In The Gig, players are members of a jazz group, improvising their way through a song, vying for the spotlight and trying to please the audience whilst working up mind-blowing solos!

First Thought

First thought of a game was, What the? The email I received described The Gig as a Dice Rolling, Pattern Building, Simultaneous Action Selection, Variable Player Powers & some read & read & write elements.

My first thoughts were one of confusion, and worried as there seemed to be a lot of crazy element all jammed together…. That being said, Jazz is probably the only theme that could take all this seemingly disorganised game play elements & make it work.

Let’s see if The Gig is a hit of musical genius or a pile of scat?

Setup

Each player takes:

• 1 Instrument Board
• 1 Score Board
• 4 Dice
• 1 Pen

In The Gig, the order of song you play is dictated by a Set List card. Start by placing the first song on the appropriate list for your player count in the centre of the table:

2 Players	3 Players	4 Players
Song 1	Song 5	Song 6
Song 5	Song 6	Song 7
Song 6	Song 7	Song 10
Song 10	Song 11	Song 11
Song 11	Song 12	Song 12
Song 15	Song 15	Song 14

How to Play

1. The Song

After a 1, 2, 3, 4 countdown, players simultaneously roll all their dice.

After this point, play continues simultaneously in real time, until all players have placed all 4 of their dice on the active song

Placing Dice

Only 1 die can occupy each space of the song. Each die must be placed in the row that matches its value (the lowest is 1, the highest is 6).

You cannot play backwards: you can place a die on any column (including one you have already placed in), but none of your dice can be placed to the left of any of your already placed dice (not even in a different row)

Dice can be placed in the Harmony space at the end of each row at any time. Multiple dice can occupy this spot, but only 1 of each colour.

Each player may only place one dice on the song at a time, and must only use one hand to do so.

Rolling Dice

Until one player has placed all of their dice, players may re-roll dice in their pool as much as they wish.

Dice that were not in your dice tray or placed on the song (i.e. if a die was still in your hand) when “take it to the Bridge” was called may each be rolled once more.

When a player places their 4th die, they must say: “TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE!”

All other players must now stop re-rolling, and place their remaining dice on the song, if they still can (if not, continue anyway).

Notation symbols (explained in full later) can still be used to adjust your unplaced dice after “take it to the Bridge” has been called.

2. The Bridge

Perform the following steps in order.

1. Perform your Solo See Instrument Solos – Only proceed to the next step once all players are finished.
2. Score Harmonies – If you have any die placed in the Harmony column, score 2 pts for every filled space in that row (not including Harmony spaces). Any points should be marked in the Harmony space for this song on the player board. Remember: At most 1 die of each colour can occupy each Harmony space at the end of each row.
3. Remove Dice, Gain Bonuses – Finally, remove your remaining dice from the Song one at a time, and mark the corresponding Symbols on your player board. hen gaining symbols, ensure you mark the leftmost available space first. When using symbols, erase the rightmost symbol.

3. The Tune-Up

After all but the last song, carry out the following steps:

• Return Dice All dice on the song are returned to the players who control that colour.
• Next Song! Turn to the next Song referenced on the Set List.

Final Scoring

Tally up the points on your player board

• Instrument Solos: Total up any points gained from your Solo
• Spotlights: Gain 1 pt per Spotlight you have.
• Symbol Majorities: For each Symbol, score 5 pts per player with fewer instances of that symbol marked on their score board than you have
• Notation Symbol: Sets Score 5 pts for each set of 4 different Notation Symbols you have marked on your board.
• Harmonies Total all your Harmony scores.

Declare a Winner

The player with the most points is the winner! If there’s a tie, share the audience’s adoration between yourselves.

Gameplay

I loaded up Tabletop Stimulator & awaited a call from the Braincrack Games to show me their game. As the screen turned on, & who was there but Australian boardgame royalty, Dann May. I’ve been lucky enough to play many games with him in the past & it had been too long between catch ups, so this was exciting.

After a quick catch up, we decided to get started. Dann ran me through the rules & we had a practice round & it was intense. I know that simultaneously played games are often crazy, but this was intense. You are focus on the numbers you need, on what your opponent are doing & trying to focus on your game plan. It was exhilarating & felt like the somewhat unco-ordinated; but the points kept coming.

And that is the beauty of this game, like in a band; you have your instrument to play & sometimes you overplay others. That is the beauty of the instrument cards. They are all so unique like an all instruments are & they all play differently. They have strength & weakness, are great at certain things yet not at others. Which is captured so beautiful in The Gig’s instrument cards. I unfortunately picked the sax, which after our play through, Dan was so nice to advised I’d picked the hardest one. I had a very good reason to pick it though…. it was purple.

The Gig’s Instrument cards for me, has to be by far that stand out. The thought and skill that has gone into them has taking this game just another dice roller to something special. The complexity of this elements completely changes how you approach your game play. And it scales like an instrument, the more you play, the more you get better at it. You start to understand the nuance & the beauty of playing the instrument. It is a little confusing at first, but you go to love and really understand it.

I feel like Jazz is the perfect theme for this game, as all over the shop. All the players cards are different, they are all going for different things, with different bonus. The Gig like Jazz should be a complete mess, as the sums of their parts shouldn’t work & should be an awkward mess. Yet like Jazz, everything that shouldn’t work, that seems too mess and too cluttered just seems to sing so harmoniously. The theme couldn’t be more fitting.

Art

The art to this game is actually remarkably simple. Almost stencil like, with a box cover that looks like an old 60’s playbook & I love it. As the game is so quick, cluttered and at times overwhelming with everything happening at once. Keeping the design more minimal and simple was exactly what they needed to do.  Game Design is a balancing of ying & yang, and this all element of the gaming, including the gameplay verse the components & art. The balanced showed in the art verse the game play is something special.

I love so many thing about the art & layout of The Gig. As there is so much fast, chaotic & ludicrous fun and the last thing you want to do, is delay that fun by having to awkwardly figure out how to score that round. Braincrack Games makes it simply and easy to move on & get back to the fast, chaotic & ludicrous fun

Final Thoughts

The Gig was a game I thought would be a lot of fun in the moment but not have the replay value. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The fast, chaotic & ludicrous gameplay, the strategy & actually trying to get better at each instrument. It just becomes so addictive, you want to get better & find how to better play you instrument or fill more of it.  Then move on to the next one, & try to perfect that one. I personally love every minute of it & according to my new FitBit, it was the most exercise I’ve done since getting it. My heartbeat was going nuts from excitement.

If you want to the fun, chaotic & ludicrous fun boardgame, then turn the Jazz up to 11 & head over to their Kickstarter Page Here