This week's game...the game of fusing hip-hop with pop rock that is Dropmix.
Players: 1-4
Time: 10-20 minutes
Genre: Party / Music / Casual Card Game
(Note: Smartphone or tablet is required to play this game)
Through the collaborative efforts of Hasbro and Harmonix comes the unique musical tabletop game that is DropMix. The game is played with a unique board that reads cards embedded with NFC-chips and uses your smartphone or tablet to keep track of turn order, score, and to drop those sweet, sweet beats. With five slots on the board, players take turn putting down cards onto the board, which in turn creates a specific beat based off the card. And with there being five slots, this leaves room for many a unique combination of beats for one of a kind DJ-ing and musical creations. Perhaps the best aspect of this technology though is the ease in which it can be used, as whatever card is on top of the stack can be read even through the pile of cards, allowing continuous creation of fresh beats as players stack cards and continue play.
The game contains three modes of play to be enjoyed. Clash Mode is the core game / competitive aspect of DropMix, having players mixing and dropping beats to be the first to score 21 points. Players can play up to two cards per turn, with their aim to cover every colored slot for the most points. To aid with this goal, there are special cards with certain abilities that can allow extra cards to be played, remove opponent's cards, or draw more beats. Each card also has a power level, in which must be matched or surpassed to play over another card on a stack. So there is light strategy to be had in this mode as players consider which stacks to play on and think carefully when to play cards with special effects to create those point-racking combos.
For more casual play, there's also Party Mode, where players are just trying to match requests / colors as quickly as possible, and Free Style Mode, where players can just enjoy experimenting audio combinations to their ear's content. At any point during any of these modes, should players also come up with an unexpectedly wicked mix, they can use the DropMix app that runs the game to save their combination to post on social media and/or play for later use. And with so many cards with such a variance of artists and genres, from Bruno Mars to Imagine Dragons and more, there are so many combinations that can be formed and enjoyed. The base pack of DropMix comes with 60 cards and the board, with more cards being able to be purchased separately. Be forewarned, much like the Rock Band series for which Harmonix is known, the base game of the board peripheral is expensive and additional cards / beats can add up quickly in cost. Still, this is a very innovative and eye-catching (and ear-catching) game to be sure. I recommend this game for those who enjoy a multitude of music genres, creative tinkering, and shiny lights.
If you have any questions about DropMix, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, look forward to future installments of Tabletop Tuesday!
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