Rock Hard 1977

• Designer: Jackie Fox
• Publisher: Devir
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 16+
• Time: 90 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

It’s 1977. You’re an up-and-coming musician, dreaming of making it big with your band. Over the next few months you’ll rehearse, play gigs, write songs, and promote your band. With careful planning and a little luck, you’ll earn the most fame and become the best new artist of the year.

Designed by Jackie Fox (member of the 1970’s rock band “The Runaways”, four-time Jeopardy! champion, and designer of the narrative adventure trilogy The Adventures of the Chubby Slugz) and illustrated by Jennifer Giner, Rock Hard: 1977 allows games for groups of between 2 and 5 players, from 14 years old, in games lasting about 45-90 minutes.

Rock Hard: 1977 is played over a maximum of nine rounds, each representing a typical day of one month in 1977, from April to December. You win the game by accruing the most fame. How? Increasing reputation, chops and songs; achieving production, performance, and publicity bonuses; getting record deals and earning royalties; playing concerts; and hanging out at the hottest after-hours spot. Ready to live like a rock star?

And it came to pass

That rock ‘n’ roll was born

And all across the land, every rockin’ band

Was blowing up a storm

And the guitar man got famous

The businessmen got rich

And in every bar, there was a superstar

 -AC/DC

To set up, shuffle and prepare the twelve different decks of cards.  Each player gets to choose a character card and then places it on their amplifier board – which has 3 stat dials for Chops, Reputation and Songs.  And yes, of course they go to 11.  You also track your Royalty status as well as your sugar craving on this board.  One card from each of the 3 bonus card decks are placed face up on the table – depending on the goal, they are scored when they are accomplished while others reward having the most of something at the end of the game. Players also get 3 Personal goals, a Job Card and 2 Starting Life experience cards.  Finally, Manager cards are drafted in reverse turn order; these cards give you a unique ongoing effect for the game, but you’ll have to make sure that you pay them for their services.

The game is played over nine rounds at most, each representing a day from each month in 1977. Each day is split into three parts: Day, Night and After Hours – and during the round, players will take their character through the actions of that day.

At the start of each round, there is a Prep Phase.  Here, a new Event card and a new Random Gig card are revealed.  All of these are read aloud so that everyone understands them.

Then the three parts of the day are played. In each, players will take one action on the board in the portion corresponding to the part of the day.  Additionally, players can choose to consume Candy which might give them some extra benefits or actions, but they risk crashing and then lose their actions for the next portion of their day.

Among the choices in the Day Phase:

• Rehearse – to improve your Chops
• Interview for Reputation
• Hire Publicists or Indie Promos (for Reputation and Fame)
• Hire Crew – you’ll need these to play larger venues
• Get a Record Deal (or Renegotiate) – you’ll need a Demo Tape first
• Anytime actions – donate blood, write a song, work, buy/sell candy

Buddy, you’re a boy, make a big noise

Playing in the street

Gonna be a big man someday 

– Queen

At night, you (hopefully) play your music in front of people

• Play a gig – as long as you have enough stats (and enough crew) for the venue 
• Play a random gig – on the card flipped up for the round
• Rehearse – if you’re not performing, buff your stats
• Anytime actions – donate blood, write a song, work, buy/sell candy

Bad nights causin’ teenage blues

Get down, ladies, you got nothin’ to lose

– The Runaways

After Hours – because rock stars don’t sleep, of course there is still a whole phase after the Night is over.  In this phase, you will not only get one more action, but you’ll also set the turn order for the start of the next day

• Go to bed early – you don’t do anything else, but you’ll be able to wake up early and go first next round
• Record a Demo Tape – you’ll need this to try to get a record deal
• Hang out – there are 5 different hangouts, where you will get a different sort of Life Experience.  If you make a set of 4 Life Experiences (either all the same or all different), you immediately trade them in for 5 Fame
• Anytime actions – donate blood, write a song, work, buy/sell candy

Anytime Actions – these 4 actions can be taken at any time, in any phase of the day

• Buy or Sell Candy – $1 each, max 3
• Donate Blood – earn $1
• Work – can only be done in the appropriate time of day on your job card – earn what it says.  If you don’t go to work (because you’re doing rock star things), take a missed work token.  Once you get three tokens, you’re fired from your job, so you better be ready to be a rock star
• Write a Song – move your song counter up by one on your amplifier

The round is now over, and each player collects royalties (if they have a record deal), and if it is the right time, everyone pays their manager. Then check to see if the game is over – either the end of the 9th round or if anyone has 50 Fame.  If so, move into final scoring Otherwise, set up the turn order for the next round based on the actions taken in the After Hours phase and get ready for another round.

At the end of the game, there are a few things to score

• End Game Production Bonus
• End Game Performance Bonus
• End Game Publicity Bonus
• 3 Personal Goal cards
• 2 Fame for each Base Stat that is maxed to 11, 2 Fame if all 3 are maxed
• 1 Fame per $3 left over

The player with the most Fame wins the game – named the Best New Artist of 1977!  Ties broken in favor of the player with the highest Reputation.

We are the champions, my friends

And we’ll keep on fighting till the end

We are the champions

We are the champions

No time for losers

‘Cause we are the champions

Of the world

-Queen

My thoughts on the game

In Rock Hard 1977, you get to live the life of an up and coming rock star, trying to leave your old life of being a veterinary tech or waiter and advance your career so you can live your dream of being a rock star.

What’s the name of the game?

Does it mean anything to you?

What’s the name of the game?

Can you feel it the way I do?

– ABBA

I like the way that each round in the game represents a day in the life for each successive month of the year. In each of the three phases of the day (which my group continually got wrong as we have normal people hours which are morning-day-night… not the rocker schedule of day-night-late night).  

Each portion of the day has a general focus gameplay-wise.  The Daytime phase is mostly about buying stats (though it also gives you the only chance to get a record deal).  The Night phase is when you get to play gigs/concerts – where you get stat bumps and often also make money.  Nighttime is dominated by hanging out – where you draw random event cards and hope they help your strategy (though this is the only time you can make a demo tape).

Just like real life, it’s not a glamorous process.  It’s a bunch of little steps, each hopefully propelling you forward.   And I do mean little steps.  The game is filled with many phases where your action feels like a microturn – oh, I guess I’ll donate blood and gain a dollar or I’ll write a song and bump my song count up by 1. End of turn.  You only get 27 turns in the game, and a bunch of them are taken with actions that obviously move you forward (as your stats are generally cumulative, any gains are generally permanent unless you spend them later in the game for other benefits)- but yet, at the same time, make you feel like you’ve done nothing at all.  

It’s gonna happen and it’s

Supposed to happen and we

Find the reasons why

One step at a time

– The Floaters

The overall pacing of the game also starts out slow because many of the fixed actions on the board have prerequisites that you cannot gain for months.  For instance, in the Day phase, Hiring Indie Promos or getting a record deal require you to have a demo tape.  So, those options are unavailable at the start.  You can’t make a demo tape until the After Hours phase of the first month, and not everyone will have that chance as there aren’t as many spaces for that action as players.   Going back to the overall tempo; when you start out, you’re short on cash and stats, and you end up taking anytime actions because they’re the only things available to you.  In my most recent game, for reasons, I didn’t get a demo tape made until the end of the fourth month, so I didn’t get my first record deal until the fifth…  

And it feels like the first time

Like it never did before

– Foreigner

Starting turn order becomes pretty important here – as the first player in the random start player draw gets first initiative for each phase of the first month, and therefore are guaranteed to get the chance to make a demo tape in the first month which then gives them many more chances in the second month Day phase.  This is balanced out by the reverse draft of the Manager cards – as they are drafted in reverse initial player order.  The Manager cards seem quite unbalanced, so the players last in turn order need to make sure they are able to choose the stronger Manager cards to offset the tempo advantage that the initial starting player will get.

As I mentioned in setup, there are a multitude of card decks, and for better or worse, the game relies upon lots of luck with card draws.  The After Hours phase is reliant on Hanging Out, where you draw a card and then you take whatever the cards give you.  Most of the cards seem to be of average strength, but you have to hope that the benefits you get mesh with your overall strategy. If you want to guarantee getting a song or cash, you can always do that with the anytime actions – but if you need Reputation or Chops, you might just have to hope to draw the right card.

You lying so low in the weeds

I bet you gonna ambush me

You’d have me down, down, down, down on my knees

– Heart

You also need to cross your fingers at the start of each round – the Event cards can really get in the way of your strategy, possibly throwing roadblocks in your slow-motion climb the the top of the rock mountain.  While some of the events are positive, I’ve found that a good number of them block off certain actions on the board, or prevent you from using Candy on your turn – and if you were counting on these things to forward your plan, you end up  getting totally sidetracked due to the random draw.   Not my favorite feeling, especially when you really have no way to plan for it or mitigate it.  For now, it’s enough to keep me away from playing the game again.

Once you are accustomed to the game tempo, it’s easier to plan – and it also increases the tension for action space competition.  You’ll soon learn the turn order can be of utmost importance because you’ll want to go earlier in turn order to give yourself a better chance of getting the actions that you want.  This certainly affects how you play the game as your After Hours action determines your turn order for the whole next round…

If your day is gone

And you wanna ride on

Cocaine

  – Eric Clapton

The idea of (nose) Candy in the game is a nice way to generate a way to bank extra actions, and it allows the player a chance to determine when they want to take those extras – of course, with the risk of having to go to Detox the next Day phase…  To revisit the whole card luck thing, you do have to flip up a card from the Candy deck – with the bulk of the cards giving you a single extra action, one card giving two actions and one card giving you no actions.  For me, this is an unnecessary introduction of card luck into the game.  It really blows when you draw the card that gives no actions, and honestly, I’ve gotten the +2 Action card at times when I really didn’t have two more actions I wanted to do, and I just took an anytime action to do something.  I get the push-your-luck concept with the die roll, but the added vagaries of card luck (especially when I got screwed three times in a game) leave a sour taste in my mouth, not the sweet one you’d think of from candy. 

Also, of note, we found the candy icon on the board to be a bit confusing; you’re able to take those actions with candy, you’re just not able to do them twice.  Maybe a different icon would have not led to this confusion.  We also weren’t sure what to do with the standee with the extra action.  We assumed that we should move it (and be able to place it on an available space, and then the space blocked by the player would be whichever action was done last… the rules don’t really address this (or we couldn’t find it).

The art direction is really nice.  The illustrations are great and definitely evocative of the theme.  The box uses an interesting glossy overlay – the title of the game can only be seen when viewing the box at an angle.  Otherwise, you get a full 30cm square piece of cover art.  I personally like being able to read the game title on the cover, but a lot of people who looked at the box thought it was pretty rad.  I would also mention that the play money included in the game is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen.  It looks and feels like actual greenbacks, and more games should try to emulate these if paper play money is necessary.

You can rely on the old man’s money, You can rely on the old man’s money

 – Hall and Oates

The rules are fairly detailed, and on page 2, the rules themselves explain that the book is meant to be long in order to include everything.  Once you know the rules, the Radio Edit quickstart page has just about everything you need… The rules take a lot of time at the beginning giving you a manifest of parts as well as descriptions of each of the card decks.  The downside of this is that you’ll have multiple places to look when you have questions – some of the rules are included in the description of certain card decks while others are included in the section dealing with the particular phase of play.  Just be sure to look through both areas when you have questions.

Rock Hard 1977 does a good job of recreating the struggle that musicians face trying to make it big.  It is a process that doesn’t happen overnight, and you’ll definitely get that feeling as you spend the majority of your time practicing on your own, working your stupid day job, and donating blood to get enough money to scrape by.  Just keep improving your position step by step and before you know it, you’ll be playing on the big stage.  Well, unless a random event card hoses your plans.  Of course, lady luck could also give you your big break!  But, that’s apparently the life of an up and coming rock star… and the designer certainly should be an authority on the subject as she lived the life!

I’ve seen your picture

Your name in lights above it

This is your big debut

It’s like a dream come true

 – Steely Dan

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor