What Body Games, a local band styled as making “club bangers for introverts,” has created with Super Body Games RPG is a truly special piece of art. This digital album release disguised as a video game is a singular experience, a labor of clear and obvious love from creator Dax Beaton, brought to vibrant life thanks to a little help from RPG Maker software and the town of Carrboro itself.
Pitched as a “video galbum,” the Super Body Games RPG takes players on a journey through a faithfully rendered 2D Carrboro, complete with local landmarks ranging from the Weaver Street lawn to the Carrboro Century Center and beyond. As the player completes quests, beats bosses and uncovers secrets, they earn “Tune Runes” that can be spent at the SBGRPG’s version of All Day Records to unlock download codes for the tracks you hear while playing. Especially now, in an era of music streaming services and endless songs at everyone’s fingertips, the process of earning music is a satisfying one — made even more so by the fact that none of the tracks from SBGRPG are available for purchase in the real world, so it’s Tune Runes or nothing if you want to hear these songs again.
The full-on Carrboro experience found in SBGRPG doesn’t end with buying records at All Day, however. Here’s an example of a quest early on:
You need $10 to get into the Orange County Social Club, so you walk down to the ATM at the Bank of America. Unfortunately, you left your bank card at the Spotted Dog last night after getting a little too in your cups. When you get to the Spotted Dog, though, you find out your card isn’t at the bar – so you retrace your steps, eventually finding your card in a trash can near the Wendy’s. Now you can finally get that cash, get into OCSC and get on your way toward saving Carrboro.
Of course, things get progressively more ridiculous (and more Carrboro) from there. The King of Carrboro descends in a hot air balloon shaped like Garfield’s head to speak to your party of intrepid adventurers, for example, and a running joke highlights just how cool and fashionable capes can actually be.
Walking the streets of downtown Carrboro and striking up conversations with strangers just to see what they have to say is a surreal experience, even in something as obviously removed from reality as this, given to the current condition COVID-19 has put us in. Super Body Games RPG shines when the jokes land, when the soundtrack starts to hit a little differently, when things get a little weird. Luckily, those three things happen often, and sometimes simultaneously.
SBGRPG has a way of bringing out nostalgia for old pastimes, pop culture properties and even people – and it all starts with three friends, three synths, and a hazy bedroom decorated with posters of “Myst” and “Cowboy Bebop.”
Of course, the music is center stage in Super Body Games RPG. Video games and film have a common thread in relying on music to bring their narratives home — after all, what would “Jaws” be without John Williams, “Final Fantasy” without Nobuo Uematsu or the SNES adaption of “The Flintstones” without Dean Evans? Other games have seen strong collaboration with bands for their soundtrack, such as Cœur de pirate’s work on “Child of Light,” Anamanaguchi’s stellar score for “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game” or even the procedural musical vibes in “No Man’s Sky” thanks to 65daysofstatic.
In SBGRPG, it’s Body Games setting the mood — and the soundtrack to your cosmic Carrboro adventure is tight and engaging from the opening piano melody of “I’m Glad You Were Born” all the way to the fresh flip found in the final boss fight’s “Blue Dream.”
The adventure the SBGRPG takes you on is a rewarding one, and not just in the sense that it feels cool to explore a strange slice of Final Fantasy-flavored home, complete with a riff on the ATB system and Overdrive mechanic minigames.
The Carrboro of SBGRPG is crafted with effort, love consideration and creativity – it’s a love letter to places, times and states of mind. It’s an experience worth your time, an adventure you’ll remember and an album you want to hear.
How much will Super Body Games RPG cost? The answer is…FREE!!!
The game will be released on a pay-what-you-want donation model, with all donations going towards the local businesses you visit throughout your journey such as @CatsCradleNC, @alldayrecords, and OCSC. pic.twitter.com/tWgbpKgeTq
— Body Games (@body_games) August 18, 2020
Photos provided by Super Body Games RPG.
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