The ultimate game to meet your 90’s music nostalgia

Riley & Rochelle marks the culmination of a concept Sheinman Games has been working on for three years. A period of recent music history is chosen, imaginary bands and singers are created, songs are written and performed, and then it’s your job as the player to sort scattered information into some sort of order. They are logic puzzles, but with a soundtrack.

The format began with the 2020s family, in which they were tasked with creating a ‘family tree’ of band members and the various groups and careers they followed through the ’80s London music scene. Just two months later came rivals, which takes place between 1995 and 2010 and this time deals with US alternative country music. Both games featured songs written and performed by developer Tim Sheinman and demonstrated a deep love for both distinct music scenes. After a diversion into American politics with 2021 Conspiracy! (although still following the same puzzle-solving format), 2022 offers us Riley & Rochelleonce again set in the 90s, but this time in the world of cheesy pop and ultra-fame.

Riley Stone is a handsome young man from Detroit who is quickly (perhaps too quickly) making it big on the US pop scene with classic ’90s pop. Growing up in Canada’s glamor scene, Rochelle Robert dominates with her ballad singing until she’s picked up by a creepy promoterr and introduced to America. Both become hugely famous, and as the game begins you’ll explore their vastly different careers by attempting to match the exact date for a batch of separate journal entries by both of them.

This is accomplished by reading through the entries and then reviewing other materials provided for each of the game’s eight chapters. That could be fliesConcert-goers, radio interview recordings, live talk show appearances, or even a diner menu. Each one is crammed with clues pointing to a time that, when pieced together (which also occasionally requires real-world searching), lets you work out the exact date for the entry. Match all of them correctly for this chapter and the story will progress.

All clips for radio broadcasts, filmed events, DVD commentary, etc. are audio recordings with actors performing and singing. And every key song mentioned in the game can be listened to at any time, not only by Riley and Rochelle but also by some other tangential artists. You listen or read, note key details, then google when the 1997 Oscars was and refer to Rochelle’s birthday which you found out earlier and figure out that meeting must have been in March and then put that with the information together it was a monday and finally you have this date.

With Riley & Rochelle, Sheinman (and a growing team around him) reaches the pinnacle of this concept in my opinion. If, like me, you’ve played his games, there’s definitely a sense of repetition here and a desire to see a new set of ideas. However, if you haven’t (and let’s be reasonable, they weren’t breakout hits, you probably haven’t) then R&R is the best place to discover this brilliant idea. It’s certainly the most accessible in terms of the music scene it covers, even if it’s not the genre I would personally listen to.

However, as the game progresses, both Stone and Robert tire of the largest market in the late ’90s and begin to be influenced by Portishead, Massive Attack, and Radiohead. This has interesting implications for the plot, but also makes the music much more palatable to my ear-mouths. And indeed demonstrates Sheinman’s remarkable range in terms of song composition. That he can pull together a cheesy ballad that sounds like a reasonable ’90s Oscar nomination contender, and indeed the blissfully low-core vibes of a difficult third album from a disappointing flop single, is truly a testament to an impressive talent.

The UI isn’t as great as I would hope. Previous games haven’t exactly excelled when it comes to presentation, but I found it Riley & Rochelleis a bit too lo-fi. The art is nice, but crucial elements like the stacks of journals look pretty bad. Where the zine scene presentation used to make sense given the subject matter, it feels a bit too fragmented here. It’s ok, it does the job, but I really would have liked to see something more detailed.

But the most important thing is the overall effect that this and the previous music scene mysteries have on me: making me feel like these people were real and their music story actually happened. It totally works here, both artists – despite being based on industry stereotypes – feel fully fleshed out and real. This is helped tremendously by the loving details about Rochelle’s mother, her home life and the very human moments seen in her journals, as opposed to the public presentation in the materials found.

I’ve gained such a deep knowledge of some totally imaginary musicians after hearing so much of their music, hearing snippets of movies they’ve performed in and getting a behind-the-scenes look at their lives. I love that. That’s what makes these games so special, even though one riddle might be particularly cheesy (“Helena took me for coffee today. Didn’t meet me yesterday, bad luck she said. I thought that was just for Friday. ‘) it’s still entirely forgivable because it allows you to hear more of the story, learn more of this fictional music story.

I really hope Sheinman does something very different for his next game because I really think that format is done now. but Riley & Rochelle is a great, if sometimes bumpy, way of proving what a solid idea it always was.

You can get Riley & Rochelle via steam and itch.io