A new take on the Roll&Write genre

You have probably seen roll&writes and flip&writes before, but have you ever seen a draft&write? Well, you will if you play 💿 Draft & Write Records from @insideupgames, a game about creating and managing a music band! 😉 Instead of just drawing a card and every player doing the action depicted on it, you will do a closed draft instead, choosing a card each turn then passing your cards to your neighbor, thus having a bit more agency.

Your player sheet looks a bit overwhelming at first glance 👀: there are many different areas with tons of icons and boxes to cross off, but it quickly makes sense as you start playing. 👍 Each part of the sheet sheet corresponds to an action icon - which you’ll find on cards you draft or as rewards from other actions. 

These actions are things you might expect with the theme: Touring 🚐 to different venues, releasing albums 💽 and singles 📀, recruiting new members 🕺, acquiring new assets 🎤 and managing your agenda 🗓️. Even though in usual roll&write fashion you are “just” crossing off boxes to combo into crossing off even more boxes, the infusion of the theme makes it more meaningful. Like it’s not just an X, it’s “we are finally big enough to do a concert at the Stadium”. 😁

The coolest part is your crew cards. Each potential crew member shows 4 colors - if you hire them you have to color those in on your sheet (the game comes with some colored pencils 😊). If you manage to match colors of adjacent crew members you trigger additional harmony 🎵 bonuses for even more combo potential!

The flow is simple: 👉You draft 4 cards one at a time, then check to see if anyone completed any of the available goals. Then everyone draws cards again and you continue, until someone fills either all the goals, all the fails, or all the crew member slots. Then you see who got the most fame points and became the best band. 🏆

💬Draft & Write Records is great, easily in the upper echelons of the genre. Games start out slow, but then you have enough symbols marked to start triggering combos and satisfying chain actions, making you feel smart. And it looks quite appealing too, I’d say! ☺️