A Story of a Band – retro strategy game, manage your band to become ‘Rock gods’
by Paul Wilks
Sep 7, 2012 9:52 AM –
Install
A Story of a Band is a rocking strategy game with stylised retro graphics and awesome sound which sees you manage a new rock band. Add members, go on tour, release a concept album and get interviewed by the press. It’s very similar in most respects to Kairosoft’s ‘Story series of old-school strategy formula, only this time with a rock band! Detailed, complex and engrossing, it’s also addictive and challenging from the very first beat.
Price: Free for the demo version, $2.49 for the full version
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Cool retro graphics!
- Detailed sound!
- Loads of skills and items to help your band!
- Explore different genres!
- Answer quiz questions for bonuses!
Cons
- Can seem like you’re drowning in tutorials and sub-menus at times. It’s very complex with lots of options and controls to work through. This means early gameplay isn’t rewarded very well.
Features:
A Story of a Band is a music band management game. You start with having to select a singer, a drummer, a bass player, a rhythm guitarist and a lead guitarist. Each has a different skill set and salary. Choose wisely! You can then pick which genre you want your band to be, with initial choices being prog rock, rock & roll and heavy metal (well, the game does start in 1975!) You also need to name your band and, remember, names are important so choose something cool.
After these straight forward beginnings, the game then gets very complex very quickly. The main screen you see is your band rehearsing, with various options below. There is the Band screen which lets you recruit and kick out members as you wish. The Genre screen shows you the genres of the age and how popular they each are. Style determines the style of your band’s output, including the ability to add points to your lyrics, aggressivity, emotion and so on.
Image shows your popularity in the cities you can tour. Album lets you record a new album- select the themes, choose which band members will be responsible for writing lyrics, melody rhythm, etc. and get into a studio! Tour allows you to select from several cities to take your rock sound on tour! The number of cities increase with your fame. Items lets you buy everything from coffee boosts to a PR manager, assuming you have the money! Skills let you increase your band’s abilities which use energy. Battle is another section where you gradually get to compete in a turn based battle-of-the-bands against some of the bands that have dissed you. Finally, the Stats screen gives you an idea of how well you’re doing.
Watch on Mobile
I should stress that all these features interplay with each other, so it becomes a highly complex equation to get right. For example, if you select a certain genre, your albums have to reflect the tastes of those genre’s fans. You have to additionally maintain band happiness, increase and subsequently use development points, keep a steady cash flow and keep increasing your skills.
The game has some huge pluses- like the end of year awards ceremonies, touring and the band battles are all really well done and fun to play. However, having a disappointing tour, poor album sales, brutal reviews, no money and frequent injuries when you first start is all a baptism of fire and might put some users off. That said, the template which A Story of a Band is so similar to, the Kairosoft methodology- see Game Dev Story- is massively popular in the Google Play Store so if you’re a fan of those, you’re still going to love this!
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A Story of a Band – On tour 1
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A Story of a Band – On tour 2
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A Story of a Band – Jamming
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A Story of a Band – Members fall asleep!
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A Story of a Band – Powerful attack
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A Story of a Band – Increasing attack power
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A Story of a Band – Image related actions
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A Story of a Band – Band battles
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A Story of a Band – Album reviews
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A Story of a Band – End of year awards
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A Story of a Band – Developer splash
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A Story of a Band – First menu
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A Story of a Band – Create new band name
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A Story of a Band – Select genre
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A Story of a Band – Tutorial
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A Story of a Band – Expect meagre album sales to start with
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A Story of a Band – Winning band battle!
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A Story of a Band – Tour report
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A Story of a Band – Accidents
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A Story of a Band – Select battle attack
Fun Factor:
The game definitely has the potential for fun, but the hard knocks early on are quite tough sometimes to see the positive side to. There is simply so much to balance. Maybe in a few gameplay years, if you get just the right formula, it could be excellent. The highs of the game- a good tour, a well appreciated album etc. are great, but perhaps a little too infrequent.
Addictive:
Despite these problems (which are really user-related rather than the game itself) I found it to be quite an absorbing experience that your determination drives you keep playing.
Graphics:
The visuals are very retro pixelated and old-school throughout. You might as well be playing on an Atari or ZX Spectrum computer.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is really good actually, basically retro-generated prog-rock sounds full of extra effects depending on the screen you’re on. It’s deliberately limited, but it really works well with the game.
Tags:
A Story of a Band,
Android App,
Android Apps,
Android Game,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Kairosoft,
Management,
retro,
Strategy
Categorised in: Casual
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