Start a band in this dreamy, musical TV show from indie pop cuties OFK. Cry, skate, date, and run for your life in 5 interactive music videos, across a heartfelt story of what you risk to chase your dreams.
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Me and a few friends were doing a "watch-along" to this game as you could call it, and while it's not egregious or anything bad in it's own right, it's just alright overall.
There is some humorous moments, well-written moments, and generally decent things in it, but be wary that this is in no way a "game" that deserves that name, it's really and interactive TV show that is pretty okay at best.
There is some humorous moments, well-written moments, and generally decent things in it, but be wary that this is in no way a "game" that deserves that name, it's really and interactive TV show that is pretty okay at best.
pretty art wasted on some white guy's ego
all clicks when you find out the annoying one who keeps finding his way into every fucking scene is also the writer
This review contains spoilers
I love the intent behind the project, but man, the execution of this game was so poorly done you just recoil and cringe. As someone who doesn’t play a lot of VNs, this is a game that tries to do more with its story than its capable of in its current form.
Unlike many talking simulators, your dialogue choices are of no difference to the story. All that changes is a few words and you’ll get a callback to them in the ensuing conversation a few minutes later, to convey the illusion that the game is dynamic. In reality, you are on a track for a fixed amount of time and no dialogue option makes any difference as to how those 40-60 minutes progress. The only truly “interactive” moments are the music videos where you can do things, but these are limited to the length of the music itself and seem to be there just for show.
This project seems like that it was shopped to Netflix (to make something like Bandersnatch), and when it was turned down, it was flipped into a game. I don't see why they (theoretically) would have turned it down - the audio quality and delivery of the voice talent is not lost on me. Neither is the fact that the assets are fairly polished and artistically consistent. If you can forgive the moments that the models literally slide from place to place, it’s not at all hard on the eyes.
The premise (being that you’re four people in SoCal trying to get together and make something for yourselves) is something noble, and elements of which I am incredibly familiar with myself. Specifically, getting the project done and distributing it, networking yourself as a creative, and dealing with interpersonal drama via DMs are all things incredibly online people like us can relate to.
None of the characters are caricatures or walking stereotypes, which defied my expectations in a good way. However the fact that all the characters have it too good and there are no real issues like housing security or what they actually do for money marginalize the “life” part of “slice of life”.
These characters have it easy - and seem out of touch to the Angeleno who might be working two or three jobs just to live in their home and pay the bills. Everyone appears to be solidly employed (even Luca, who found a job as a bartender immediately after being laid off), or in the case of Jey, a creative with a very nice expensive house and home studio that is either being funded by her parents or some incredibly successful career we don't get to notice until now. It doesn't conform to the economic realities of most artists.
Further, it drives me nuts that a lot of the story of We Are OFK was changed from the first time it was revealed. Back in 2020 at The Game Awards, viewers were treated to a virtual live performance by Luca and the rest of the band. You never get to perform as a band in We Are OFK, and I think the origin story is great and all - but where is that big performance you are building towards?
The fact you can’t change anything about the road you go down is the biggest disappointment though. You can't stop Jey from taking that stupid deal (but don't worry, she'll go back on it). You can't have Carter bitch-slap the person who touched her wrist. You can't have Luca fight for his job back or get something suited for his talents. You can't have Itsumi immediately dump her revenge date.
The game seems to have gotten all the attention it can organically obtain. As I said, it looks like a project that spent a lot of money and ultimately didn't recoup all of it. It could have done a handful of things differently to be more successful. Namely - it needed to be more relatable, needed more options for its characters, and needed to be more of a game.
Unlike many talking simulators, your dialogue choices are of no difference to the story. All that changes is a few words and you’ll get a callback to them in the ensuing conversation a few minutes later, to convey the illusion that the game is dynamic. In reality, you are on a track for a fixed amount of time and no dialogue option makes any difference as to how those 40-60 minutes progress. The only truly “interactive” moments are the music videos where you can do things, but these are limited to the length of the music itself and seem to be there just for show.
This project seems like that it was shopped to Netflix (to make something like Bandersnatch), and when it was turned down, it was flipped into a game. I don't see why they (theoretically) would have turned it down - the audio quality and delivery of the voice talent is not lost on me. Neither is the fact that the assets are fairly polished and artistically consistent. If you can forgive the moments that the models literally slide from place to place, it’s not at all hard on the eyes.
The premise (being that you’re four people in SoCal trying to get together and make something for yourselves) is something noble, and elements of which I am incredibly familiar with myself. Specifically, getting the project done and distributing it, networking yourself as a creative, and dealing with interpersonal drama via DMs are all things incredibly online people like us can relate to.
None of the characters are caricatures or walking stereotypes, which defied my expectations in a good way. However the fact that all the characters have it too good and there are no real issues like housing security or what they actually do for money marginalize the “life” part of “slice of life”.
These characters have it easy - and seem out of touch to the Angeleno who might be working two or three jobs just to live in their home and pay the bills. Everyone appears to be solidly employed (even Luca, who found a job as a bartender immediately after being laid off), or in the case of Jey, a creative with a very nice expensive house and home studio that is either being funded by her parents or some incredibly successful career we don't get to notice until now. It doesn't conform to the economic realities of most artists.
Further, it drives me nuts that a lot of the story of We Are OFK was changed from the first time it was revealed. Back in 2020 at The Game Awards, viewers were treated to a virtual live performance by Luca and the rest of the band. You never get to perform as a band in We Are OFK, and I think the origin story is great and all - but where is that big performance you are building towards?
The fact you can’t change anything about the road you go down is the biggest disappointment though. You can't stop Jey from taking that stupid deal (but don't worry, she'll go back on it). You can't have Carter bitch-slap the person who touched her wrist. You can't have Luca fight for his job back or get something suited for his talents. You can't have Itsumi immediately dump her revenge date.
The game seems to have gotten all the attention it can organically obtain. As I said, it looks like a project that spent a lot of money and ultimately didn't recoup all of it. It could have done a handful of things differently to be more successful. Namely - it needed to be more relatable, needed more options for its characters, and needed to be more of a game.
Look /v/, I bet you didn't even play this, you just saw the trailer two years ago and creamed your pants when you saw the femboy. For better or worse, you were still right.
We Are OFK is an incredibly dull experience, showing us how it feels to be four people in Southern California trying to "make the band." And they do that by giving us the most boring, uninuitive and shallow origin story possible. There's no point in your choices, "gameplay" is just minor changes to the text, and each chapter ends with a music video you can barely interact with. These small bits are the payoff for some of the the most self-centered, insecure and downright cringe-tastic dialogue ever put in a VN. In fact, some of these characters are so privileged and financially comfortable that they have to invent new conflict so they can move the plot along. To make it short - We Are OFK is the most pretentious game that none of you played. For the few who did, our condolences.
We Are OFK is an incredibly dull experience, showing us how it feels to be four people in Southern California trying to "make the band." And they do that by giving us the most boring, uninuitive and shallow origin story possible. There's no point in your choices, "gameplay" is just minor changes to the text, and each chapter ends with a music video you can barely interact with. These small bits are the payoff for some of the the most self-centered, insecure and downright cringe-tastic dialogue ever put in a VN. In fact, some of these characters are so privileged and financially comfortable that they have to invent new conflict so they can move the plot along. To make it short - We Are OFK is the most pretentious game that none of you played. For the few who did, our condolences.
I'm not particularly much of a Netflix user so I cannot really construct a model for your usual netflix show to make a proper comparison with it but I imagine your run of the mill canceled season one Netflix show can do much better than this. If you've never played this game (or even heard of it), We Are OFK's presentation is a sort of streaming UI pastiche (does that make sense..??). It attempts to emulate (and I believe nails) the interfaces of streaming services--particularly Netflix-- so for example the main menu looks like a desktop and you start the game by pressing on the episode you want to play, said episodes have a bar on the bottom that shows how long you have until the episode ends and they were released weekly in a span of 4 weeks, saves are like the little user icons on Netflix, etc.. It's screaming to get on Netflix's game tab but had to settle for Steam where the only movie you can get is the Indie Game movie (also available on Netflix).
We Are OFK follows the life of four friends as they try to live it up in L.A. while formingan emo a pop band. The main girl we follow in episode 1 is facing an unsurmountable difficulty: having to move into a new apartment and 😱having an ex! To help her, the player has to make some arbitrary decisions that probably don't change anything but they had to shove interactivity in there to make it a videogame.
The other character we follow, who is leagues more entertaining, is a not-Overwatch writer twink who is not allowed creative liberty on the newest character and instead has to write some lame shit. This causes him to leave it all behind and chase his pipedream: writing the Steven Universe musical. With the help of some woman, he begins to sing the first song of the game: Follow/Unfollow. Meanwhile, the main girl I mentioned before gets shitfaced drunk and you have to maneuver her through what I assume was an attempt at making some playable music video but it just sucks soooo much. Also idk what the lyrics have to do with the space opera the guy wanted to write but he's permitted to cook and then gets fired from not-Overwatch team. Then the episode ends. Actually it doesn't there's one more scene but he's not in it so whooooo cares
This is where I would love to have some knowledge in Netflix sludge because I have no frame of reference to understand if all Netflix shows are this lame. The main girl has NO shit going for her character and the game does a really bad job at making you care for her struggles which are so baseline insignificant. You're moving into L.A.. Boo-hoo. Wait 'til you see the digits on the rent. At least your friend has got something a REAL issue: working for the videogames industry.
And it's a shame because aside from the color palette I think the game looks real pretty but god the writing is so dull. I would've played more but my totally legal copy only came with 4 episodes and while I could totally just watch the last one on YouTube as the devs probably intended, I'm not gonna give them the satisfaction
We Are OFK follows the life of four friends as they try to live it up in L.A. while forming
The other character we follow, who is leagues more entertaining, is a not-Overwatch writer twink who is not allowed creative liberty on the newest character and instead has to write some lame shit. This causes him to leave it all behind and chase his pipedream: writing the Steven Universe musical. With the help of some woman, he begins to sing the first song of the game: Follow/Unfollow. Meanwhile, the main girl I mentioned before gets shitfaced drunk and you have to maneuver her through what I assume was an attempt at making some playable music video but it just sucks soooo much. Also idk what the lyrics have to do with the space opera the guy wanted to write but he's permitted to cook and then gets fired from not-Overwatch team. Then the episode ends. Actually it doesn't there's one more scene but he's not in it so whooooo cares
This is where I would love to have some knowledge in Netflix sludge because I have no frame of reference to understand if all Netflix shows are this lame. The main girl has NO shit going for her character and the game does a really bad job at making you care for her struggles which are so baseline insignificant. You're moving into L.A.. Boo-hoo. Wait 'til you see the digits on the rent. At least your friend has got something a REAL issue: working for the videogames industry.
And it's a shame because aside from the color palette I think the game looks real pretty but god the writing is so dull. I would've played more but my totally legal copy only came with 4 episodes and while I could totally just watch the last one on YouTube as the devs probably intended, I'm not gonna give them the satisfaction