Family
Family is brilliant. The theme fits the mechanics perfectly, and the music is excellent. Really enjoyed it. Great work! - Lucas Pope, Papers Please, Return of the Obra Dinn.
Want to talk about Family? Join the Discord
Want more? Check out Rivals, due on 21st of September.
Reviews
As a piece of detective micro-fiction...t’s great, because it has what most attempts at detective games don’t really nail: the personal touch - Alice Bell, Rock Paper Shotgun
Family is a brief submersion into a time gone by...It's a game about relaxing in a warm memory, either your own or in my case, someone else's. And you know what? The Smiths: finally I'm beginning to see why. - Robert Purchese, Eurogamer
Family is great...clearly borne from a love and deep understanding of indie music, and of a bygone age of music journalism... If the words 'NME' and 'Melody Maker' are not just meaningless noise, you should probably play it. - Tom Sykes, PC Gamer
"Goodness me, this is a clever thing... really satisfying hour or so. It’s quite mad that this is free...a job well done" - John Walker (RPS Founder), Buried Treasures.
Family is a really interesting concept... a different kind of detective game and definitely one worth giving a look if you have any interest in the pop scene of that era. - Jupiter Hadley, IndieGamesPlus.
If you have enjoyed this game, please leave a review. I appreciate them very much.
Overview
Family is a puzzle game, based around a fictional, forgotten 80s indie music scene.
Discover the strange and wonderful music of long-lost bands, while uncovering their stories.
A note about the Web Version
This has a slimmed down version of the cut scenes for intro, tutorial and outro. The rest of game is identical. However, I do recommend downloading the 'full fat' Windows version, if you have option.
Credits
Music, Art & Code by Tim Sheinman (Owl_Skip)
Voice work by Hattie Snooks, Daniel Duke, Mark West
Bass Guitar - Ali Wedderburn.
Instructions
In the main game screen, you can open the family tree by clicking on the bottom left hand corner.
You may identify any musician by clicking on them and selecting a name from the book.
Upon selecting 5 musicians correctly, the game will let you know.
When all 30 musicians are identified. The game is completed.
Installation
Windows: Download file and run installer
Mac:
This only works on OS before Catalina.
Mac can be really tough to run indie programs on. However, here is how to do it.
1. Got to system preferences.
2. Open Security.
3. In General, change 'Allow apps downloaded from' to Anywhere.
4. If this is not possible, go to the terminal and type sudo spctl --master-disable. Then type in your password.
5. Download and open application.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $2.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Rivals (Sequel to Family) Alpha TestingAug 31, 2020
Comments
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Really enjoyed this. Absolutely loved the music, which was a killer soundtrack to piecing together the puzzle.
Like it a lot. Definitely leaves you wanting more, but in a good way; you definitely feel like you're getting more than you paid for with the lovely music. Great aesthetic and all a lot of fun. I am also entirely with Gail in her thoughts on Thatcher.
I was recommended this game because I just recently released a mystery game involving a lot of text and some custom music, and someone mentioned it reminded them of this.
I love your radio station story structure and the voice acting and music was all incredible. Fantastic work!
Nice one, I'm going to play your game btw
I've got another comment somewhere down there, but I have to give an update.
First of all, I was fortunate enough to have this game when it was free (and free is always worth it but damn what a free game it was!)
After always having it on my laptop (don't think I'll ever be deleting it actually), I decided to give it a revisit after a couple of years. Went in with no memory of who was who and where they belonged.
There's no need to listen to any of the songs or the radio interview, actually. I just realised that from playing it once again. There are clues littered everywhere. Everything is gotten from the text snippets and band descriptions. You can breeze through the entire thing in about 20 minutes or less if all you want to do is figure everything out (and you can, just pay attention to what's written). But you'll miss out on so much. The labour of love that went into the songs and voice acting in this game is amazing. This is by no means a shoddy game and it's more of an experience than anything else.
Think Obra Dinn, but with music. That's about the best as I can describe this little gem. Don't care if it isn't THAT replayable, I, for one, haven't deleted it yet and will continue to keep it on my laptop if for nothing else than the songs. (And believe me, in about 6 months I'm gonna forget who is who and where they go in any case so I'll be playing through it yet again!)
Tim, kudos to you and your team and the amazing batch of musicians who dedicated their efforts toward this.
This was a very nice experience. Short and sweet game. Good job!
Beautifully observed 80s indie scene detective fun. Sweet!
Great game. Just a note here to confirm that it works for me on the latest macOS Big Sur.
Nice!
Finally played and finished it after the tab lingering in my browser for months =) Loved the game, apart from the excellent and accomplished detective game design, the great production of music and radio segments was what really struck me. I would be crazy proud to have made such a thorough stylization.
Thanks very much!
Found this game through the Rivals steam page, and loved it! Short, sweet, and I didn't have to look anything up.
Nice work!
This was a lot of fun, although at the end there was one band member left for me where I was clueless (Dova Pavlova - drums). For everyone else I found that the clues were decipherable (but damn, it took me ages to finally realize what the clue for Klanger - synth was), but here I had to guess, because I felt like it was my only option. But maybe I was just blind? Anyway, I'm glad John Walker from "Buried Treasure" pointed me here, I definitely didn't regret buying the full version and am looking forward to checking out "Rivals" in the weeks to come.
Excellent, thanks very much!
This was very cool and very well done. I ended up beating it after realizing two things about the synth player in Klanger and the drummer in Dova Pavlova. Really cool game, thank you. I love that this genre might take off after all.
Hi! Any chance I could contact you to ask a question about this (don't want to spoil anything publicly)? I made the same connection, but I think I'm still missing one tiny thing...
Of course, no problem! You can DM me on Twitter if you like, I'm at @videospacegames
Cool, will do. Think we need to be following each other.
This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed playing it.
Very welcome!
Brilliant little gem! Thanks.
Thanks very much!
Can confirm the 16:10 problem. Also doesn't seem to want to work on Firefox for me. Apart from working around those problems, it was an enjoyable experience.
Thanks to thesixthaxis, found this, wonderful way to kill a few hours instead of working today! Thanks mate, a work of art.
Thanks very much!
Honestly, I have no idea how you are supposed to know the person on drums in Dowa Pawlowa, so I kinda got a little frustrated at the end, and I still dont know how you should figure that one out.
But I got it through guessing and it is still a really great game.
IIRC this was the person that was supposed to replace drummer in the band other member of Dowa played in.
Ahh, this was fantastic. Thank you.
You are very welcome!
Are you able to change the resolution of the game?
Oh, one other thing -- it seems that the game is set up so that the Itch client runs the installer every time you play?
Heads-up on a technical issue: I have a 16:10 monitor, and when I play the Windows version, the sides of the interface are cut off: https://imgur.com/a/3TMFZov
I'll work around it by changing my desktop resolution for the moment, but it would be nice if the game could accommodate it :)
I am in love. I adore 70s, 80s music and this game made my little fangirl heart so happy. All the bands felt so real, I felt like I was reading actual interviews and news and notes. I am enamoured with the songs too! I love Casta Nyet's Love Songs the most because it feels so intimate. This whole game feels so intimate. Thank you for this!
P.S. If you think this game is exactly your jam, I recommend reading "Daisy Jones & the Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. They compliment each other perfectly with this game.
Fantastic game, beat in one sitting but didnt feel too short at all. The soundtrack is wonderful and i would definitely buy it on its own. Would love more info on the musicians involved?
Absolutely loved this, short but so sweet.
Soundtrack is fantastic, and the whole thing comes together in a package that really draws you in.
Would absolutely love to see more of this!
That's great, and you will.
This is a gem. As someone who cut up magazine interviews of my favorite bands and dropped everything when their songs played on the radio - this really took me somewhere. Excellent storytelling, and a genuinely satisfying logic puzzle. Loved it from start to finish! Can't wait for the songs to be available.
Thanks! Songs are available on bandcamp, see link in description.
As a music lover I enjoyed this so much! Great music, chill atmosphere and was very satisfying to figure out all the names~
Loved Dova Pavlova and the Watercolours as soon as I heard them, nice to know they were based on some of my favorite bands!
Ah excellent, thanks very much!
Loved the game! Android port someday?
It was fun
Personal Main Takeaways:
If you want to make her day, tweet @hattiesnooks as if she's ella.
will we ever get the music on spotify? I really loved listening to it!!
Thanks! I will surely upload it soon.
What I'm about to say I say in the nicest way possible: This game feels like one of those strange BBC "web games" from the mid 00's. It feels really intimate, and I remember thinking "Oh no, he's a dickhead" about one of the characters when I got more clues. I'm really glad I played this!
Thanks! Look, if I could have made it on ceefax...I would have made it on ceefax.
I wasn't even a fan of this scene before. I am now.
This game, while not difficult, does require a little bit of your brain. I did my first playthrough with my speakers low (rest of the house asleep) but with a couple guesses I still got through. Second time, doing it the proper way, by logically going through everything and listening to the audio clues (I knew who everyone was, but wanted to see if there were no areas where you had to guess)...I still found everyone.
The songs are amazing. The radio interview is amazing. The clues give you just enough to keep searching. It's not a long game, it's not a difficult game, but it's a wonderful game nonetheless.
4.75/5 from me.
The developer should sell the soundtrack. Loving the songs.
Thanks very much! You can pay what you like for the downloadable soundtrack on the bandcamp site listed in the game description.
This game is lovely. I'm a sucker for all of these genres and music history and nerdiness in general, and you can really tell a lot of time and soul went into putting things together in a thoughtful way. The radio interview bits were well done and it was neat getting an extra layer of hints. It really felt like I was starting to get to know some of these people and bands.
I'm also stuck on my last 5. I feel like 3 or 4 of them *have* to be right, but even cycling through what's left for the remainders, nothing is quite clicking. Do you have any extra hints, or a solution that shows where the hints were if I weren't a goober and read better? It's Klanger's synth player and Dova Pavlova, in particular the drummer. (Watercolors' bassist is the last one but that's totally a given by now.)
If you need help, just leap into the discord.
This combines my love of 80’s indie music with a really cool idea for a game, and is just the kind of game I’ve been wanting to make myself for ages. So thanks for saving me the effort! :D
PS. Nice job on approximating The Jesus & Mary Chain (et al) there..
Hey, glad you'll be able to use that time for something else.
With JAMC, had to really work to make the guitars sound crap enough, modern effects pedals are not up to the job!
What a brilliant little game. Tracing the band members thru the years was intuitive without being trivial, and I was able to get them all without the need for guessing.
I love the presentation and effort that went into the game, between the songs, the radio, the album covers, and the text passages. Family has an enormous amount of charm, and I cannot wait to see what the developers will do next.
What an excellent game! I loved the organic nature of the scene. It felt very authentic, especially the clashing personalities.
It's a real gem! Great game! I'm recommending it to any one and every one!
Thanks!
This is so, so good! I'm not even half way but I'm already enjoying it thouroughly. Such a clever and well executed concept too. Definitely going to recommend this to some of my musician friends! I'm piss poor at the moment but I'll make sure I'll donate come payday.
Many thanks, really glad you enjoyed it so much. Recommend away!
I have to admit 80s London pop music scene is not exactly my forte, but having hanged in other similar music scenes, this was a very familiar phenomenon! The game's very well made and though it felt a bit overwhelming at first, getting started was easy enough and there were enough clues to complete it without resorting to guessing.
Great work! Looking forward to seeing more :)
Really glad you enjoyed it, many thanks!
This was fantastic, the music was great, and the radio show was excellently produced. I thoroughly enjoyed it
Really glad you enjoyed it, many thanks!
Amazing work! The wife and I played it while having a drink and had a great evening. Would love a follow up if you ever decide to do one.
Thanks! Really glad you enjoyed it. Although in a different setting, I do have a few things you may enjoy on my itch page, which are also detective games using audio. I would suggest The Remains of Richard Fleming, followed by the Russian Doll.
I'll be sure to check them out. Nice one