Goth Girls: Noise Complaint

Everyone in the basement is playing a different song. Dom's bass is too loud and late, the guitars are rushing, Lera is holding a note nobody asked for, and next door a light has just come on. Leila is on the beat. Leila is always on the beat.

Seven broke roommates in their early twenties share the Beaumont Mansion, a crumbling house built in 1893, and take whatever work the city gives them: night shifts driving strangers, session vocals, an open mic that pays nothing, and Dom's four revenue streams. Their basement punk band is also called Goth Girls. Leila plays drums and keeps perfect time by feel while her hearing bandmates fall apart around her. Dom plays bass, Maudie and Nikita play guitar, Yoshiko sings lead, Lera is the soprano and Madelyn sings harmonies. Next door lives Mr. Kravitz, in his robe, with a cane, a cookie tin and opinions about D minor.

You play the band's attention. In a set, Leila is the clock and every roommate is a lane sliding off her beat in her own way. Tap with Leila to pull everyone back, call one roommate to snap her home for eight bars, or press WATCH LEILA to call the whole band at once. When every lane sits home for two bars, the band locks. Between sets you stand at the fridge at 3:47 a.m. and move the magnets: three evenings a week, each roommate at her gig, at BAND or at HOME. Rehearsing costs wages, working costs the band, and the jar has to hold the rent by the first.

Nobody rates anybody in here. There are no stars, no grades and no fail state, and a set always ends. The one honest number is bars with Leila. The feed keeps its own count, loudly and for the wrong things: the follower counter climbs from 11 to 470,000 and never pays the rent. Mr. Kravitz bangs on the wall three times, on the beat, and you can play to it. A label wants the band, if they will soften the message. And when the power cuts, the amps die, the count stays lit and the drums keep going.

Season One is ten chapters, one for each episode of the show's first season, with ten songs and three variants, about five hours of play and five stages: the basement, the living room, The Punchline's open mic, the DIY Venue and the warehouse union rally. Play alone, or with a second player on the same screen, one tapping with Leila while the other makes the calls. The whole game plays with the sound off: every cue is something you can see, captions are on by default, and there is a one-button mode.

Every song you play becomes a cassette on the setlist shelf, with a personal best. Roommates who rehearse get steadier, so an early song played late sounds tighter. Tour mode opens after the last chapter, with tighter timing and the guitars split in two. Nothing decays, nothing expires, and there are no daily rewards.

The game is based on Goth Girls, an adult animated comedy about seven roommates and their basement band. It keeps the show's cast, its house, its deadpan bracketed captions and its one rule for the band: follow the drummer. The satire aims at platforms, landlords, labels and the feed, never at the people doing the work.

Goth Girls: Noise Complaint is a complete game design for PC. Development has not started.