Review: We Are OFK is stylish, subversive TV disguised as an indie game
Review: We Are OFK is stylish, subversive TV disguised as an indie game
Enlarge / < em>We're OFK - and yes, that includes the cartoony cat, though I'll leave his involvement in the series vague for now.
The OFK team
Imagine versions of The TV series Monkees or Beatles movies like Hard Day's Night for the modern age. What might they look like? I don't just mean aesthetically, although all the "songs on the show" would certainly differ from the 60s like "Daydream Believer". What kind of story would he tell? Where would the series air? How would it be presented?
I often came back to this thought while enjoying this week's We Are OFK, which is as close to an answer to my question as I've seen in a modern, hyper-connected era. This format blur experience may be marketed as a video game, which will be released on PlayStation, Switch and PC consoles on Thursday, but it falls somewhere between an interactive experience, a passive television series and a visual novel. And its production values and brave storytelling choices benefit immensely from this platform-agnostic approach.
A "video game" that leaves the exes in reading
Enlarge / We Are OFK includes a wide variety of detailed and lush locations for its characters to hash out their personal and artistic lives.
The OFK team
The six-hour experience, divided into five "episodes", follows four restless and disgruntled Los Angelenos in a slightly modified fictional version of our own world. Some brand names are changed (Twitter is now "Twibber", Tinder is "Phoenix", etc.), but its characters otherwise order rideshare cars, leave read messages, and scroll like modern twenty-somethings. Each of the four main characters have come to Los Angeles to escape their old lives - a problem each looks at in different ways - and, early in this series' episodes, find themselves drawn to each other as " group" while continuing his own. respective artistic and romantic dreams.
Much of it feels like an anime or CW TV series that focuses on the lives of young people, as opposed to an action-packed thriller or drama. Still, while I don't regularly tune into this sort of fare, I found myself captivated by We Are OFK's combination of high production values, fantastic voice acting, and good dollops of interactivity. . Mechanically, episodes can function either as a visual novel or as an entirely passive television experience. Choices do not create plot diversions; instead, players sometimes choose one of three dialogue options for a main character. These appear as thought bubbles with differing opinions that logically coexist in response to what just happened. You can choose your favorite to guide a character's dialogue in a given scene or let the game select one automatically after a 10 second pause.
Enlarge / < em>We're OFK - and yes, that includes the cartoony cat, though I'll leave his involvement in the series vague for now.
The OFK team
Imagine versions of The TV series Monkees or Beatles movies like Hard Day's Night for the modern age. What might they look like? I don't just mean aesthetically, although all the "songs on the show" would certainly differ from the 60s like "Daydream Believer". What kind of story would he tell? Where would the series air? How would it be presented?
I often came back to this thought while enjoying this week's We Are OFK, which is as close to an answer to my question as I've seen in a modern, hyper-connected era. This format blur experience may be marketed as a video game, which will be released on PlayStation, Switch and PC consoles on Thursday, but it falls somewhere between an interactive experience, a passive television series and a visual novel. And its production values and brave storytelling choices benefit immensely from this platform-agnostic approach.
A "video game" that leaves the exes in reading
Enlarge / We Are OFK includes a wide variety of detailed and lush locations for its characters to hash out their personal and artistic lives.
The OFK team
The six-hour experience, divided into five "episodes", follows four restless and disgruntled Los Angelenos in a slightly modified fictional version of our own world. Some brand names are changed (Twitter is now "Twibber", Tinder is "Phoenix", etc.), but its characters otherwise order rideshare cars, leave read messages, and scroll like modern twenty-somethings. Each of the four main characters have come to Los Angeles to escape their old lives - a problem each looks at in different ways - and, early in this series' episodes, find themselves drawn to each other as " group" while continuing his own. respective artistic and romantic dreams.
Much of it feels like an anime or CW TV series that focuses on the lives of young people, as opposed to an action-packed thriller or drama. Still, while I don't regularly tune into this sort of fare, I found myself captivated by We Are OFK's combination of high production values, fantastic voice acting, and good dollops of interactivity. . Mechanically, episodes can function either as a visual novel or as an entirely passive television experience. Choices do not create plot diversions; instead, players sometimes choose one of three dialogue options for a main character. These appear as thought bubbles with differing opinions that logically coexist in response to what just happened. You can choose your favorite to guide a character's dialogue in a given scene or let the game select one automatically after a 10 second pause.
Enlarge / < em>We're OFK - and yes, that includes the cartoony cat, though I'll leave his involvement in the series vague for now.
The OFK team
Enlarge / We Are OFK includes a wide variety of detailed and lush locations for its characters to hash out their personal and artistic lives.
The OFK team
