Family

Oh, how I wish I could have experienced that dynamic London pop scene that existed from 1985 and for about one decade, however fictional it might have been. Family is a nice little game where I at least could get some idea of the works and spirit of that (still fictional) whirlpool of musical talent.

The idea of the game is to correctly identify the members of nine different bands from that scene using clues coming from small snipppets of information. These clues are for instance extracts from interviews or memoirs from people connected to the scene. For each identified five musicians more snippets are unlocked, until the whole family tree has been identified. And yes, it is a really a family tree with connections and branches such as it is in a good music scene with bands splitting, reforming, exploring new expressions, and simply going forward.

Family feels surprisingly genuine in the details. This music scene could really have existed. The game includes nine recorded songs from the bands, a relatively long radio broadcast with an interview with one of the brightest stars from the scene, and a lot of atmosphere from that era, which I am about five years too young to have fully experienced. The game gave me about one hour of detective work filled with nostalgia to something purely fictional. I enjoyed it.