Rising Star - Initial Impressions

The latest Hive based game I have been introduced to is a music-themed simulation placing you in the role of a struggling musician called Rising Star.

First off, this game has zero barrier to entry. You can hit the link and immediately start performing missions to gain Starbits (the in-game currency)! You start off only able to work the Illegal Busking mission. To work on other missions, you need to gain levels, and more importantly, fans. You have a chance of picking up some Drunk Fans after any show, but they generally only stick around for 12 hours.

To gather permanent fans, you need to acquire cards, either through pack purchasing or the open market. But both of these can be bought with the Starbits you get from playing the game.

After several days of running missions, I managed to gather about three thousand Starbits and purchased a Cheap Guitar (not sure how I was making any money without an instrument. Perhaps I was just singing acapella or playing the spoons!), and Fan Booster card, which gives me five permanent fans.

I already had a single-fan Fan Boost that I found randomly after one of my gigs, so my permanent fan base moved up to sixteen, allowing me to do away with the Illegal Street Busking and stick to Open Mics and other better paying gigs.

After 100 completed missions I was gifted a card pack, which contained the following treats.

A Rusty Mic, a Skill Boost (used later in the game), and a potential new band member. I thought that I would have to wait until I could form an in-game band to slot in the Rapper card, but she seems to still give me her bonus attributes just by sitting in my inventory, which is a little strange from a gameplay perspective. But hey, I'll take it!

There is also an energy meter. Bigger shows use up more energy, which re-accumulates throughout the day. You can also sometimes find a Slice of Pizza or a Coffee that will give energy boosts, and I'm told that Pizza Boxes and Coffee Cups, which let you store your found consumables for later usage, are very popular.

One of the more interesting features of this game is called Rising Star Radio and exists as a slender play bar at the bottom of the screen. Musicians can submit tracks on Discord and have them added to this radio playlist for everyone to listen to while they're playing.

Pretty cool!

And like any good Hive game, this one has some interactions with other tokens on the Hive ecosystem. You can perform a number of special event missions to gain BATTLE, GIFT, PIXEL, BEER, and ATOM tokens.

The game's interface is pretty craptacular, but it's functional. And, of course, the game is in alpha stage. There is definitely a grind involved, but doing a mission involves clicking a button and coming back 20 minutes later to see the results, so it's a very casual grind!

I don't think this will ever be an investment type game. IE, you're arent going to make money from this game or trading in its cards, but it is a fun little jaunt, and you can always sell your Starbits and other finds for a preferred currency. If you're a real-life musician, this could be a rather unique way to spread your music around!