OFFBEAT Review (PC)

Having donned the pseudonym “SPYRL” since I first released a mixtape a couple of years back, I get it. If there’s one career that doesn’t get enough recognition, it’s music production. To the audience, it’s all about stage presence, and it’s about knowing how to elevate a crowd with an ear for perfect timing and solid beats. In reality, though, there’s a lot more that goes into the performance. OFFBEAT, while a condensed version of music production, knows this all too well, as does it know that DAWs are a thorn in the side to learn. Yet, in an effort to make the process less overwhelming, it vies to create a level playing field that mixes light and comfortable video game elements with beat-matching and in-house production techniques.

OFFBEAT is, above all else, a game. Remove a couple of its layers, however, and you’ll notice that, beneath its comical exterior and enigmatic characters, it is also something of an entry-level music production suite. See, while it does act as a video game—an experience that primarily focuses on chapter-based mixology and questionable instrumental effects—it also serves as its own fully-fledged studio that can be used to produce real tracks. And when I say studio, I mean a beginner-friendly software that not only allows you to fool around with various electronic sub-genres, but also export your own tracks to eventually play as and when the mood strikes. Again, this is a game.

OFFBEAT spins a familiar rags-to-riches yarn for a tale—a story in which a trying artist suddenly lands a job as a producer for various outlets across the world of entertainment, and decides to take full advantage of their shoddy equipment to, well, find a rhythm. From the beginning, you have an old tiger-shaped keyboard and a fickle sequencer to experiment with. As you pass through the era, however, you unlock items that allow you to incorporate fresh sounds into your tracks, all of which can be bought via an in-game catalog of weird and wonderful objects. A paper shredder, for example, can give you that extra crispy sound. It’s a bit of an odd gig I’ll admit, but it certainly demonstrates that even the most peculiar of objects can strike the right chord if implemented in the right order.

To an extent, OFFBEAT is more of an educational tool than a simple video game. The thing is, I’m not even mad about that. While it does offer some lightweight gameplay and a handful of interactions, upgrades, and a catalog of questionably good-sounding audio cues, it clearly proves that you can sideline the usual aspects of gamification and frontline education if the context is clearly defined. Personally, I’m all for the idea of taking a breather from traditional gameplay to focus on the theory. Thankfully, OFFBEAT provides that service, as does it go above and beyond to ensure that you have enough to work with while you’re ironing out the kinks and mastering its multi-tier suite.

For the most part, OFFBEAT is all about finding the right pieces of the puzzle to build your perfect track. Typically, you’ll receive a commission from a client—a wedding song, a presentation for a corporate event, or an advertisement for an off-beat brand—and adopt new sounds from an in-house catalog of eccentric items to produce a complete track that fills the mood and matches the criteria. As you wheedle through the commissions, you unlock more complex instructions and needier clients, some of whom may ask you to score a fantasy movie, others of whom may ask you to produce a track for a museum exhibit. The point is, no two gigs are the same in OFFBEAT; every client has an idea, and it’s your job to interpret them.

Beneath its weird and wonderful client base and its bizarre audio catalog is a comical experience that puts unlikely characters against a backdrop of electronic-skewered cultures. With a treasure trove of facets to experiment with—a singing garden gnome, naturally—and a complete collection of commissions to execute, OFFBEAT gives you all of the tools needed to create, collaborate, and incubate a library of personal .WAV files. The gamification, really, is just a bonus — and a good one, at that.

Suffice it to say that, if you are looking to whet your enthusiasm for the world of music production, then you should definitely consider looking at OFFBEAT as an opportunity to learn the basics and showcase your creative ideas on a bite-sized scale. Granted, its suite might not be as technically sophisticated as your usual industry-graded DAW, but it ought to give you a good feel for the art of beat-matching and synthesizing. If that’s something that piques your interest, then there is a good chance that you’ll enjoy collaborating with a paper shredder and a garden gnome in this wacky world.

Verdict

OFFBEAT doubles up as a perfectly executed two-for-one musical performance that mixes eccentricity with a deeply rooted in-house production suite—a tool that allows even the most inexperienced artists to channel their inner creative to create custom tracks and effects that can either wow their audience, or leave them feeling dazed and overwhelmed. With its wide variety of electronic sub-genres, weird and wonderful NPCs, and its surprisingly intuitive studio in tow, it comes across as a lot more than a generic video game — if that’s what you want to call it.

Needless to say, OFFBEAT is a brilliant torchbearer for a dual concept. Given that it offers the best of two worlds—a lightly salted game and a fully functional production suite, that is—it has all of the qualities of a great experience that can keep you engaged for hours. To that end I’d say that, if you are looking to dabble in the art of music theory and wax your inner virtuoso, then you ought to consider taking the time to scratch at OFFBEAT’s decks. It might not do enough to unlock your god-like abilities, but it ought to push you in the right direction, at least.