I started playing RisingStar about four months ago, and as these things tend to go, at first I was just a bit curious, then started getting drawn in to the game more and more. Advancing through the levels, playing gigs, buying packs, and collecting cards started dominating my mind, even though the shows kept getting longer with each level, and thus required less interaction every day.
I even made up a bit of a narrative to accompany my cards, which I believe is an essential part of making a game interesting, and which I was missing a bit in RisingStar. This gave me something to post about, other than your generic "I made it to level xyz, scoring cards abc...". It was fun, for a while, but by now I feel my interest waning a bit, and I have a feeling I may not be the only one at this stage. So let me express a bit of criticism about this game. Maybe some devs will read them... and better yet, set my mind at ease that it's not that bad, really. (Right?)
When Can We Finally Finally Form a Band?
Clicking on the lead musician of your assembly (starting out with the busker), you get to see a bunch of locked spaces where the lineup of your band is going to be, each with their own instruments. Something to look forward to. And the last type of gig in the Local Gig Circuit gives you an idea when you can finally start selecting artists to be in your band: The Band Auditions. Can't wait to get there! (I should start playing Local Mini Support Tours maybe tomorrow.)
Unfortunately, I believe the time it takes to get there is horribly out of sync with the time and effort you need to put in to actually find the cards of musicians and instruments. And I'm not even talking about investing outside money to buy my favorite cards on the open market. No, I have been simply spending the Starbits I earned by playing gigs. And even there I have been very selective: most cards I get from buying packs I end up selling (for less than what pack cost, obviously), not because they are bad - though that tends to be the case quite often - but simply because they don't fit into my own narrative. (Check out details in my collection of posts.)
In other words, if I only cared about stats and numbers, I may have arrived where I am much sooner. Still, and this is my main complaint about this game: according to my calculations I will have to put in about as much time as it took me to get here, before I can have my first band audition. And honestly, I kinda doubt my attention can be held for that long, no matter how "hooked" I have gotten on RisingStar.
Here's Some More Of My Narrative
After each of us had gotten their favorite instruments, our little group felt more than ready to finally form a real band. Kinsey and Luthien had each their favorite keyboards, **Stomper had his Pro Kit with the double bass drums, Teddy with his Cherry Acoustic, and Romy with her collection of antique microphones. It was around this time that Dean showed up. He is one of those guys who think he's an amazing manager, but in fact has not much to show for. However, at least he's not out to rip us off either, so even though we are nowhere close to needing a manager, we decided not to take him to the slave market, where our unskilled musicians end up.
Hanging out with us, he also became affected by Teddy's magic. Just like to the rest of us, Avril the ballerina appeared to him, making him believe she was Teddy's real girlfriend. Even when he started seeing two of her, he remained convinced that she actually existed. The twin theory worked on him too, until we told him the truth: she's a figment of our collective imagination, conjured up by Teddy's amazing music. He was floored, to say the least. But then he got inspired by this artistic twist.
Not much later he introduced Diana to us. Diana is a classically trained cellist, but she's a passionate multi-string talent, being equally comfortable on the guitar as on the violin. And guess what: we just happened to have the right instrument lying around: the Violin Acoustic a.k.a. Viotar. As soon as she picked it up, she knew it was made for her, and we knew she was made for us. But while we ended up bonding as musicians, we realized another interesting bond happening. And once again it had to do with Teddy's magic...
While Teddy tends to capture anyone's heart, in the case of Diana this happened in a much stronger way. She just fell head over heals, as she confessed to all of us without qualms. So naturally, what bothered her most of all were the two dancing Avrils, which she was well aware of too. And she didn't like them one bit! It was not enough that Teddy regarded them as muses, he also saw both of them as a romantic interest. Competing with not one but two women, who are not even real, was just too much for Diana. She realized that they put Teddy far out of her reach, but instead of giving up, she got out her Viotar and started playing her own magic.
Emulating the master himself, she started conjuring her own fictional characters, doing it so well that pretty soon they became manifest to the rest of us. And just like with Avril, they ended up being quite far from the artistic style of our group: She created a pair of rappers, Tiki and Brave. Once we overcame our initial shock, we realized their amazing talent - only comparable to our virtuous Kinsey - had some amazing potential. So we let them hang around with us. Diana was happy, and started claiming, maybe just to rub it in Teddy's face, that she was in fact romantically involved with both rappers. Teddy didn't mind, and the rest of us were cool with it too.
This may make our band somewhat mental, but thanks to each and every one of us, we have sufficient fans to complete the Local Gig Circuit, and enough skill to keep our ego at zero. Granted, we are just on the verge of playing our first Local Mini Tour Support, but they way it looks, we'll be doing this for the a couple of months at least, before we can actually start forming a band.