{"id":18445,"date":"2026-06-18T13:05:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=18445"},"modified":"2026-06-18T13:05:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T13:05:50","slug":"mixtape-takes-place-never-it-takes-place-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=18445","title":{"rendered":"Mixtape Takes Place Never \u2013 It Takes Place Always"},"content":{"rendered":"


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We aren\u2019t talking about Mixtape<\/a> the right way. That is an admittedly brash start to what I\u2019m getting at here because there is no right way to talk about a game, a book, a movie, an\u00a0anything<\/em>. But I\u2019ve read so much good criticism about Mixtape, the nostalgic music-soaked adventure game from The Artful Escape<\/a> developer Beethoven and Dinosaur, since its launch last month. I\u2019ve read a lot I agree with, and just as much I disagree with. A recurring sentiment, however, is the intense focus on the \u201cwhen\u201d of Mixtape \u2013 when it takes place, what year it\u00a0must<\/em>\u00a0be set in, how this period of time does or doesn\u2019t connect to specific types of people, and entire arguments for and against it hanging on the idea that Mixtape has an answer to that question. After finally playing through it myself, it\u2019s so clear there is no answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mixtape takes place never; it takes place always.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\"Mixtape<\/p>\n

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On its surface, Mixtape is about three teenagers \u2013 the counter-culture Stacey Rockford, the classic goodhearted stoner Van Slater, and the silver platter girl who rebelliously rejects it, Cassandra Morino \u2013 and their final night in the Pacific Northwest-inspired fictional town of Blue Moon Lagoon. Stacey, suffering from Main Character Energy (though she actually\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the main character of Mixtape), will leave in the morning for New York City and impress a music executive with her mixtape-creating abilities to land her dream job as a music supervisor; there is no other option because Stacey knows she doesn\u2019t need one \u2013 the job is hers. As such, she\u2019s bailing on a road trip the trio had planned across the West Coast en route to Cassandra\u2019s college of choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cassandra is quietly (then not-so-quietly) devastated by this, disappointed in Stacey\u2019s decision to prioritize herself over the trio. Slater is also disappointed but unwilling to rock a boat he\u2019s happy to float along in. Stacey doesn\u2019t understand why Cassandra doesn\u2019t understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of this is the on-page text of Mixtape, and it\u2019s backed by Stacey\u2019s custom, fourth wall-breaking playlist that defines this final night in Blue Moon Lagoon. A close read of this text does make Mixtape a messier game than Beethoven and Dinosaur likely intended. Its mishmash of modern-day terms and sayings like\u00a0\u201csauce\u201d<\/a> and \u201cJesus Take The Wheel\u201d obscures an otherwise clear 1990s story, as does the inclusion of songs from 1995, when in-game references nod to a 1992 setting. From there, you can extrapolate, as many have, the ways in which Mixtape fails as a nostalgic trip to the 1990s of American suburbia, washed clean of the turmoil unfolding across the country during the same period.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But again, Mixtape doesn\u2019t take place in the 1990s, not really.<\/p>\n