As someone without a musical bone in his body, I’ve never really dreamt of playing in a band to crowds of adoring fans. Being a musician isn’t the only way to succeed in the music industry though I suppose, and perhaps in another timeline I could’ve used my charm and people skills to manage some talented kids and leech off their success. Now thanks to Rockbeasts I can live out this awful fantasy, and prove that you don’t need talent to get rich.
Now don’t worry, this is but one of many ways you can choose to play Rockbeasts. If you’d rather have morals and make dreams come true that’s also fine, but it’s the freedom of choice this management game offers that makes it entertaining (at least based on this short preview build anyway).
At the start of the game your character arrives at a bar, where a down on their luck band is waiting to meet you. Made up of four colourful animals with vastly different vibes (my favourite is the sea bass bassist) it’ll be your job to manage their personalities to ensure success for everyone. In this first scene I already ensured our contract was going to provide me with more money than the industry standard, and named the quartet “Prawns of Confusion”. Life as a manager was off to a good start.
Now I’d officially signed the band, it was time to propel them to stardom. With a gig that night and no promotion though it was time to flex my credentials. Every action you take in Rockbeasts takes a unit of time, and with each day made up of only four chunks you’ve got to make it count. You can decide to explore the town for side quests with this time, which offer rewards that’ll help you rock harder when gigs come around. There are also activities that’ll help the band in a variety of ways, be that building their excitement by letting them browse the latest hits at the record shop or keeping them healthy with a cooked meal.
Eventually you’ll run out of time to practice and prepare, and it’ll be time to get the band on stage. As a manager it’s your job to decide which songs will go down best at the venue, and choose various actions that’ll take place in a set. By checking the various stats and buffs that a good intro and a killer solo provides you’ll be able to maximise the experience the band earns for a gig, and hopefully make a few fans in the process. Admittedly I didn’t have a lot of options to play with in this preview build when it came to gig management, but I’m sure later in the game you’ll need to really use your brain to pull off the best performances.
Once everything is selected it’s time for the show to start, and although you aren’t actually performing you still have a vital role here. It’s up to you to twist all the right musical knobs and levers to ensure the band sound amazing, and that means playing a rhythm mini game. It’s nothing you won’t have seen before, but these sections are great and a big reason for this is the music itself. The full game promises plenty of tracks to perform, and the couple I heard in this preview were absolutely brilliant.
The gameplay of Rockbeasts is really engaging, but more than anything else it’s the charm of this musical game that makes it special. The game opens with an interview with Iggy Pup (who is in fact voiced by the rock legend himself) and only continues to get sillier and burst with character more as things progress. A personal highlight for me was meeting a rival band who were recording a track called “Blood, Death, Piss, Satan”, who I had to pretend had talent to steal their rehearsal studio for the Prawns. I actually laughed out loud multiple times in the short session I had with the game, and I wasn’t expecting that.
I had a great time with Rockbeasts, but time will tell if all the important choices you can make will lead my band to stardom or the bottom of a bottle (or maybe both). I’m excited to see how Prawns of Confusion’s success is shaped by my managerial influence, and whether you’re music mad or not you should have this game on your radar.
Rockbeasts is “coming soon” to PC.
