Mixtape (2025)

Mixtape hit me harder than I expected. At first, it felt like a simple coming-of-age story about friends, music, and one last adventure. But as I played, it started reminding me of my own childhood — old friendships, stupid little moments, and memories I didn't realize were special until they were gone. The music and atmosphere make everything feel so nostalgic. It captures that painful feeling of growing up and realizing that some moments, no matter how much you miss them, can never happen again. The gameplay isn't perfect, but that wasn't what stayed with me. Mixtape reminded me that sometimes the hardest thing about growing up is knowing you can never go back. And honestly, that feeling stayed with me long after the credits.

I'm seeing a bit of negative review about Mixtape so I thought my time post-recommendation would be better spent just telling you who I believe this [strike]game[/strike]interactive narrative is for. First, there is no game here. There are playable areas that enable the story to progress. There are skateboarding areas, but you aren't getting Tony Hawk Pro Skater here. There are sequences that are essentially quick-time events to jump over or slide under things. Second, I think this game will strongly appeal to the 90's kids. The MTV generation. The Millennial crowd that remembers a slower life before cell phones and beepers. The kids whose stories were told via Polaroid or better yet, urban legend. We spent large chunks of the day bored, and laying around, talking, waxing poetic about our limited understanding of the great big universe. We knew the kid with big dreams who was getting out. We knew the kid with no ambition. Mixtape appeals to those of us who were, or were sympathetic to the burnouts, stoners, and lost souls who decided to make it up as they go. There has been talk of these kids not being likable. I knew these kids. I liked them a lot. I liked Stacey, Slater, and Cassandra too. Teenagers can be sullen, moody, a-holes. They behave unlikeable, they blow up, and then they find their way back to each other with an apology or a nod that it's water under the bridge. This game feels a lot like Ferris Buellers Day Off with the vignettes of home life of our main characters interlaced with fourth wall breaks and one last fantastic adventure before they go their separate ways in life. Mixtape is definitely not for everyone, but it was definitely for me. I think it'd be for the people who knew these kids in this particular moment in time too.