OFFBEAT – Preview
As much as your humble reviewer enjoys listening to music, we don’t exactly consider ourselves musically gifted. We have an underdeveloped sense of rhythm, which admittedly is an issue whenever we have to review a rhythm game or the latest Just Dance title. The very idea of actually making music ourselves is… daunting to say the least. Unfortunately for us, that is exactly the sort of thing we were tasked with doing in OFFBEAT, Whetstone Games’ new music tycoon game that just launched in Early Access. Were we able to successfully channel our inner DJ Crazy Times, or did the game beat us instead?
Welcome to 1980s London, where you’re now in charge of your very own music studio! As an entry-level freelance music producer, you’re tasked with composing tracks for a variety of eccentric clients, ranging from corporate presentations and exercise groups to ghost weddings and even ringtone requests. Your uncle has graciously gifted you with a music sequencer, so there’s no time to waste: start composing! OFFBEAT blends this lighthearted narrative with real-life-inspired music production fundamentals. Creative expression is emphasised, experimentation is encouraged, and accessibility is king. Even if you have no idea about the fundamentals of music composition, you’ll quickly find your footing here.
A diverse selection of electronic sounds across multiple genres is provided to help you create the right tune for the job at hand. The core loop starts with you receiving a commission from a client, who specifies what kind of music they’re looking for. It’s then as simple as connecting instruments to a grid-based sequencer and composing (or modifying) a song to fit your client’s requirements. You can then publish the track and get paid. Any earnings are used to purchase or upgrade equipment. A particularly nice, Mario Paint-like touch is that some of the more eccentric gear lets you work with unique audio signatures that range from the expected synth tones to motor engine sounds and even cat meows.
While accessibility is very much a part of OFFBEAT’s design philosophy, our time with the game so far wasn’t completely frustration-free. Not because of the game’s difficulty, mind you. Quite the opposite, as OFFBEAT is very forgiving in this regard. Client requests are generally lax, allowing freedom to experiment without punishing restrictions. No, our issues with the game were of a more technical nature. Specific note sequences or multi-instrument setups sometimes failed to register sound effects, for example, and the game’s cut-and-paste controls for note blocks felt very clunky in practice. The game’s forgiving nature also made it so that you could easily bypass specific commissions by repeating low-effort filler loops, which does undermine the point of the game somewhat.
Of course, it’s still early days for OFFBEAT, and although we do see room for improvement, the game’s foundation is already solid. Not only that, but there is a surprising amount of content in the current Early Access build. You’re getting the first two chapters, with each featuring roughly 10 commissions, as well as seven distinct instruments. That’s already a couple of hours’ worth of content, but players seeking a creative music sandbox will already find that here as well. The game’s Jam Mode allows unrestricted song creation with longer structures, intros, choruses, and drops. Every track you create can also be saved and exported as a .WAV audio file to be used elsewhere. Combined with the game’s theoretical ease of use, this mode alone has the potential to make OFFBEAT worth it, once those technical kinks are ironed out. We can’t wait to see what the coming months bring ahead of the game’s full launch in early 2027.
Conclusion
A charming hybrid of light tycoon gameplay and genuine music production, OFFBEAT’s Early Access build is a solid proof-of-concept. Its primary strength lies in making audio synthesis fun and approachable, backed by a delightful pixel art aesthetic and functional audio file exports. However, as a game it feels incomplete: the campaign ends abruptly after two chapters, and its sequencer editing tools could do with some refinement.
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