Not to suggest taking time away from developing the game, which I've very much enjoyed, but I have to say you should consider making an album if you have time at some point. That theme could be played in a mix with the likes of Lazerhawk, Perturbator, Gunship, and other synthwave greats and fit right in with no dropoff in quality noticeable between your track and those of the established names. It's that good.
The game is great as well, and as a Gen Xer who grew up on 80s culture as it was happening I've found it much like a pleasant trip back in time. I wouldn't say every detail is perfect, but it's more than close enough it feels right. One thing that stands out though, "vegan" didn't really become well known until the 90s at the earliest, it's far more likely the character would ask for a vegetarian option. Nor was avoiding gluten a thing outside those who had been diagnosed with a medical intolerance, for that matter. Hell, sushi hadn't even caught on outside of California!
It was a different time, I was born in '72, which put me in the graduating class of 1990 and not far off in age from the protagonists of this game. I can still clearly remember full service or self service gas stations being an option, and a choice between "regular" and unleaded gasoline, and yeah that stuff was mostly gone by '89, but it would still be in relatively recent memory. Nor was strict ID for cigarettes a thing yet, smoking sections still existed in restaurants and many other businesses and bars were almost never non-smoking, cigarette vending machines were common, and in much of the country the drinking age was still 18. Japanese compact cars were everywhere and many were in the sweet spot of being affordable enough for teenagers in the used market but still going strong mechanically thanks to quality Japanese build, and in particular at that time there was a HUGE boom in popularity for compact Japanese trucks with the low rider and massively overpowered sound system trends being in full swing. The Ford Mustang was the teenage jock-bro car of choice for those who weren't rich enough to drive a European import. Cassettes still dominated audio, vinyl was mostly considered obsolete and undesirable, and those who had the money were upgrading their music collection to CD. Digital was a point of pride, analog was considered the past and the budget option on its way out. BMX bicycles still retained some of its former popularity from the boom years of the late 70s early 80s but the popular style had shifted towards the "freestyle" variant and mountain bikes were the new hot thing. Arcades were still a thing but had entered a lull that lasted from the Video Game Crash of '84 to the release of Street Fighter II in 1991 which revitalized the arcade scene and was a huge cultural phenomenon. Commodore 64 was still the most popular home computer, though it was slowly losing its crown, schools still used Apple II machines, IBM Selectric typewriters were the office machine of choice alongside business computers and copy machines and fax, and what we now call the PC was still referred to as "IBM-compatible" and most were in the office and not in the home. The majority ran MS-DOS with few people having even heard of Windows prior to Windows 3.1 in 1991 and it didn't become ubiquitous until Windows '95. There was no consumer internet yet as we know it, but dial-in computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) were popular in the geek crowd. Wal-Mart existed but was considered largely a slightly less "cheap crap" alternative to K-Mart and the shopping mall was still dominant along with the rise of the suburban "strip mall". Sony was the king of consumer electronics, wood-cabinet floor televisions were still a thing but the trend was box televisions mounted in specialized bookshelf-like furniture called "entertainment centers" that always had a spot for a VCR and tapes and often included a spot for a stereo system. Car phones were a luxury status symbol, cordless home phones (but still connected to a landline) were popular but the touch-tone landline phone was still the standard while rotary dial phones were a relic.
I could go on and on, but I've already rambled down memory lane too much and you probably already knew most of this. Anyhow, keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to more.
