We Are OFK

Developer/publisher Team OFK Format PC Origin US Release Spring

Teddy Dief, director and co-writer of this forthcoming interactive series, first met two of indie-pop band OFK at GDC in 2018. Keyboard player Itsumi Saito and vocalist Luca Le Fae were both working in the game industry at the time, they say. “I met with them shortly after I had left Square Enix, when I was trying to figure out what my next project would be,” they elaborate. Hoping to tell a human story about the creative process, Dief realised they’d found the ideal subject when Saito and Le Fae formed OFK with producer Jey Zhang and visual artist Carter Flores. “It just really felt like a really serendipitous fit.”

“What we then ended up doing is talking to the band, casting performers who could meet each member of the band and portray them accurately and just hear their story and recount it,” they continue. The five-part episodic series that Dief and their team is making, then, will be a retelling of the band’s story – “but with their blessing in terms of the accuracy and [depicting] the complicated shit that they went through in getting the music out,” they add.

So was there any pushback from the band when it came to retelling the story of their formation and industry breakthrough? “Itsu took on a managerial role, and I think that the others sort of trusted her instincts on what could be good for them,” Dief says. “I think there was some trepidation about telling personal stories.” But Dief promised to work closely with the band to get all of their perspectives and make sure it wasn’t too invasive. “We did sit down with each of them individually. I know Jey and Carter both value their privacy in certain ways, so it was important to get them one-on-one and to get their sign-off and their feelings about how things came together.”

How, then, does the series work? Dief says that each episode will focus on one band member, with the tone shifting in accordance with their perspectives. The studio has worked with the band “to structure a set of singles that felt aligned with the emotions of the story,” they say, with both parties agreeing that Follow/Unfollow was the ideal debut release. “There is an optimism and a positivity to it, but there is also a frenzy and a bubbling anxiety that they felt like was a good introduction to the music, and we felt like was a good introduction to the type of story we’re telling.” A combination of interactive pop videos and choices made through face-to-face and text conversations, meanwhile, are how the player/ viewer will be able to experience OFK’s rise to glory. We’ll bring you more about this fusion of art, music and game next month.