My childhood dreams of Californication are now a reality: someone has turned Red Hot Chili Peppers' iconic music video into an actual game.
Californication, released in 1999, was the eponymous single of the band's seventh album. While ranking among their best tracks, the video is different gravy altogether: in my restless dreams, I still see that fictional video game, from its SSX-inspired snowboarding to swimming with sharks.
It took home MTV Video Music Awards for Best Direction in a Video and Best Art Direction in a Video. Alas, after all this time and several generations of gaming, nobody ever had the nerve to turn the video into a playable game – until now.
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Check out the trailer for the Californication game below:
The video, directed by Little Miss Sunshine's Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is inspired by multiple PS2-era games: Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto 3, and whatever game out there has you flying around a city on the back of a giant dragonfly.
Thanks to Miquel Camps Orteza, you no longer need to dream of Californication. The developer created a fully-fledged game inspired by the video and uploaded it to the indie game platform itch.io, and it's free to download for Mac and PC.
'Do you remember the Californication video from Red Hot Chili Peppers? I wanted to play that game so bad! It's 2022 and I haven't seen anyone make the game, so I challenged myself to create it. I have selected some epic moments from the video and turned into seven levels, each one with different game mechanics,' the game's description reads.
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'The game doesn't contain music, you can find some buttons in the game with some YouTube links to play the official Californication song or some covers if you want to play on streaming,' it adds.
Here's the full video for Californication:
While obviously primitive compared to the scale of today's next-gen games, it's been praised by fans. 'Look... I never imagined that one day someone would make a game based on a hit from the 1990s. Sensational, although simple. If the game has a little more care, add some cameras in the style of the music video and more stages, the game would be more amazing than it already is. He has incredible potential. Congratulations on your game, man,' one wrote.
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'This is probably the most legendary game that will come out this year,' a second wrote. 'Woah. This makes us so happy lol. I think we all wish this was real when the video came out,' a third commented.
You can find out more about the game and how to download it here.
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Cameron Frew