Within the last couple of months, Devir Games launched the rock and roll themed board game Rock Hard 1977. The game was designed by Jackie Fox who knows a bit about being a rock star in the 70s as the bassist for The Runaways. You and up to four of your friends will take on the role of various rock stars trying to make it to the big leagues. Devir Games was kind enough to supply me with a copy of the game to review, but all thoughts below are my own.
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.
When I learned about Rock Hard 1977, I was excited. I’m always drawn to games connected to music, especially rock music so of course I had to check it out even if I am more of a fan of 90s and 00s rock. Some of the attention to detail was really nice. The player boards are designed to look like a combo amplifier with knobs to indicate stats and the max stat is 11. You start with a job to make ends meet until you become a big enough deal in the music industry. Things like that are always a plus in my book.
Gameplay for Rock Hard 1977 is very much a worker placement game that a friend pointed out is similar to Lords of Waterdeep. During each round (max 9), there are three phases: Day, Night, and Evening. Each phase has unique locations for you to visit with different effects such as increasing stats, getting a record deal, playing gigs, or just hanging out backstage. There are also locations open during each phase. During the Evening, your location will determine your turn order for the next round. The game ends after round nine or at the end of a round where at least one player has 50 or more Fame (victory points).
Typically, each player can take one action during a phase, but there is a tool in Rock Hard 1977 that helps you in times of need: Candy. Candy represents all the various vices that rock stars are known for that gives them a potential boost in the number of actions you can take (up to two extra actions). The catch is that whenever you consume Candy, your Craving stat increases and you have to roll a die. If the die roll is equal to or higher than your Craving stat, nothing happens. If the roll is lower, then you experience Low Blood Sugar and you have to spend your next Day phase in the Recover space which merely lowers your Craving by one.
This adds a level of risk vs reward that can help you catch up to or even get ahead of the other rock stars. You also need to be careful in planning your turn with Candy as some spaces limit what Candy can do. For example, you cannot use Candy to play multiple Gigs during the Night phase. Luckily those spaces do have a clear icon that Candy effects are limited in some way. I actually really like the Candy system and don’t even hate the fact that it is possible to waste Candy by flipping over the Sugar Free card which results in zero extra actions.
Before I continue talking about various aspects I like about Rock Hard 1977, I do want to talk about issues I have with it. My biggest complaint is one that still baffles me. There is literally no box insert to organize the game components. You get some small plastic baggies to help with the smaller components and paper bands (that easily broke and needed replacing with rubber bands) for things like money and cards, but it just comes across to me as incomplete and unfinished. I often talk in reviews about how inserts can really make a difference for a game and not having one is a big failure in my opinion.
A big gameplay issue that we ran into while playing was the imbalance of jobs. There are a total of 11 different jobs. They each indicate which phase a player can Go To Work, how much money they make, and any special abilities for the job. Only two jobs have special abilities which are both really good. The Truck Driver not only gets paid $2 (the average amount of pay) but also doesn’t have any risk of being fired for not using Go To Work (other jobs fire you if you miss it thrice). Meanwhile, the Sound Engineer also gets $2 and if they Record a Demo, they pay $1 less and don’t miss work. Wow, that’s really good! Some other jobs just give you a flat $2, others have you roll to see how much you get between $1-3, and then you get a job that should not exist: Wait Person. While I understand thematically why it works the way that it does, it’s so awful. You have to roll a die with ⅓ chance of getting $2, ⅔ chance of getting $3 (the highest amount in the game), and ⅓ chance of losing $2! The idea is that a patron stiffs you, and you do have a slightly higher chance of getting $3 than other jobs, but it feels SO BAD when you do roll the six and have to pay $2! If you are behind at all, this makes it feel next to impossible to catch up. In the mid-late game, this doesn’t matter as you’ll have other means of income and can do without your job, but like many other worker placement/resource management games, the early game can have a massive impact on the final score. There are a few different ways you could attempt to fix this one card, but really it just comes down to the fact that the jobs in general need better balancing and probably more with special abilities. I would honestly probably recommend talking to your group about removing the Wait Person and possibly the Truck Driver and Sound Engineer from the game before playing with how things currently stand.
Another issue that my groups ran into is with the Hire Crew spaces. In Rock Hard 1977, colored icons help indicate things. If an icon is red, that is the cost to perform the action. If it is blue, then it is a requirement to perform the action. If it is black, then it is the reward of taking the action. This does get a little confusing on Hire Crew because there are multiple slots for that space with different costs for the same results. Some members of my groups struggled with the various spaces and tiers of purchasing because you can purchase up to three crew members with each one costing more, but you can also only buy one per turn.
Additionally, the character abilities feel inconsistently written. This is not a big gameplay problem, but does add to the unpolished feel. Five of the characters have special ability tokens that you typically remove to indicate that you have used the ability. For Eric Fairchild and Doc Sapphire, these tokens make a lot of sense to have. You can even make a case for Rafael Santiago. However, it is odd to me that Yolanda Delacroix and Shere Darling use these tokens but other once per round abilities such as Kimmy Kim or Bebe Rose don’t have these tokens. Either, all once per round abilities should have a token, or they should not. It also bothers me that while the effects of Yolanda and Shere are extremely similar, the syntax is different. I wish that this was more uniform and even extended to characters like Bebe Rose.
Finally, the smallest complaint I have is that not all of the knobs for the amp boards are created equal. Some of them are extremely difficult to turn at all and we found ourselves actively checking them to avoid them when we start a game. That said, some kind of grip on all the knobs would go a long way to make this really a non-issue. The smoothness really makes it hard and it is one detail that I feel fell flat as most, if not all, amp knobs I’ve ever used do have some level of grip or a protrusion to serve as a grip.
Despite all these negatives, there are definitely good things about Rock Hard 1977. I already mentioned some attention to detail, but one that really takes things over the top for me is the money. It has a nice texture to them and each bill has different marks on them such as coffee stains, drawings, etc. It might be my favorite detail in the game.
Another positive is that the game is scaled well for different sized gaming groups. One side of the board is for 2-3 players and the other is for 4-5. In addition, there’s an ‘AI’ player to use in 2-player games. I enjoyed larger 4-player games and smaller 2-player games alike.
In addition, while Rock Hard 1977 does have an unpolished feel in many ways, the different pieces are quality. The cards and money feel sturdy; the tokens, amps, character boards, and game board all feel good; and the acrylic standees look good and feel strong.
Is Rock Hard 1977 a perfect game? No. Is the gameplay fun? Outside of a few rough edges, yes. If you like worker placement games, you’ll probably enjoy Rock Hard 1977. The art is fun, the mechanics are solid, and I’ve enjoyed playing it outside of the game where I was a Wait Person (seriously, that was such an awful game because of that job). I’ll definitely be breaking this game out in the future with friends. Sadly, the lack of an insert, imbalance in jobs, and overall unpolished feel of some aspects does impact the score.
