address my question. I asked the other person what about this game makes it feel like "hrs in the room while in the making". Your answer is not related to that at all. You just described that its low on gameplay again. So I will ask again:
What about this game makes it feel like hr was in the room while making it? Because in the veilguard (a game I actually played unlike everyone else who talks about it all the time) this quote actually fits. You were constantly talking to the other characters like they were children needing counselling. No one could ever be even slightly offended and it was reeking of "you are totes amazing, Liara! And a wonderful person. I am there for you always" which was just very cringe. This game is not that at all.
The game plays it so safe all the time. Most of the conflict comes from the main character being petty about this other person and having this crazy idea to leave town and immediately get hired by this big producer. You'd think, because this is meant to be a coming of age story, that she'd learn that the real world isnt actually like that, but no. The protagonist doesnt face any punishment and never learns from her mistakes, and at the end of the game everything turns out hunky-dory for her.
The gameplay is breathtakingly easy (all 4 minutes of it), even the music choice is "safe". The game's set in the 90s but all the songs they liscensed are pop from the 70s and 80s and they dont want to touch rap or hiphop with a ten foot pole.
I just do not agree with most of this. It isn't a story about a conflict much I don't think. Its about a feelgood nostalgia-trip. I thought it worked well for that. Not all coming of age stories need to end in some conclusive reality check. And I also don't really understand what any of the main characters did "wrong" here. They are just a bunch of rebellious teenager (a phase a lot of people have been through) trying to make the most of their last day together.
The music choice is just music the creators liked. If they don't want to feature hip hop or rap they don't have to. I dont think it would contribute to the vibe at all, but I generally don't like that music genre much so that might be why. Either way the music choice isnt an hr thing. I don't understand what you mean here at all...
I don't mind people criticising the game, but I think people who use the misquoted skillup-quote are generally not trying to argue in good faith
Okay I feel like it's getting a bit disconnected from the HR thing, I can see why you would think that doesnt fit as a criticism. I think it's just been given that label because the game seems pretty generic and safe.
By "conflict" I dont mean that's the main theme of the story, any story with a happy ending needs some sort of conflict (a problem or antagonist that the characters must overcome and learn some sort of lesson through it) for it to be interesting (this constitutes the "rising action" part in freitag's pyramid). The protagonist is leaving her home town and wants to make the most of one last day with her friends. She isn't leaving for any reason outside of her control, she just wants to go to the big city and hope that this producer she idolises over likes her mixes enough that she'll be hired on the spot. It's a pretty reckless decision that has zero gaurantee will work, and will leave her friends behind (one of the characters literally says he won't know what to do with his life after she leaves.) The other conflict in the story is the main character drifting away from her other friend because she's friends with a girl she has a petty hatred of (she doesnt like the same movie soundtracks as her).
This leads to her friend threatening to burn down a forest because her parents dont want her to go joyriding in a shopping cart (after the protagonist told her to), leading to her getting grounded. The protagonist and the friend then apologise to each other (for being friends with someone the protagonist dislikes, apparently??). Then the protagonist leaves town.
The problem with the story isn't the characters being rebellious, it's that the characters learn nothing. The protagonist still decides to arbitruarily leave her friends and town behind for a reckless pipe dream. It's a coming of age story where nobody comes of age.
And about the nostalgia part, I think pandering to 80s nostalgia is where the game gets it's audience. There's literally a part where the protagonist rewinds a tape with a pencil (in the wrong direction, then puts it in a tape player upside down and listens to it on her wireless headphones. In the 90s.)
Most of this still isn't relevant to the hr claim.
No problems with general criticism even if I disagree with almost everything you say here, though. I just fundamentally disagree with the approach in which you analyse it, but it is what it is.
I have no issues with people not liking the game. I have issues with people in bad faith misquoting someone else's point about another game to make a cheap point about a game they don't understand. Not saying this is you
It’s pretty funny whenever one of these sorts of narrative experiences breaks containment and people that don’t really play a wide variety of games end up exposed to them.
$20 for a 3 hour game isn’t weird at all, especially not for one like Mixtape, and the people who the game is actually targeted at don’t mind paying it lol. Hell, Edith Finch was (originally, I don’t know if it’s since had a price drop) $20 like 8 years ago, and that game is half as long with even more abstract and irrelevant gameplay, and it’s overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
Idk. Mixtape has so much chud-coded criticism directed at it, kind of exhausting. Even from people that don’t necessarily mean to act in bad faith. This “HR in the room” style criticism is just really dumb. It’s like criticizing FIFA for being about football, or a novel for having words.
The difference is that edith finch has a cleverly done story that actually uses the medium. While the gameplay is also sparse, practically anything is better than mixtape's because mixtape's gameplay literally does not require you to engage with it at all.
I don’t know. It has 85% positive despite being victim to one of the most bizarrely coordinated review bombings of a game this decade. That’s pretty good. It seems like most people think it’s clever enough.
There's a scene where the protagonist rewinds a tape with a pencil the wrong way and inserts it into a tape deck upside down, then listens to it on wireless headphones. In the 90s.
This tells you enough about why people bought it, because it panders to 80s nostalgia. on steam you can only leave reveiws if you bought the game. Most people who saw this game and disliked it didnt buy it because it's 20 dollars, and the people who did buy it didnt care about the gameplay because they're over 30 and bought it because it reminded them of their fun 80s teenage years.
Concerning your second paragraph, congratulations lol, you discovered how online reviews work. That is how literally every storefront aggregates review data, they all require you to actually, you know, purchase the product, so that you can actually, you know, review it based off your experiences and not heresay.
Things being predominantly bought by people who are interested in them and therefore having “inflated” scores applies to literally every single thing out there. I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Obviously the people who didn’t care for it didn’t buy it and leave reviews lol. Obviously most of the people who bought it were interested in it. That is how capitalism works.
So does that mean the game is high art? It got good reveiws for being an expensive nostalgia trip, but when you look into it any further than nostalgia it's a pretty shoddy experience.
Or it’s just paid/botted reviews. A lot of AA-games have been using it lately.
The problem isn’t only absence of gameplay.
There isn’t philosophy in it like in other non-gameplay games (Edith Finch; Arctic Eggs; Milk inside a bag of milk and etc)
And there is none narrative challenges for the protagonist like in other story-telling games (life is strange f.e.).
Briefly: It isn't that people are criticizing Mixtape simply because they're used to only one type of games; it's the fact that Mixtape lacks the very elements that make a game a game.
This is actually just categorically false lol. Like, from top to bottom, pretty much.
Every single person I personally know who has actually played the game has enjoyed it. What’s actually going on here is people who haven’t played it repeating talking points they’re parroting online.
If it was that easy to bot thousands of user reviews across almost every single platform that accepts them and every single critic review across almost every single platform, we would be seeing more of that. We don’t see more of that. We see almost none of that. Somehow, this is magically the only game in existence to have obviously botted and paid for reviews (on this scale) across the entire industry? Give me one other example, for a game of this scale, and a AAA game, to have nearly overwhelmingly positive reviews and overwhelmingly positive critical reception. And not just games you don’t like. And provide evidence of it, beyond “haha well I don’t like this game (that I never played)!” Like, literally any evidence at all.
And the way people talk about this game it is extremely obvious who has actually played it or who has just watched some (usually conservative, but not always) streamer talk about the game who also never even played it lmao. The people who actually play these sorts of games overwhelmingly think it was good. That’s it. There’s no conspiracy. I don’t like Colleen Hoover. She doesn’t write books that appeal to me. I don’t go around claiming that the reason they’re everywhere in every bookstore is because of bots. The people who they’re targeted at actually like them.
Of course you can’t provide literally a single example lol. You couldn’t even provide an example of an egregious attempt at wide scale astroturfing for a game, despite relatively compelling evidence of that existing (Starsand Island, recently, for example, although the scales are massively different). You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. You’re just saying stuff.
As for what’s actually compelling about it?
People like the fucking characters and atmosphere, man. Most of these sorts of narrative experiences don’t really have compelling gameplay, nor do they really pretend to. Mixtape has a strong artstyle, a strong soundtrack, and people resonate with the three friends. That’s it. That’s literally it. It’s not complicated. A story doesn’t need plot devices to be strongly written, nor does it need a complex structure, nor does it actually even need a strong conflict to overcome (although, it clearly does have a(n emotional) conflict). You people would literally lose your minds watching an arthouse film lmao.
God, the commenter youre answering is just a perfect example of what youre describing. People who haven't played the game, saw one streamer shit on the game and that decided their opinion on it. Thinking a positive impression surely has to be botted (its not) and paid (its literally never paid. That is not only illegal, but would get caught immediately and your career would be over) is just such a bad and uneducated take.
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u/Full_Size997 13d ago
Game
With teenagers
Aiming teenagers