Toronto indie bands team up for new video game, Loud on Planet X

Planet X is under attack by a group of alien invaders and the only thing standing in their way is a group of local Toronto musicians.

That's the concept for the new video game Loud on Planet X, a lovechild of the city's thriving indie music and gaming scenes, dreamed up by creative producer at Pop Sandbox, Alex Jansen.

"Basically you're playing a live show right here in Toronto at The Horseshoe [Tavern]," Jansen told CBC's Metro Morning on Tuesday.

Players get to choose which of the 14 bands or artists they will play as, from Metric to Lights, and not long after the show begins the aliens storm the stage.

"All of a sudden you get transported to this strange alien planet," Jansen said. "Now what you need to do is defend your stage from aliens by tapping on beat and as you tap you fire your speakers and you start to uncover these special attacks of strobe lights that will hypnotize the aliens, fog machines that slow them down, bouncers push them back."

The idea began from Jansen's love for classic video games like Tetris and PacMan, which he plays with the sound off and his own music turned up — loud.

But what do Toronto bands, like Broken Social Scene, have to do with video games? 

"These are just bands that we love," Jansen said. "And I think it speaks to just how vibrant both the Toronto music scene is and the Toronto indie game scene."

It's also a time when different mediums, from music to film to video games to comics, are blending together to create something unique.

"From when we started the company five years ago, the tools and the means to tell stories and reach audiences and cross over in mediums are at an all–time high," Jensen said.

And the bands themselves were keen to be a part of the creative mashup.

Many of the bands and artists featured in the game are avid gamers themselves, according to Jensen. Some of the bands created tracks for the game's score, while others chose their special power.

The mobile and console versions of the game just launched last week. The console version is $7.99 and the mobile version is $5.49.