Mixtape director on crafting the game's nostalgic coming-of-age story

Johnny Galvatron apologized when told someone had been listening to his old band. Before making games, he was the vocalist and guitar player for the Australian rock band The Galvatrons. Those youthful cringes—high school haircuts and early pop‑punk bands—are also the starting point for Mixtape, which treats those moments as foundational.

Mixtape follows a group of friends during their last night of high school as they reflect on the past. The team drew on coming‑of‑age touchstones such as Dazed and Confused and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. "John Hughes films have this lynchpin, which is, ‘From this point, things will never be the same,’" Galvatron said.

"It's such a heavy hammer to wield narratively, that things are going to change forever." The project began like a mixtape. "I just basically put out all of my favorite songs and we would arrange them in different ways," Galvatron said.

Australia

johnny galvatron, mixtape, the galvatrons, mixtape director, coming-of-age, high school, ferris bueller, john hughes, pop-punk, australian