Basically yes. Each tape allows them to become self-aware instead of being simple NPCs.
From what I gather, the tapes are a save point. If you find one and put it in a tape player, you keep your memories between sessions. If someone takes your tape out, you forget. If you or someone puts a tape back in, the saved memories on that tape return to whoever the tape belonged to. Bada doesn't seem to remember past play-throughs, so I'm assuming he found a blank tape and that's where his current memories are, but has another tape floating around somewhere.
From my understanding each tape can be used by a player to save their progress in the game aka keep their memories of the rounds they have completed
So each tape belongs to someone, and they have to play the tape to keep their memories.
What happened was bada n the two guys played together before, but one of their tapes stopped playing (his memories got wiped), the other just kept playing npc (even though his memory was fine and his tape was still playing), and Bada's memory was unstable so he forgot abt the time he spent w the two guys and played solo until doha joined.
Not 100% sure tho so don't trust me
Someone can correct me if Im wrong
Now im just confused as fuck. Someone pls summarize this? The tapes are linked to the memories? Each tape has its owner? What?