Descriptions
BAND MATES is Rock Band meets Garage Band — a multiplayer music-making game.
We've all dreamed of being in a band. BAND MATES makes that dream available to everyone: an "all play, no work" way of making music where anyone can play with anyone else, whatever they know about music. Build songs alone, with friends on the couch, or online.
BAND MATES is Rock Band meets Garage Band — a creative sandbox where anyone can make real music with no prior skill, and still have genuine authorship over the result.
Everyone in a session shares one root, mode, tempo and swing, so no player can be off-key or out of time. What that leaves is the interesting part: choosing where the song goes. Change chord and every instrument in the session moves with it, live.
There are two ways to play it, and they are different instruments rather than different bindings. On a controller, chords sit on a wheel and are shown as colours, so note names never appear. On keyboard and mouse, a separate system presents a piano instead.
Underneath is a full groovebox: a 16-step sequencer you can extend and edit note by note, up to five tracks per instrument, effects and mixing. Play alone and layer the four band members up one at a time, fill the parts with friends on one machine, join a friends-only lobby online where every machine renders its own audio so you hear each other play live, or pass a song back and forth — a single song can carry up to four editors.
How it works
One key, one grid, four players
A session has a shared root, mode, tempo and swing, and every instrument is locked to them. No player can be off-key or out of time, so nobody has to be carried.
Two control systems, not two bindings
On a controller, a Chord Wheel on the left stick shows chords as colours and never names a note, with four Expressions on the face buttons, each carrying its own octave, sound, sequencer lane and effects. Keyboard and mouse use a separate system built around a piano.
A real groovebox underneath
A 16-step sequencer that extends by pages, live recording, note-by-note editing, five tracks per instrument, effects and mixing. Bass, drums, guitar and synth — drums the only non-melodic one.
Online that feels like couch co-op
Friends-only lobbies, up to four. Note and expression events cross the wire against a latency-compensated shared clock while each machine renders its own audio, so players hear each other play rather than receiving a stream.
Or hand the song on
Asynchronous play sends a song to another player to take somewhere else. One song file can carry up to four editors, keeping the four-piece band intact when nobody is online together.
Screenshots
The band
Design pillars
Accessible
Music is not, by default, an accessible pursuit. It takes years of lessons, expensive instruments, and hours of practice. The main objective of BAND MATES is to take all of that away.
Social
Multiplayer is a core system, not a bolt-on. Local and online, live and asynchronous.
Expressive
Expression and creativity as a means of fun and connection.
What players say
"I've never been able to play instruments, and this game makes me feel like I am."
— Playtester, GDC
The developer
Eduardo Ortiz Frau — Game Director and Lead Designer, and the whole of Groovebox Games' development team.
He trained as a musician first: classical composition at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, then audio engineering at Full Sail University, followed by years in recording studios and playing in bands. He found indie games in 2010 and spent the decade doing sound design for them — 25+ years in audio production and 15+ in games, with multiple IGF nominations for Excellence in Audio.
His credits include The Stanley Parable, What Remains of Edith Finch, Everything and Gorogoa — all four named in Polygon's 100 Best Games of the Decade — along with Afterparty.
BAND MATES is the first project he has directed. It comes from a decade of making sound for other people's games and then wanting to make his own — and from something he wrote in 2022 that still holds: "Without anyone to share what I created with, what motivation did I really have to create it in the first place?" Sharing is the point of this game, not a feature bolted to it.
