Most folks have heard of lo-fi music by now. From the dozens of music channels to the lo-fi covers and arrangements of popular songs on YouTube, it’s safe to say that lo-fi has taken off as a genre and fully entered the mainstream. In fact, it's mainstream enough that companies are starting to create things using lo-fi as a gimmick, including dating sims, rhythm games, and even figurines.
Bearmask is one such indie developer, whose new game Lo-Fi Room is slated to be released for PC and Android towards the end of 2021.
The game is a combination rhythm and hidden object game. Players will need to explore areas to find hidden instruments, and once they have located an instrument, they'll need to complete a rhythm game to acquire it. Finishing each instrument’s mini-game will cause its sound to be added to the background music. The main character will go through their day as players advance through levels, with more and more instruments layered onto the background soundtrack as players find instruments.
Bearmask initially created Lo-Fi Room as a submission for Music Jam 2018 on Itch.io. The game later won first place in 2019’s The Big Indie Pitch, sponsored by G-Star. Considering these successes, it was only a matter of time before Lo-Fi Room was slated for wider publication.
While the lo-fi genre is generally defined as music with “imperfections” normally considered unacceptable in professional music productions, in recent years the lo-fi genre has earned a reputation for conveying a cozy, relaxing energy that makes it ideal for studying, working, or otherwise zoning out to.
Bearmask is clearly looking to achieve this energy with Lo-Fi Room. The game is designed to be simple and stress-relieving. The original Music Jam 2018 submission can be played on Itch.io, and Bearmask recently announced that they have completed almost nine levels of the game.
Bearmask seems to be planning to give members of their Discord access to the first 10 levels of Lo-Fi Room once they are complete. The possibility of playtesting will be announced at a later date, when Lo-Fi Room's development is further along.
Source: Itch.io