Beat Cop’s Soundtrack Nails the ’80s Style

It may look the part of a pixelart adventure game but Beat Cop from Pixel Crow bucks the gameplay of the genre. The game combines the time management aspects of titles like Cart Life and Papers, Please with the gritty stylings of an 80’s cop show. You play as hard boiled detective, Jack Kelly, who’s been framed for murder and busted down to a beat cop. As you balance writing parking tickets with off-the-books investigations time is running out to clear your name.

There isn’t a ton of music in the game itself — the bustling sounds of the city provide the ambiance instead — but developer Pixel Crow has done a fantastic job matching the sounds of the decade in the game’s trailers. The original announcement trailer from April was accompanied by the dark synthwave sounds of Piotr Musial whose video game work includes This War of Mine, the Anomaly series and the Blood and Wine DLC for The Witcher 3.

In a totally different yet completely fitting change of pace, Beat Cop’s latest trailer features a perfect parody of the Beastie Boys’ style with the song “It’s gonna change the game”. It is pretty amazing to hear and is included with the 5-track soundtrack available now to those who pre-order the Special Edition of the game ahead of its Q4 release window. Musial’s “Beat Cop Theme”, along with other contributions, is also included on the soundtrack.