16th Avenue
The Country Music Game

Game Review

Review by David Ladyman


written by Cyndee Franklin and Jack Sawyer
Grabbitt & Hyde PO. Box 111214, Nashville, TN 37211 Released: 1983
Price: $16.95
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: Fair
***

It took a while for me to find three other people who both play games and enjoy Country and Western music. There aren't a lot of gamers who'll admit to a fondness for Hank Williams and Lacy J. Dalton, even in Texas. I managed to rope some friends into a game at the end of an evening spent at the Wylie Opry (Wylie being just north of Dallas), and we each settled down for a run at the Country Music Hall of Fame. "16th Avenue traces a writer-performer's rise to the top in the music business. As with a real career, you'll need a combination of talent, luck, and 'paying your dues' to get the experience and exposure it takes to be number one." The board for 16th Avenue is similar to that of Life or Careers, with a set of multi- color, interconnecting paths sporting names like Music City Highway, On the Road Again, Music Circle, and, of course, 16th Avenue. All the streets and clubs mentioned can be found in or around Nashville. in addition to the mounted playing board, there is a 12-page rule book, a deck of cash and (for the larger denominations) cashier's checks, a pad of record sheets, eight packs of award certificates, four plastic tokens, and three dice.

You begin as an undiscovered singer and writer, scraping out a living until you can join the Musicians' Union and start acquiring the agents and contracts necessary to a successful entertainer. From there, there are four sets of four accomplishments required; each set must be achieved before moving on to bigger and better things.

The first set includes contracts with a publisher, promoter, recording company, and agent. The second includes a U.S. tour and a gold album. The third requires landing a maj . or movie role and your own network special. And the fourth set covers a best-selling biography and, of course, the Hall of Fame.

Along the way, there are chances for road trips to Memphis, Chicago, or even overseas, nominations for Country Music Association (CMA) awards, phone calls from your agents and manager, and "The Breaks." The Breaks range from a honky-tonk fight and a nervous breakdown to money from home and the grand opening of your own theme park.

We all enjoyed 16th Avenue, especially discovering the hilarious ups and downs inherent in an entertainer's struggle to the top. Most of the fun, however, lies in falling into these situations for the first time, and the fourth or fifth replay of the game loses most of this novelty.

The rules are well-organized, especially for a first game by a new company, with just a little ambiguity here and there. The board is colorful, but its attractiveness is more of a hindrance than a help. Similarly, more thought could have improved the paper components. For example, cards for platinum albums or CMA awards seem nice, but they clutter up the game and add unnecessarily to the price when you're keeping track of each one on a separate score sheet anyway.

There is little strategy involved in 16th Avenue; the immediate objective is always the next set of four achievements, and for the most part you have to keep circling around to catch them. Given this lack of strategy, though, there are wild swings of fortune throughout the game which can result in even the pokiest picker coming out on top.

There is absolutely no player interaction, a minus for some but useful if you need a solitaire game. (Give yourself 100 turns or so, to see how close to stardom you can come, when playing by yourself.) The game designers obviously love the Nashville scene and do a good job of passing this enjoyment along to their players.

Even the most humorous events detailed in 16th Avenue are possible, according to today's entertainment news. Not all of them happen to the same performer in the course of an hour and a half, but it is easy to believe that most will occur over the course of a 10-or 15-year career. 16th Avenue even scales them to your level as a performer. There are 18 events on each of five different charts; as a beginner, you roll one die to determine a chart result, while as an experienced performer you roll three dice. A beginner can't roll an 11 and an established star can't roll a two. However, the chance for inappropriate results still abound. Do the top stars really play the Bluebird Cafe for $ 2 00 or get burned by phony promoters to the tune of $100?

For Country and Western fans who game, 16th Avenue is a must. It is also a useful tool for gainers who want to entice their country-loving friends into game playing, or as a "beer and pretzels" game when Advanced Squad Leader is a little too intimidating. You don't need two games like this on your shelf, but one can be occasionally entertaining.

For those unfamiliar with Nashville, 16th Avenue is known as publishers' row, where many music publishers and recording companies have their offices. 16th Avenue is also the title of a country music bit about "makin it" in Nashville recorded by Lacy J Dalton. --Editor

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