A week is a long time in rock and roll

It is about a week since I started playing Rising Star, so it is time to give some impressions on the game.

I have not played many on-line games, but I think this is similar to others where you have to do various 'missions' to build up your character and acquire various articles. The nearest I have seen is Farmville, but I never got into playing it.

@risingstar got my attention as it is based around the music industry, which is something that fascinates me. I think the developer @atomcollector has done a good job of capturing the spirit of life as a struggling musician. I have my own experience of playing music in pubs and attending lots of gigs as well as reading a fair few biographies of musicians. Most of it is nothing like as romantic as the impression many have.

The gameplay is not too interactive. You kick off missions that can last from a few minutes to hours. These gain you experience (XP) and/or Starbits, which are the main currency of the game and they are traded on Hive Engine, so you could just sell them. The current value is not too high.

There is also a trading aspect to the game. You can buy cards that can speed up your progress or allow you to access the higher levels. These can be sold for any Hive Engine token. Traders may enjoy finding the best deals on the market.

There is no interaction with other players in the main game, from what I have seen so far, but there is a 'mini-game' called Battle of the Bands where you get to face off, but it seems to be just a random decision and there are no actual prizes. Another game called Gig Rush is planned.

As with @splinterlands you can buy packs of cards if you want to take a chance. You are guaranteed a rare card, so there should be a fairly good chance the cards you get will be worth more than you paid for the pack. I have drawn a couple of Classic Punk cards which helped my progress. Some cards are trading for hundreds of $Hive.

The cards have the following attributes:

• Fans. You need a certain number of fans to qualify for each mission. You may get some 'drunken fans' when you perform, but they sober up and leave you. Fans from cards stick with you.
• Skill is obviously something you need as a musician. When you reach a large number of fans the ego attribute comes into play. If you ego outweighs your skill then you will make slower progress.
• Luck is a factor in what you will gain in missions. Finding pizza or coffee helps you recover quicker.
• There is also something called IM, but this does not affect the game yet.

Missions require you to have enough energy and this recovers much like your voting power over time. Coffee and pizza give you a boost and there are cards to let you store those for use later when you really need it.

There are some Special Missions where you win other types of token. As I understand it these do not affect your progress in the main game.

I am still on the Home Town part of the game where you try to get to a Saturday headline slot. After that you need to build up an actual band and get transport to perform further afield. My playing has mostly been waiting for each mission to complete so I can start another, energy permitting. I have been buying cards using spare Hive and other tokens. I have been powering down my Blurt airdrop and will use some of that too. If you are not prepared to buy any cards then it will take a lot longer.

So you need to be patient or rich to play this game. Some may find that boring, but I am interested enough to continue. You can play the game on mobile devices. As the game requires Hive Keychain this is enabled by using a special URL. I found that I kept getting logged out on my phone, but you just need to go to that URL again. The user interface needs to be tweaked for small screens as the buttons can be hard to hit, but it is perfectly playable. You just cannot buy and sell items on your phone. It means you can keep doing missions whilst away from your computer.

Two important aspects of the game are the support for the music community and the social side. There is a player at the bottom of the screen that plays random tracks submitted by Hivers via the Discord channel. I have one on there already. The community is very active on Discord and @atomcollector is very open to suggestions for improvements and to take the game in different directions.

As with other games there is a referral scheme. This gains you one Starbit for each mission people complete. Several people have joined through my link, so I make a little extra that way. I can see some of them have made good progress. When you get to 100 missions you get a free card pack and several have got there. One is well on the way to 500 missions when there is another pack to be had.

There is potential to play the game for profit, but it could be a lot of work. Trading cards may lead to quicker profits, but relies on there being enough demand. I am just interested to see where the game goes and of course I want stardom!

Rock on.