Over the past few months, Devir Games has released a rock-themed board game Solid as a Rock 1977. The designer of this game is jackie foxx As the bassist for The Runaways, he knew something about the rock stars of the ’70s. You and up to four of your friends will assume the roles of various rock stars trying to make it to the big leagues. Devir Games kindly provided me with a copy of the game for review, but all thoughts below are my own.
This is 1977. You’re a budding musician dreaming of growing up with your band. Over the next few months, you’ll rehearse, perform, write songs, and promote your band. With careful planning and a little luck, you can achieve maximum fame and become the best new artist of the year.
when i learned Solid as a Rock 1977I’m very excited. I’ve always been attracted to games related to music, especially rock music, so even though I’m a fan of 90s and 00s rock, of course I had to give it a try. Some attention to detail is really nice. The player board is designed to look like a combo amplifier with knobs to indicate stats, with a maximum stat of 11. In my opinion, things like this are always a plus.
Game play Solid as a Rock 1977 Very much a worker placement game, one friend pointed out that it was similar to Lord of Waterdeep. Each round (up to 9 rounds) is divided into three phases: day, night and evening. Each stage has unique locations for you to visit with different effects, such as increasing your stats, getting a record deal, attending a show, or just hanging out backstage. Each stage also has open locations. During the night, your position will determine your turn order for the next round. The game ends after the ninth round, or at the end of a round in which at least one player has 50 or more Fame (Victory Points).
Typically, each player can take one action in a phase, but there is a tool Solid as a Rock 1977 Helping you in your time of need: Candy. Candies represent various vices that rock stars are known for, which make it possible for them to increase the number of actions you can take (up to two additional actions). The thing is, every time you consume candy, your desire stat increases and you have to roll the dice. If the die roll is equal to or higher than your Desire stat, nothing happens. If the dice are lower, then you experience hypoglycemia and you have to spend the next day in recovery space, which only lowers your cravings by one.
This adds a level of risk versus reward that can help you keep up with or even get ahead of other rock stars. You’ll also need to plan your rounds with Candy carefully, as certain spaces restrict Candy’s behavior. For example, you cannot use Candy for multiple shows during the night phase. Fortunately, these spaces do have a clear icon indicating that the candy effects are somewhat limited. I actually really like the candy system and don’t even hate the fact that flipping a sugar-free card could waste candy, resulting in zero extra actions.
Before I go on to talk about the various aspects that I like Solid as a Rock 1977I do want to talk about the problems I encountered. My biggest complaint still baffles me. There are actually no box plugins to organize game components. You get some small plastic bags to help hold smaller parts and paper strips (which break easily and need to be replaced with rubber bands) to hold things like money and cards, but it looks incomplete and unfinished to me of. I often talk in my reviews about how inserts really make a difference in the game, and not having them is a big failure in my opinion.
A big problem we encountered while playing the game was the imbalance of work. There are 11 different jobs in total. They each show which stage of the job the player can go to, how much money they make, and any special abilities the job has. There are only two classes with special abilities, and they’re both pretty good. Not only do truck drivers get paid $2 (the average wage), but they can’t be fired for not using “work” (you will be fired if you miss three other jobs). At the same time, sound engineers also get $2, and if they record a demo, they get paid $1 less and don’t miss work. Wow, that’s really great! Some other jobs only pay you $2, others let you roll to see how much you can get for $1-3, and then you get a job that shouldn’t exist: waiter. While I understand thematically why it works this way, it’s just terrible. You must roll the dice and have a ⅓ chance of winning $2, a ⅔ chance of winning $3 (the maximum amount in the game), and a ⅓ chance of losing $2! The idea is that patrons stiffen you up and you do have a higher chance of getting $3 than other jobs, but it feels terrible when you roll a $6 and have to pay $2! If you’re completely behind, it can make it feel nearly impossible to catch up. In the mid-to-late game, this won’t matter as much as you’ll have other sources of income and can get away from working, but like many other worker placement/resource management games, the early game can have a huge impact on the final score. There are a few different ways you can try to fix this card, but really it just comes down to the fact that the general job requires better balance, and probably more special abilities. Honestly, I would probably suggest you have a discussion with your team and remove the waiting staff, possibly the truck driver and sound engineer, from the game before proceeding with the game as it currently stands.
Another problem my team encountered was hiring space. exist Solid as a Rock 1977colorful illustrations help indicate things. If the diagram is red, it represents the cost of performing the operation. If it’s blue, you need to do that. If it’s black, then it’s a reward for taking action. This does get a bit confusing for Hire Crew as there are multiple slots in the space but different costs for the same results. Some members of my team had trouble with the different spaces and purchase levels, since you can purchase up to three crew members, which costs more per crew member, but you can also only purchase one per turn.
Additionally, the character abilities feel inconsistently written. This isn’t a huge gaming issue, but it does add to the rough feel. Five of the characters have special ability markers, which you typically remove to indicate that you have used that ability. For Eric Fairchild and Doc Sapphire, owning these tokens means a lot. You can even defend Rafael Santiago. However, it’s strange to me that Yolanda Delacroix and Shere Darling use these markers, but other once-per-round abilities (like Kimmy Kim or Bebe Rose) don’t. Either, all once-per-round abilities should have a token, or they shouldn’t. What bothers me is that although the effects of Yolanda and Shere are very similar, the syntax is different. I wish this was more unified and even extended to characters like Babe Rose.
Finally, my smallest complaint is that not all amplifier board knobs are created equal. Some of these are difficult to turn at all, and we found ourselves actively checking them to avoid them when starting the game. That said, having some kind of grip on all the knobs would go a long way toward making this really a non-issue. The smoothness does make it difficult, which is a detail that feels bland to me since most (if not all) amp knobs I’ve ever used do have some degree of grip or protrusion for grip.
Despite all these negatives, there are definitely benefits Solid as a Rock 1977. I’ve mentioned the attention to detail, but what really matters to me is the money. They are nicely textured and have different markings on each bill such as coffee stains, drawings, etc.
Another positive is that the game adapts well to different sized gaming groups. One side of the board is for 2-3 players and the other side is for 4-5 players. Additionally, there is an “AI” player available for use in two-player games. I like large 4 player games and small 2 player games.
In addition, at the same time Solid as a Rock 1977 There’s definitely an unpolished feel to it in a lot of ways, and the different pieces are all of a high quality. Cards and money feel solid; tokens, expanders, character boards, and game boards all feel good; and the acrylic uprights look great and feel sturdy.
yes Solid as a Rock 1977 A perfect match? No. Apart from some rough edges, yes. If you like worker placement games you might like Solid as a Rock 1977. The art is fun, the mechanics are solid, and I enjoyed playing it outside of the game because I was a waiter (seriously, it was a really bad game because of that job). I will definitely develop this game with my friends in the future. Sadly, a lack of insertion, uneven workmanship, and an overall unpolished feel in some areas really hurt the score.
