boardgames hitster review

HITSTER: more than a feeling, it's pure pleasure!

HITSTER : more than a feeling, it's pure pleasure!

MORE THAN A FEELING… MORE THAN A
FEEEEEEEELLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

Me - Too easy, we all know that one. It's more than a
feeling , of... uh... thing there.
Her - Yes, but was it released BEFORE or AFTER Holiday by
Madonna?
Me - Um... after?
She - HITSTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER! It is clearly
first, I'll steal your point!
Me - Ok. Who is Madonna?
She - (sigh)

***

Your holiday parties just have to go well! Yes, I know, October is still early to start talking about the holiday season, but you can also play beforehand. Or all the time. Apparently it even plays very well at a BBQ party in summer. Or a BBQ party in December (hello, climate change!) But no matter what occasion you choose to take out HITSTER (they're all good), there will clearly be a "before" and an "after".

So what is this game that will change my festive life?

In this exciting party game that is HITSTER, you will be able to measure the extent of your popular musical culture of recent decades. In my case, I can especially measure the extent of my ignorance on the subject. It's still a win, I suppose. As Socrates said: “ἕν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν
οἶδα” (“All I know is that I know nothing”). Clearly, he composed this while playing HITSTER (probably the “Ancient Greece” version, the one with stone cards and a live musician playing the lyre. The Deluxe versions
today can go and get dressed). In any case, Socrates and I are the same: we're not very good at HITSTER. But does that make it any less fun? WHAT NENNI!

Unlike other quiz games (your 1982 version of Super Quiz can go back to sleep peacefully in your closet), what's really really cool about HITSTER is that you get to listen to all these mega-hits that are going to make your parents and friends jump out of their chairs shouting: “OH! I KNOW WHAT IT IS!!!! » or even “I SAW THIS SHOW AT THE FORUM IN 1987, I HAD A LONGUEUIL CUT! » You see, you never know where it can
leading us, playing old pop classics in a festive evening... In any case, for entertainment, it's quite successful.

How it works ?

If you've ever played Timeline, you'll recognize the premise. The goal of the game is to be the first person (or the first team) to correctly put together a series of ten songs in chronological order.

To play, you must first download the HITSTER application on your smartphone and pair it with your Spotify Premium account.

We begin our “timeline” by randomly drawing a card on which is written the title of a song, the artist who performs it and its release date. We place this card in front of us.

Then, in turn, using the HITSTER application, we scan the QR code of one of the 308 cards offered by the game. The application plays the mystery song, and we must place it in the correct place. place in relation to those present on our “timeline”. When the card is placed, it is turned over to validate
the answer: if the answer is correct, we keep the map and our timeline lengthens; if the answer is wrong, the card is discarded and our turn is over.

If, in addition to correctly placing the song, you are also able to correctly name the title AND the artist, you win a HITSTER token. These tokens that we accumulate can be used in three different ways:

- You can spend one to change a song that you can't recognize;
- You can spend one to “steal” a song incorrectly positioned by your
opponents (before the card is revealed, of course);
- You can spend three to take a card and add it to our timeline for free, without having to guess it.

So ! HITSTER, it’s that simple!

A personalized selection… or almost!

You may have already had this unpleasant experience: you play a quiz game, and you realize that most of the questions concern obscure French regional politicians, or players from the Saint-Pierre high school rugby team. Jean-du-Finger… How the hell to answer that?

The team behind HITSTER understood that there is not ONE culture, but SOME cultures, and designed different versions of the game based on what was popular where you are on the planet. For our version of the game, we are entitled to a selection of hits which have been widely broadcast on radios in Quebec and North America. Although the game talks about "100 years of
hits", there are, all in all, quite a few very old songs: the selection begins largely in the 60s and extends until 2023. And after several games, I can still count on the fingers of one hand
songs that no one had heard of. This means that the selection is very judicious. Only downside: there are only English-speaking hits. We will have to be satisfied with it, while waiting for the “PS-Tendresse” extension.

Technological constraints… not so restrictive

If you're the type who only plays vinyl (or worse: cassettes!) and you don't have a Spotify Premium account, don't despair: you can play anyway. In fact, you can pair the application with a free Spotify account, but listening to songs will be limited to the first 20 seconds. This adds an interesting challenge: we can no longer wait for the chorus to find the title too easily! From then on, the game will be a little more difficult, but that
still goes down very well, especially if you have people around the table who have good pop culture.

If you don't have a Spotify account at all (free or paid), you can also play with another digital music platform; on the other hand, as QR codes will no longer work in the expected way, it will only be necessary to designate a “DJ” who will direct the game, play the correct songs and validate the answers. And that too can add animation and atmosphere to your games!

Variations for all tastes

HITSTER offers several game variations that you can use to adapt to your guests, including adjusting the difficulty.

In teams : if, like me, most of your musical references were composed before 1730, you will probably want to team up with someone who has more recent references (and also hope very much that there will one day be an expansion “Chamber music under Louis XIV”). Personally, this is my favorite game mode, because it's really fun to pair different generations of players on the same team (being together is the spirit of a party game!) By pairing the youngest with the oldest, everyone will be able to contribute to the height of their respective culture, and you will be able to experience beautiful moments with your teenagers (-Who is Taylor Swift? - (Exasperated look, rolling of eyes) Duh, Dad, who are the Beatles?)

In cooperative mode : if there are few players, or if there are younger players, we can all play together in cooperative mode! We then try to form our timeline of ten cards by making as few mistakes as possible, and from one game to the next, we try to beat our record!

In expert mode : With advanced players, in addition to correctly placing the song on the timeline, you must name the title and the artist to be able to keep the map!

In extreme mode : we add a layer of difficulty to expert mode: you must now correctly name the title, the artist AND the year to keep a card!

So… what do we think?

Despite my initial reluctance (you will have understood, I don't think I was part of the target audience for a musical quiz game!) I was really surprised by the effectiveness of the formula proposed by HITSTER . It works great
good and it's really fun. I played the first games as a family, in cooperative mode (with children aged 10 and 15), but we quickly switched to competitive team mode which is, I believe, the way
the most pleasant to play.

Not shying away from any danger to test the limits of the games I tell you about on this blog, I took the opportunity to offer a game of HITSTER during an evening with friends (six adults, a teenager and two children). We were only supposed to play a quick game in the early evening...and it ended at 2am, because everyone wanted to keep playing. As a seal of approval, it doesn't lie!

HITSTER
2-20 players
30 minutes
16 years and over

-Mast