It was just over a week ago that I first loaded up Rising Star and did my first mission.

I've slowly been learning how to play and have been grinding through the missions. I thought it might be worth giving a new players point of view on where I am and how I got here.

Start as a lowly busker and work your way up to a global mega star!
Earn STARBITS by completing missions and trade or use them to purchase cards to progress your music career.
_{Rising Star Website}

That's the game in a nutshell, as described on the games website, but just how do you work your way up?

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The Start

This is how you start and even though this seems to be your starting card, I can't see that I own this card in the NFT sense. So I think it's just there to get you started.

To progress you complete missions in the game, each with slightly different requirements and rewards. The first mission is Illegal Busking and like all missions I've come across it has Fans, Level and Energy requirements.

Fans

As you can see on The Busker card, you start with 10 fans (It's great to have dedicated friends and family at this point in your career). As you acquire other cards, they too can have fans on them that add towards your total. There is also a chance to acquire some drunk fans at the end of any given mission. These are like temporary fans as after 12 hours they sober up, forget you and no longer count towards your total.

Level

Your level starts at 1 and increases every time you reach a certain threshold of XP (experience points). Each mission has a certain level requirement to be able to start it.

Energy

Your energy meter is a percentage bar that represents how much energy you have for things like missions or music lessons (more on that next time). No one can rock out indefinitely and so each mission has an energy requirement as well. Energy replenishes at a rate of 1% every 5 minutes in the normal course of things. Boosters can help speed this up and we will talk about them a bit later.

Other Stats

Looking back at The Busker card I will describe the other two stats I haven't talked about yet.

Luck

In the early part of the game, Luck plays a part in the number of drunk fans you get. The chance of getting drunk fans is proportional to the length of the mission, but the Luck helps determine the maximum number you can be awarded given that chance.
As the game progresses you have to balance your Skill with Ego, which is a Stat that comes into play from level 15.

IM

As far as I can see, this Stat contributes towards the Player Rankings.
There is a breakdown of how the rankings are calculated and IM plays a part.
Daily HIVE rewards are given out for the highest ranking players.

Your Totals

Here you can see your total stats from all cards...

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So what do you get in return for completing these missions you might ask?

Well the answer, in the beginning at least, is XP and Starbits.

XP

Each mission awards you a certain amount of XP that counts towards leveling up. As you level up, you start to fit the requirements of more missions and so they gradually unlock for you.

Starbits

Starbits are the native token of Rising Star. They can be used to purchase a pack of cards, currently at the cost of 10,000 Starbits (you can purchase with several other currencies as well). You can also use them to buy and sell cards on the Marketplace as well as them being a tradeable token on hive-engine. The amount of Starbits you can earn on any given mission is given as a range. Skill can affect the amount of Starbits you can earn, although I can't work out if it does directly or just indirectly via Ego (something that comes into the game later).

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My First Week of Play

My strategy has been to play the highest available mission for my level and current energy level. You also have to complete earlier missions a certain number of times before it will let you play a higher mission. As my energy became lower I decided to just keep playing whichever mission was available for that energy level, instead of waiting for it to recharge.
I figured that at least it was earning me something, but the biggest reason was Street Pizza.

After completing a mission there is a random chance that you will find some pizza lying around, hence Street Pizza... who knows where it's found. At the start when you find pizza you will immediately consume it, but you can get the Pizza Box card that will let you store it for later use, as and when you chose.
Consuming pizza will restore your energy to 100% and so I like to play on the chance that I will find some and be able to do the higher up missions without waiting for my energy to recharge.

You can also find coffee, which will increase the rate at which your energy replenishes. A Coffee Cup card is also available to store coffee for later use.

I get the feeling I'm going to want as many Pizza Box cards as I can get.

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My First Card Pack

The developers of the game are quite keen to make sure there are no bots playing the game and so all accounts are verified. Once you reach level 5 they will want to verify you.

Having a good reputation on Hive can be enough, but one sure way of verifying is to purchase a pack of cards. Since I'm still new to Hive and I wanted to buy some anyway at some point, I took the plunge and purchased a pack for 5 HIVE.

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Every pack is guaranteed to have a rare or higher in it at this point.

The t6 Cheap Car have me a small Fans boost. The 41 Jerome card give me a small Skill boost.

It's the R89 Mouse card that I was really pleased with though. A 125 Fans boost and a 150 Skill boost is great, not to mention the 4 Luck and 3 IM.
This card really helped me to get straight into missions when I had the energy, instead of having to wait to build up some drunk fans as I did in the first days.

So that's it for now, I'm just moving through the missions, eating pizza as often as I can and building up my stats.

By next time, I should have earned enough Starbits to buy another pack of cards, hopefully earned some prize cards along the way and be a high enough level to have to deal with Ego.

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Am I going about things the right way? I would love to hear what strategies other people employ. Let me know if you have any tips or tricks I should know about.

Thanks for joining me.

_{All images are directly from the game https://www.risingstargame.com}