Japanese Breakfast Made a Browser RPG Called Japanese Breakquest

Michelle Zauner’s creativity doesn’t end with her dream-pop project Japanese Breakfast—she now has a videogame to her name, the perfectly titled browser RPG Japanese Breakquest.

The game, which Zauner developed alongside Elaine Fath, features MIDI versions of all 12 tracks from Japanese Breakfast’s acclaimed new album Soft Sounds From Another Planet, released via Dead Oceans in July. The songs play as you move from room to room within Japanese Breakquest, and if you beat the game, you can download the album in full.

The goal of Japanese Breakquest is to collect pieces of a robot known as the Machinist to defend your spaceship from alien invaders. You can equip band merch and instruments—like a (Sandy) Alex G T-shirt or Frankie Cosmos’ Danelectro guitar—to increase your character’s stats, and use abilities like “Philly Indie Cred” and “Rip a Solo” to defeat your extraterrestrial foes.

The gloriously retro Japanese Breakquest may or may not be one long hallucination brought on by drinking rocket fuel. Regardless, it’s a ton of fun controlling “J. Brekkie,” sussing out in-jokes—several of Zauner’s musical peers make cameos, including Jay Som, who insists that she likes the bus, and Ó (fka Eskimeaux), who reminds us that “nothing in this world is holier than friendship”—and battling alien invaders. All told, it’s a delightful surprise from a singular artist.

You can play Japanese Breakquest here, stream or purchase Japanese Breakfast’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet here, and read our recent interview with Zauner here.