Game: Band Manager: Backstage Clash
Manufacturer: Original Content London
Year: 2016
Personal History:This is another review sample that I've had the honor to play prior to the game's official release (it's on Kickstarter right now as I type this, so check it out by clicking the link to the campaign at the bottom of this review!). It's honestly been absolutely amazing to be able to review this many brand new and in progress board games lately, although I do fear that, while it's certainly increased my site's traffic and motivated me to get back to something like a regular posting schedule again, it's also steering me away from doing reviews of the usual sorts of games I do. I have one more review sample to get to right after this one, and then I promise some old thrift store nonsense again!
Anyway, it was a mix of the theme and graphics in this one that inspired me to contact the game's creator for a review copy. It's a little hard to put my finger on since I've almost grown tired of pixel art in video games, but something in those dead little pixel people eyes spoke to me.
Condition:The game took a rather perilous trip over the Atlantic Ocean to get to me, and in so doing it received some pretty significant box damage. Now, to be fair the boxes for the sample copies are made of very very thin cardboard, and I've been assured (even before I saw the thing) that the eventual final copies will be much more sturdy.
Also, the copy I received mistakenly had two of the same player pin tokens, both with the heart emblem, and was missing one which I assume has a lightning bolt on it based on the sheet of temporary tattoos I was also sent. This didn't effect gameplay at all, however it does mean that the missing pin will also be missing from my photos.
And lastly, as is always the case with these review samples, some aspects of the game will likely change prior to the final production. Most notably in this case the name of the game, which was originally "Battle of the Bands" has had to be changed due to a conflict with another game. My copy also appears to have at least some of the cards from an optional add-on "NSFW" deck, assumption based on the preview photos on the Kickstarter page. I think at least of those cards ended up in my photos, so you may not get every card you see in this review.
Gameplay:Each player chooses a pin as their token and are randomly dealt two "Passion" cards. These card all share the same point value but feature different inspirations for the player character to get into music. The players are encouraged to share their inspiration with the group. Unused Passion cards are placed back in the box.
Starting with the player who can sing the highest, each player takes his turn, then passes to the next player clockwise. On his turn a player may do one of two things. The first is to stay home and practice. A player who elects to do this draws one card from the "Career" deck. There are four types of Career cards; Hype, Chops, Riffs and Gear. Each type of card is color coded and features a numeric value on the corner, along with a picture and title. Cards are worth a maximum of five and a minimum of zero.
Hype represents the buzz surrounding the band, and the factors that draw the people in. Chops are the instruments that the musicians in the band can play. Riffs are the musical styles that the band employs. Gear is the equipment or merch that the band brings with them on tour. Passion cards, two of which are given to each player at the start, act as wild cards and can be used in place of any of the four Career card types.
The second thing a player can do is organize a tour. Tours are plotted out on the game's "board" which is printed out on the back of a t-shirt. The board is essentially a grid, with the columns indicating which kind of card can be placed there and the rows showing the "level" of the tour being taken. To undertake a level one tour each space in the bottom row must be filled with one of each type of career card, placed in the appropriate spot. To improve the quality of the tour the next row up must also be filled appropriately, now with the addition of a fan card in the fifth column. The highest, most successful tour is level four, which requires filling all four rows with the appropriate card types.
A player may embark on a tour on his own if he has enough cards, or may enlist the help of other players to join him on tour by contributing cards of their own. When other players join a tour the active player becomes "tour manager", and must negotiate with participating players regarding the number of cards to be offered by each. Each player is also able to place their badge on one of the cards used for the tour, allowing them to keep this card after the tour is over. This also secures their spot in line when choosing their cut of the "spoils" at the end of the tour. Badge placement is part of the negotiation process and only one badge may be placed per card column.
At the end of the tour the band (or solo artist) is awarded with a certain number of Career and Fan cards. The spaces on the game grid feature either a black background or grey background. Spaces with a grey background yield Career cards after the tour, and spaces with black backgrounds yield fans. The higher level the tour, the more fans are gained. After all cards have been placed the tour manager draws a number of career or fans cards, indicated by the value of the cards on those spaces, and places them face up on the table.
The tour manager player chooses one of these cards, followed by the band member with the left-most token, and then next left-most and so on. The player who is band manager will get to choose two cards each pass as he also has a token on the board. Participating players will continue to select cards from the spoils in this order until all spoils cards have been taken. Players then take the cards they reserved with their tokens into their hands and the rest of the used cards are discarded. A player going on a tour solo gets to take all of the spoils for himself, but does not get to reserve any of the cards he used.
While the Tour manager has the advantage of being able to collect twice as many spoils after a tour, he also has the disadvantage of having to reduce his had to seven cards afterwards. Cards can be discarded from his hand, and fan cards can be "banked". A banked fan card cannot be used in future tours, but also does not take up space in a player's hand. Players continue taking turns as described until one player is able to bank at least twenty seven fans. The first player to do this is the winner.
So How Is It?:We had a lot of fun playing this game. To begin with, every design decision here is functional, thematic and silly. The "board" layout reminds me of the "Guitar Hero" display with it's bright rows of primary colors. The card art elements are delightful and hit all the right concert experience stereotypes and jokes, up to and including the "This is Spinal Tap" based "Mini Stonehenge" card. As much as I'm getting sick of pixel art in games it really does work here and looks very nice.
The non-card components are wonderful. The board as a T-Shirt is a brilliant idea which oozes theme. It does require a little bit more table space that it otherwise would. You can see in my earlier photos that I folded it a bit to make it manageable, but that's a small price to pay for so much cleverness. The player tokens as buttons is also very cool, although I notice that the special fancy of the game that can be ordered on Kickstarter comes with guitar picks instead, and I sort of feel like that's a better idea in general. These are actual pins with actual pointy pin parts. I'm writing this as an American, living in the only country in the world that has made Kinder Surprise eggs illegal because some idiot MIGHT try to swallow one whole. The human being in me says that the pins are sweet and a fun addition to the game, and the American in me thinks that probably someone is going to hurt his or herself with one and then this guy is going to get sued unless there's a giant "Warning, Contains Sharp Objects" notice slapped across the box.
So amazing visuals aside this game is also very fun. It's super easy to learn, it moves relatively quickly from turn to turn unless a particularly delicate tour negotiation is going on, and there are enough options to be weighed with each tour to keep it interesting. It's pretty much essential to team up with players if you want the higher level tours which yield the most fans, however doing so does mean inevitably losing out on a bunch of cards due to your hand restrictions and your bandmates snatching some of the loot. And clever negotiation is an important thing too, especially if you're not the tour manager. Getting your choice of token location while putting as few cards in as possible is your pathway to success.
In our game we laughed about our origin stories, we kicked eachother out of our tours, we battled for control of a robotic dinosaur, and we read a rule wrong which allowed one of us to do something which got him like twenty fans in two turns. And even though the end of our game was wracked with controversy we still had a great time playing it and that's about the best thing you can say about a game.
One last quick point of interest. One of the Chops cards features a trombone. As a trombone player myself I find it to be a great insult that the trombone in this game is worth zero points. It definitely needs to be redesigned. Probably as a special six-point card with foil highlights.
Final Verdict:A very fun, easy, innovative game of hand management and negotiation. I'd recommend this game to practically anyone looking for something quick and silly and interactive. Just make sure you don't swallow the buttons. It scores a "Good" 4/5.
