Mixtape is a musical portrait of teenage life
Mixtape is a musical portrait of teenage life
《Mixtape》：一幅关于青春岁月的音乐肖像
Playing Mixtape is like playing a video game version of a high school movie. Kids banter about the meaning of life and the theme songs that would play when they walk in a room. They’re worried about looking cool at a big party. They’re obsessed with finding booze. But under all of those tropes is a meaningful story about nostalgia, friendship, and teenage angst — and it’s all backed by a great soundtrack packed with classic hits.
游玩《Mixtape》就像是在玩一部真人版的高中电影。孩子们谈论着生命的意义，以及当他们走进房间时应该响起的背景音乐。他们担心在大型派对上不够酷，他们执着于寻找酒精。但在这些刻板印象之下，是一个关于怀旧、友谊和青春期焦虑的动人故事——这一切都由一张收录了众多经典金曲的绝佳原声带所支撑。
Mixtape takes place over the course of a summer day. You play as Stacey Rockford, a music obsessive and recent high school graduate. Rockford is leaving her sleepy California suburb for New York City the next morning on a quest to become a music supervisor, and she and her two best friends — the low-key Van Slater and the rebellious Cassandra Morino — are whiling away the day before a big party in the evening.
《Mixtape》的故事发生在一个夏日。你将扮演刚高中毕业的音乐狂热爱好者 Stacey Rockford。第二天一早，Rockford 就要离开她那宁静的加州郊区前往纽约，去追寻成为音乐总监的梦想。她和她的两位挚友——低调的 Van Slater 以及叛逆的 Cassandra Morino——正在度过参加当晚大型派对前的闲暇时光。
Rockford, Slater, and Cassandra really feel like a trio of teenagers. For one thing, a lot of the game is spent hanging out in their bedrooms and lazing around. They bullshit with each other about music and life, their futures and dating, and whatever else is on their minds, all with the inflated self-confidence of teenagers who also know they have no idea what the hell they’re doing. Rockford in particular likes to show off just how much she knows about music, frequently breaking the fourth wall to directly address the camera about the current song choice for her meticulous playlist for the day (which includes tracks from legends like Portishead, Iggy Pop, and The Cure).
Rockford、Slater 和 Cassandra 真的非常有青少年的感觉。游戏中有很大一部分时间是他们在卧室里闲逛和消磨时光。他们互相吹牛，谈论音乐、生活、未来、约会以及脑海中浮现的任何事情，带着那种青少年特有的、膨胀的自信，尽管他们心里也清楚自己根本不知道在干什么。Rockford 特别喜欢炫耀她对音乐的了解，经常打破“第四面墙”，直接对着镜头谈论她为当天精心准备的播放列表（其中包括 Portishead、Iggy Pop 和 The Cure 等传奇乐队的作品）。
The meat of Mixtape is wandering as Rockford and looking at various objects, like a CD or a map of a planned road trip, and listening to the trio’s commentary. Think of nostalgic games with a slower pace like Life is Strange or Gone Home — Mixtape has a similar speed. Sometimes, looking at an object takes you back to a playable scene from their past, and these will have different situations or mechanics. These were so hyper-specific — mixing slushies at a convenience store, stumbling drunkenly around a video rental shop, taking photos with a Game Boy Camera-like gadget while sneaking into a dinosaur-themed amusement park — that they constantly got me to reflect back on my own teenage years in suburbia.
《Mixtape》的核心玩法是扮演 Rockford 四处游荡，观察各种物品（如 CD 或自驾游地图），并聆听三人的评论。想象一下《奇异人生》（Life is Strange）或《到家》（Gone Home）这类节奏较慢的怀旧游戏，《Mixtape》的节奏与之相似。有时，观察一件物品会带你回到他们过去的一个可玩场景，这些场景有着不同的情境或机制。这些场景极其具体——在便利店调制思乐冰、在录像带租赁店醉醺醺地蹒跚而行、潜入恐龙主题游乐园时用类似 Game Boy Camera 的设备拍照——这些细节不断让我回想起自己在郊区度过的青春岁月。
As the story goes on, the game adds thoughtful layers to each character. Rockford, after coaxing Slater to play her one of his own songs, asks him about why he makes music, making me realize that Rockford, for all she knows about music, doesn’t actually play anything. Cassandra grapples with wanting freedom as a way to push back on her overbearing parents. Slater, despite outwardly presenting as something of a deadbeat, proves himself to be an incredibly kind and thoughtful human being. Even Cassandra’s dad, a party-busting cop who serves as the game’s primary antagonist, gets a moment to shine.
随着故事的推进，游戏为每个角色增添了深度的层次。Rockford 在劝说 Slater 演奏他自己创作的歌曲后，询问他为何创作音乐，这让我意识到，尽管 Rockford 对音乐了如指掌，但她自己其实并不会演奏任何乐器。Cassandra 渴望自由，以此来反抗她专横的父母。Slater 虽然外表看起来有些颓废，但却证明了他是一个极其善良且体贴的人。甚至连 Cassandra 的父亲——那个负责查封派对的警察，也就是游戏的主要反派——也有他闪光的时刻。
So much of Mixtape is, on its face, mundane. At one point, I spent 10 minutes skipping rocks — a not-insignificant amount of time for a game that I finished in about four hours. That mundanity, however, is what made the game feel so real. My high school experience as a nerdy band kid didn’t include any of the kinds of shenanigans that Mixtape’s trio gets up to. But I still related to the story of a bunch of kids hanging out, looking back at their time together, and peering nervously ahead to the future.
《Mixtape》的很多内容表面上看起来很平庸。有一次，我花了 10 分钟在水边打水漂——对于一款我只用了四个小时就通关的游戏来说，这可不是一段短时间。然而，正是这种平庸感让游戏显得如此真实。我高中时是个书呆子乐队成员，并没有经历过《Mixtape》三人组那样的恶作剧。但我依然能与这个故事产生共鸣：一群孩子聚在一起，回顾他们共度的时光，并带着不安展望未来。
Mixtape is now available on the Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S.
《Mixtape》现已登陆 Nintendo Switch 2、PC、PS5 和 Xbox Series X / S 平台。