“I’m getting the band together & we’re going on tour.”
I was a backer of this game on Kickstarter and have played it numerous times since receiving it (solo & multi-player).
Draft musicians, production staff, backstage crew as well as assets & agendas, while honing your chops on the road, to build the best band you can. Create harmonies between your band, staff & crew to unlock more fans, more money & greater opportunities.
SETUP
Like most games of this type, each player gets a sheet of paper along with a pencil. Each player also gets 2 secret goal cards (of which, they’ll choose 1 to keep). In the center of the table, lay out 4 more public goal cards (there’s a HUGE stack of these) & 4 coloured pencils (red-tune, blue-levels, yellow-tempo & purple-pitch). Next, each player will get 5 “play” cards, which include lead singers, musicians, production & backstage staff along with asset, agenda & the dreaded scandal cards. Lastly, place the “pass direction” card near the goal cards. Each player randomly chooses one of the coloured pencils & fills in one of the circles above the “lead singer” spot.
GAMEPLAY/OVERVIEW
Each step of play is run simultaneously. First, each player will choose one of the 5 cards in their hand & place it face down in front of them. Next, pass the remaining 4 cards in the direction of this round’s “pass direction card” (this will change after each round of 5 cards). Finally, each player reveals their card & either marks off the symbol shown on the card or adds the chosen band member/staff to the “band” section of your sheet. If choosing a member/staff of the band, you’ll record the point value of the card on your sheet and then, using the coloured pencils, fill in the 4 circles shown around the point value. These circles may result in “harmonies” between the members/staff by matching colours, resulting in a bonus (which may then cascade into more bonuses).
Besides the band/staff section, there are 2 other main sections of your board, the Assets & Agenda sections. These show different symbols that will get marked off according to the cards they chose that turn and as symbols are marked off, these too will reveal bonuses. On the Assets section, once the 2 symbols on either side of a bonus are marked off, you’ll gain that bonus. In the Agenda section, once a line of symbols has been marked off, you’ll gain the bonuses at both ends of that line. Some of the different bonuses available are money (to unlock more members/staff or to further your tour), tour icons (which move you on your cross-country tour), album/single spaces (which at the end of the game, you’ll multiply these 2 sections), multipliers for your band/staff point values & more. As usual, one bonus could turn into a bunch of other bonuses.
One thing I mentioned earlier was “scandals”. These can come up on cards or you may have to “take” a scandal if you can’t use any of the cards you have during that turn (spaces are locked, you don’t have room for any more of those that particular staff or don’t have any of those symbols left to mark off). In this case, you have to mark the next scandal (which will become negative points at the end of the game). If you ever mark your 5th scandal, this will trigger the end of the game. Other end game triggers
are filling in all 12 of your band/staff or a player records their 6th goal.
Speaking of goals, once each player has chosen/recorded 4 of the 5 cards that they have been passed, they’ll discard that final card & as a group, check the public goals. If any player has achieved that goal, those players will record the point value on the goal track section as well as possibly gaining additional bonuses, if shown on the card. Once a goal has been achieved, it’s discarded & a new one will come out for the next round. Finally, each player will check their secret goal & if achieved, will record that as well. You only get one secret goal per game so once it’s achieved & recorded, that card can be discarded.
After checking the goals, deal 5 new cards to each player, flip the “pass direction” card & continue on to the next round. Do this until you run out of cards or one of the previously mentioned end game triggers has been achieved, then add up your points (band/staff, tour, agenda, goals & minus your highest scandal) & the player with the most points wins.
THOUGHT/FINAL VERDICT
I really enjoy this game. Currently, it is my favourite of this style (& I include “roll & writes” in that). The artwork is charming & easy to understand. It’s also fun to try & guess who the musician is on some of the cards (be sure to check under the insert for a secret band member card. I believe it’s in every box. It was in my Kickstarter version as well as a retail copy I got but if not, I apologize). It moves along at a brisk pace & doesn’t outstay its’ welcome. The time listed on the box says 30-60 minutes & I think that’s pretty accurate. The recommended age is 10+ which is perfect.
The Kickstarter version game came with a few expansions which I haven’t even explored yet.
Family/Non-Gamer – 9/10
As easy & straightforward as the game is, for a non-gamer, there might be a bit too much going in front of them…at first (the sheet of paper is fairly busy). Once they’ve gone through a few cards though, it’ll click & they’ll be stacking bonuses & harmonizing with the best of them.
Average Gamer – 9/10
My only complaint, if you can call it that, is all of the sheets are identical. This makes it nice for teaching the game but it’d be cool to have something unique. Maybe with a future expansion, they could add something to set each player apart. This is definitely no deal breaker; the game is amazing & as I already said, my favourite in a pool of many great games of this type. One other minor issue is with the colour yellow. It can be hard to see. Again, not major but worth noting. Overall, a great game to add to anyone’s collection, gamer or not.
You can find Inside Up Games online at insideupgames.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/insideupgames.
