Rock Hard: 1977 is Devir’s latest big box game, designed by Jackie Fox, bass player of The Runaways back in the 70’s. Uncultured swine of the 90’s that I am, I wasn’t familiar with The Runaways but I did recognize their hit song Cherry Bomb from a number of different movies and TV shows. It’s been featured in Guardians of the Galaxy, Trolls, and The Boys, among others. I learned a little about Jackie Fox thanks to a recent NYT article here (might be paywalled). Frankly, I have immense respect after reading her story.
If I were a betting woman, I’d bet most of us have wondered what living the rock star life would be like. The perks seem pretty fun…getting to feel cool as hell all the time, everyone loving you, beautiful people all around, having a pure talent that can be turned into a living, $$ to buy all the board games you want, and a house big enough to store them in. Not bad. But there’s a few real drawbacks I’m seriously content to do without. In fact, there’s almost no part of me that wishes I could have lived the rock n’ roll lifestyle. The perils are well documented: the ravages of addiction, relentless touring, egotistic meltdowns, sexual abuse, speedballing, the passing years slowly laying waste to your liver. Yeah, the payoffs are immense but this rock star shit ain’t for everyone. And here’s where Jackie impresses me most. This game is about none of those drawbacks, despite her experiences with them. It’s a fun time where we can sit back in fantasy land for a bit and enjoy the cartoon version of rock star life. PG-13 cartoon perhaps.
So let’s talk about the game. I’ll break this one down for clarity’s sake.
Brief Rules Rundown:
You choose one character from a colorful cast of ten. Each has their own special ability and great Character standee. The game is played over 9 rounds, with each round living out a day in the life of an up-and-coming rock star. You’ve still got to work your boring 9-5, but you try to stick it to the man in any way you can by writing songs, making demo tapes, playing gigs ranging from frat parties to Carter Stadium (the holy grail), and hitting the after hours hang out scenes. Each day is made up of 3 phases: day, night, and after hours. Morning isn’t even an option, which I love.
You get one action per phase, but one of those phases will be spent working unless you’re ready to quit or get fired.
Mechanics and Theme:
I hesitate to call it worker placement, not because that’s not accurate, but because the theme jumps off the board and smacks you in the face so hard that you forget you’re taking part in some rote mechanic. I hate using “thematic” as a descriptor, but there are very few games I’ve played that strike me this way. I would maybe liken it to Obsession’s use of theme, except I think Obsession could use some of the fun art Rock Hard has.
One of my favorite little thematic touches is the use of “candy” *wink wink nudge nudge*. You may use candy to get extra actions. But this increases your cravings meter and the more that increases, the higher risk you have of being sent to “recovery”, which takes up an entire day action.
Richards might have had a piece of candy or two in his time.
As far as games go, there’s nothing mechanically ground breaking happening. It really is your standard worker placement with the addition of some push your luck with the candy. But this is one of those rare exceptions where I’m okay with the mechanics being so familiar. It’s the theme that pushes the envelope here. It wasn’t just loosely tacked on. The game was built around this idea, and you can tell. There’s a passion behind the game, which is something I’m more than happy to support. Not to sound too dramatic but when mechanics and theme meld seamlessly, it’s more of a transcendent experience. In that, I only mean it’s more than following rules. It feels intuitive right away because of the setting and clever design of the actions. I was delighted to work my way to playing at Panda Palace. I didn’t math my way there, I earned my chops, wrote those songs, and garnered my reputation.
Game Heaviness and Replayability:
This is pretty light game. Certainly lighter than The White Castle and I would say a solid contender for a gateway game. You’re presented with a pretty small number of options each phase. Because of that, there are definitely some limits on replayability. To some degree, all players are funneled to the same actions each turn because you achieve the stat requirements for spaces around the same time. The events deck adds randomness into the game which helps mitigate this, but it kind of felt like when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. This isn’t really a game for the hardcore min maxing gamer though. It’s also not really a family game because of the risque nature of some of the cards. I won’t be whipping this out for my 2 year old any time soon.
This is a game for the friend you’re trying to bring into the board gaming fold or a more casual game night. You’re probably looking at 1.5-2.5 hrs depending on player count. For context, I almost never play games as light as this. My favorites are Cole Werhle games, Brass, Agricola, the Undaunted series, Earthborne Rangers, and Ark Nova. This will remain in my collection for both the gateway aspect and an excellent theme, and not necessarily because it’s a puzzle I’ll work on again and again.
Speaking on the random events a bit more, these can absolutely block an action at a critical moment. For example, I spent a long time building up my resources to finally play at Yenser Arena and as soon as I had it all, we drew the event card preventing anyone from playing there that round. This didn’t feel particularly good, as there was no way around. But at that point, I still had enough time to pivot and continue building up resources to finally play at the real prize, Carter Stadium.
Player Count:
I played this game at 1, 2, and 4 players, a total of 4 times so far. There is no solo mode, I just two-handed a 2 player game, which I enjoyed just fine. The two player game uses a 3rd character to take up action spaces but the actions still felt pretty wide open. The scoring track goes up to 50 points but in the end, I scored 75 and my husband had 61. I had another game with scores in the 60s. This may be the nature of the 2 player game. You are just able to rack up high point values each game. I definitely don’t consider myself a genius board gamer, so the fact that I was scoring above the track on my first game might be indicative of the game’s difficulty at that player count. Regardless, it doesn’t feel stale at any point. You’re working you way up the ladder continuously, and this maintains interest throughout the game. 4 players is probably the sweet spot for this game. We were definitely duking it out for certain actions each round and it necessitated a lot of use for the “go to bed early” space which ensures you’ll go first in the turn order next round. We were also much more strategic with our candy use in the 4 player game. Our scores varied from 48 to 77 (three guesses who scored the 48….).
Art
Man, I love the art in this game. I wasn’t familiar with Jennifer Giner prior to this but she really knocked it out of the park with this one. The gorgeous box art definitely has some hand in this game’s popularity, for good reason. The bold, bright colors pull you right in, and it’s an attractive game board to look at. It has a big hand in selling the theme to you. It’s a game that looks like a good time, and it is! The player boards are amazingly designed, looking exactly like an amp, knobs and all. A part of the delight this game brought me was just playing with those amp knobs. Very clever design and they function great.
We had no issues with them over our 4 plays, and they were simple to assemble. The only thing the game is maybe missing is an insert. Everything has a tendency to slide around in the box a bit, so it could definitely benefit from one. Regardless, baggies work fine.
So we come to the end of this review. Overall, it’s an excellent game for a light, fun evening. Structurally, this baby is sound all the way through and I think it’s an excellent addition to the board game space. I don’t always want the highfalutin stuff that’s profoundly intelligent and deemed intellectually superior by someone somewhere who is intellectually superior to me. Sometimes, I just want to be a rock n’ roll chick. If there’s some kind of death I’m dying as a woman of a certain age, who has wound up in a certain stasis of life, I don’t really care because all I need is to pull out Rock Hard: 1977 and my alternate-universe-youth is recaptured in an instant.
Beau 