When you think of making a game about rock bands, and portraying the ebb and flow of a battle of the bands contest, a deckbuilding card game isn’t something most people would have their first guess.
But the folks at Aerie Digital is rolling with this in their upcoming game Battle Bands. You play as a member of a 4-piece band, rocking against another band to see who comes out on top. And this is expressed by you and your bandmates working together building a combo of good cards with the deck you have.
It’s a weird flavour combo of a video game, but from our time trying out the limited time demo as part of Steam Next Fest, it’s actually good fun. You can play a card to start a chain (in the form of verses, bridges and interludes of a song), and once one is in play everyone can chip in with other cards like licks and power chords.
The goal is to be the first to reach a certain score, and you get this by chaining your cards and work together in putting your best performance. Each member, be it an AI or another player via co-op, each has their own deck of cards so some coordination is required.
It’s a battle of the bands, so there are also cards that you can deal direct attacks to the other band (drummers can throw their drum sticks at them, for example).
Gameplay aside, Battle Bands also has a sick art style.
Battle Bands has a demo right now as part of Steam Next Fest and you can try and see if it works for you. The demo shows a part of the co-op campaign (which is a roguelike, because it’s a deckbuilding game) that can be played solo or with friends. You can customise your character and upgrade your deck. In the final game, there will also be a 64-band battle royale mode (played as a single-elimination tournament bracket), which sounds really ambitious.
Battle Bands is expected to release this year on PC (Steam).