Ever thought of a silly band name and wondered whether it could ever come to fruition? Well, there’s a new card game hitting the market that channels the absurdity of imagination and combines it with music in a hilarious new concoction.
MYFAKEBAND is the brainchild of brothers, Jesse and James Hermann, the two creatives behind Never Played Out, a company with the sole intention of crafting witty, entertaining games.
The card game stands as the first instalment of their Never Played Out adventure – a creation filling the void of a music card game space that’s been seldom explored before this.
So what is MYFAKEBAND and how does it work?
As James explains, “In the [MYFAKEBAND] box, you will find 150 fake band cards and 150 genre cards. The first player up, who we refer to as “the founding member” will draw a card from the fake band pile and then draw a card from the genre pile.
“For example, if I drew “Chubby Chaser” from the fake band pile and the “R&B” card from the genre pile, I have now become the founding member of Chubby Chaser the R&B group,” James continues.
“The card combo will be read out loud to the group and then everyone will be tasked with creating and writing down what they believe to be the title of the first hit single of said band. Answers will be passed face down back to the founding member and players will be tasked with matching the correct author to their song title in order to score points.”
The game is like a playful, mischievous brother to Cards Against Humanity or Balderdash that activates the music-interested lobe of your brain while testing your knowledge of your friends around you.
Bring your mates over, chuck a record on, crack open a few beers and it’s go time – there are over 20,000 fake band and genre combinations waiting for you.
So what was inspiration behind the game?
“The idea started out as a t-shirt company believe it or not,” James says. “We planned to put out t-shirts for fake bands’ non-existent tours including fake tour dates on the back as a joke with friends. We thought it would be pretty funny to mess with people at parties who would hopefully act like they’d listened to said fake band.”
From there, the two brothers drew from years of experience manifesting bogus band names.
“Once we shifted to the card-game concept, that’s when the fun really started. My co-creator is my brother Jesse which made it that much easier to pull together the necessary content because we have been trading fake band names since we were kids,” James continues.
“The process was pretty straightforward; create as many fake band names as possible. I think we ended up with over 1,000 in a spreadsheet which we then had to narrow down to 150. I highly recommend sitting around with your friends over a few drinks (or not), with some quality backing music, and write down as many fake band names as you can think of. It should lead to plenty of laughs and good times for all involved.”
To get MYFAKEBAND off the ground, the duo have announced a Kickstarter campaign with the goal to raise US$10,000 in 30 days from June 23. From there, the objective is “to get the game into the hands of the public with the first run of games making it to living rooms before the end of this year”.
Pledgers to the campaign have the option to support within five different tiers, ranging from US$20 to US$1000. If you back the game at the Band Manager tier (US$35) you will receive one copy of MYFAKEBAND and one instalment of the game’s NSFW Kickstarter Exclusive Booster Pack.
To get the Kickstarter campaign off the ground, the Hermanns have also announced a MYFAKEBAND-inspired live stream music festival which welcomes any and all bands to perform. The one catch – the name of your band will have to be completely and utterly fake.
Seems like they’re onto a good thing and with people more eager to explore new games and new ideas than ever before, there’s never been a better time to launch a game that celebrates our yearning for the absurd and whimsical.
For those still wondering whether they’d vibe the game, James says that the game is perfect for “anyone and everyone who enjoys talking about, listening to, reminiscing about, or pontificating about music”.
Looks like there’s a lot of us then.
Donate to the MYFAKEBAND Kickstarter and score yourself a version of the game here. Keep up to date with Never Played Out via their Instagram page.
Written by Tom Parker via Beat Magazine.
