Family

Piecing together music history.

In the unusual detective game Family, you’re trying to piece together a history, putting names to each of the players in the London pop scene of a couple of decades ago. It’s the detective’s ‘serial killer’ wall, but with a family tree of indie bands. Who played drums in The Rialtos? Who played guitar in Easy Tiger? Clues lie in snatches of a radio broadcast, in songs from the (fictional) bands, and in snippets of articles delivered piecemeal to your desktop, every time you guess any five musicians correctly.

As a detective game, Family makes you work for it. I resorted to a bit of guesswork at the end, but I was able to figure out most of the identities by really scrutinising all of the evidence. It trusts the player to play detective, as they exhume a forgotten scene from music history. More impressive, however, is the music itself. Developer Tim Sheinman has created a track for each of the nine bands from the ’80s-’90s indie scene: that’s nine songs that sound distinct from one another, and that feel pretty convincing for the era.

TOM SYKES

The march of time can be depressing, but Family finds joy in discovery, and meaning in its ritual of remembrance. ★★★★★