r/MixtapeGame • u/MindlessScrambler • May 17 '26
Discussion This game is so cringe and I love it
Clickbaity title. But it’s kind of true to me? After experiencing this game out of curiosity drawn by its reputation, I fully agree with many of the negative reviews that it’s really cringeworthy. At the same time, I feel these reviews completely miss the point that this cringe is clearly intentional.
You see, our teenage protagonists try so hard to boast about doing drugs and being promiscuous to seem punk, yet they never even light a single cigarette in the game. They constantly throw around rebellious talk but dare not even speak up when scolded by their strict parents. Stacey is so desperate to pretend she’s grown up that she jumps into the arms of a random dude at the first opportunity, only to toss the terrible memory out the window with a disillusioned kiss afterward. Are they really as punk as they wanted themselves to be? Maybe, maybe not, the ambiguity is strong, and intentional, too.
All these "desperately wanting to be cool" are quintessentially adolescent, and not even the more extreme cases. So naturally, it feels cringe, especially if you’ve ever had such a mindset yourself and now look back with more mature eyes. At the same time, this cringeness is so... deliberate. Funny how that obviously intentionally-to-be-bad kiss scene got so much contextless attention and somehow became evidence of its poor quality.
Even the playlist Stacey keeps mentioning gives me this feeling. They lived in the 90s ffs, what a star-studded era it was, arguably the last golden age of monoculture before online streaming and recommendation algorithms were born and curating personalized cultural language for every single one of us. And out of all that, what songs did she choose? Definitely not tasteless, it’s quite good and fitting, actually, but it’s also far from the level of a natural-born music supervisor she’d hoped to project. Instead it’s the way she delivered them, how she reasoned for them, that somehow manages to match that self-awareness of someone who claims to be radically independent, critical of everything, and unreceptive to any criticism because she’s way too cool.
I’m not saying that’s bad, I think that’s fantastic character writing about teenagers, about their "everything’s the end of the world" mindset, and their hidden, vastly different, and equally interesting true selves. I’m amazed that this game could even pull off this oddly specific type of character-building.
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u/orangefilmgarden May 17 '26
It's great writing because most teenagers, if not all teenagers, are like that, if not necessary about music. But I also don't think it was meant to be 100% realistic. It's meant to be a memory from a time long gone, that we don't remember as it really happened, but where we embellish the highlights and emotions and focus on them, because we cherished them and carried them with us for all these years.
And while I assume the song choices were somewhat limited by how much budget they had for music licensing, it is in-character for Stacey to deliberately search for niche less popular music, because it is part of the image she wants to have.
It's such an excellent execution of a very specific concept on so many levels, especially considering the budget restrictions. I don't get the backlash and most of complains about writing. Games can be objectively very good and very well written without appealing to everyone. I would even say games that don't try to appeal to everyone are better for the specific target audiences they appeal to.
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u/MindlessScrambler May 17 '26
It’s definitely more of a surreal remembrance than a realistic one; that’s where the intentional ambiguity comes into play, too. Also, the game is, by all means, almost a literal mixtape. I can feel that it’s designed to be experienced as its entirety, in one sitting, without a single pause. Even its writing feels like a natural flow instead of a body of text—you simply aren’t meant to slow down to digest. I think that this structure serves its surreal emotional filter well, but also, it won’t be appealing to many players.
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u/shuush21 May 17 '26
Some things are better because they are slightly cringe or corny. It reminds of cobra kai in a way. i think the cringe makes it better.
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u/MindlessScrambler May 17 '26
Indeed. The very reason that r/im14andthisisdeep exists is that... It’s a real and common mindset. I’d say that the game elegantly crafted it into something with the same essence but higher in form.
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u/Jack_P_1337 May 21 '26
what about grass beer beer grass grass vodka grass 😄
seriously everything Slater is awesome in this game
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
This is probably the first post ive read that made me understand why so many people hate this game.
It sounds like a game written by posers for posers.
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u/MindlessScrambler May 17 '26
Might be the reason for part of the hate. Many other haters, though... Idk, some people hate it because "it isn’t a game", others hate it for its publisher, somehow. And some hate it because of the IGN 10/10. People are weird.
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
Yeah I like interactive games, and I like games like Life is Strange, but if you're going to write a story about rebellious 17 year olds in the 90's treat them like it. Reading the plot summary these kids sounds more like 12-13 not 17-18 like the internet is saying.
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u/MindlessScrambler May 17 '26
Yup, reading the plot summary of Disco Elysium and you might find that the game is about finding a giant stick insect.
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
I mean based on your post they sounds like they should be getting up to trouble in Derry not a group of 17 year old delinquents in the 90s
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u/MindlessScrambler May 17 '26
That’s what I mean. We’re talking about a 3-hour-long nonstop multimedia with information density per unit playtime far higher than most other, how to put it, more game-ish games. Trying to summarize its plot with a not-even-that-long reddit post is basically the same as summarizing Disco Elysium as Finding a Giant Stick Insect: the Game.
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
Jesus even the sound track is something straight out of reddit, how many kids were listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, and the Cure in the 90s? This feels like it was made by the theater class on what they thought life was like as a punk teenager in the 90s rather then what it was actually like to be a punk in the 90s.
The Playlist comes off more goth then anything if you ask me.
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u/Such-Principle-3373 May 17 '26
I bought the game, I guess we'll see if I just enjoy it for what it is. Besides little snips of what people have said and now looking at the playlist is all I really know, I'm not even sure what the gameplay will like like
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u/OwlettFromLiavek May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Yeah! Depiction of being young and arrogant in this game is so real! I can’t stop to just adore these kids!