Wouter & Ymke 
The Sunshine Festival, renowned since 1968 as the world’s most extensive musical celebration, occurs annually for one week, blending all music genres into a spectacular journey. Bands invited to perform at the festival begin touring a year in advance, striving to amass a fanbase and earn the coveted position of festival headliner.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Gabriele Bubola & Leo Colovini
🎨 Artwork: Miguel Coimbra
🏢 Publisher: Helvetiq (review copy provided)
In On The Road, players embark on a global tour, starting their journey in a quaint barn and culminating at the Sunshine Festival’s grand main stage. Each turn involves playing a movement card, indicating 1 to 6 steps, guiding their tour buses across diverse terrains. Landing on tiles marked with symbols like forests, lakes, mountains, or fields allows players to collect corresponding tokens, simultaneously expanding their fanbase by adding stars to a communal cloth bag.
🎵 Other tiles, like van and city spaces, bear a musical note and offer not just a token but also a bonus action. Van tiles provide strategic advantages, like reversing steps or doubling movement in the next turn. City tiles play a critical role in fan accumulation, allowing players to draw stars from the bag and maneuver their fans onto the main stage, while rival fans are relegated to less desirable areas.
🌟 Upon reaching the main stage, the game’s dynamics shift. Players cease using movement cards and instead draw stars based on their collected musical notes. Location tokens, now redundant for star additions, gain a new purpose. Players can discard different combinations of these tokens to influence the fate of their stars when drawn by others, like returning them to the bag instead of losing them to less favorable positions.
🏆 The game concludes when the main stage is filled to capacity. Victory goes to the player who has amassed the largest fanbase at the festival.
Crafted by designers Gabriele Bubola and Leo Colovini and published by Helvetiq, On The Road is a family-oriented board game that takes about 30 minutes to play. It’s suitable for 2-4 players, aged 8 and above. The game’s mechanics are straightforward: players play a card, move their bus, and perform actions based on the tile they land on. The strategic challenge lies in balancing the collection of tokens to add stars to the bag and reaching the main stage quickly before it’s fully occupied.
🎴 Players must utilize the resources available to them, drawing cards that determine their movement options. With three cards in hand at any time, players have some flexibility in their choices. While drawing stars is largely a matter of luck, the game introduces a strategic element where players can use location tokens to influence the placement of stars, either by returning them to the bag or moving them directly to the main stage.
🚏 Player interaction in On The Road is minimal but impactful. As bands journey through different locales, they can’t occupy the same tile simultaneously, allowing for strategic blocking. This is particularly notable in cities, where blocking can result in more fans at the mainstage for one player, while others may benefit from faster movement due to landing on van tiles.
👧🧒 During our gameplay, we noticed distinct strategies between children and adults. Children often raced towards the main stage, prioritizing speed over gathering stars, whereas adults focused more on building their fanbase before reaching the main stage. Over time, playing styles evolved to become more blended among both groups, and interestingly, both strategies proved successful in various sessions.
🎨 The theme of buses traveling to gather fans for a major festival is engaging and well-executed. Artist Miguel Coimbra’s work brings this theme to life, with recognizable artwork on tiles and clear iconography. The game features charming little wooden buses that represent the bands touring across the country.
🔄 The game’s setup is consistent in terms of the number of tiles used, regardless of player count, but varies in layout as tiles are shuffled. City tiles have a fixed setup, but the arrangement and placement of location and van tiles can greatly influence each game’s dynamics. The only modification for different player counts is in the quantity of music note tiles.
💭 On The Road is an enjoyable, quick game for family play. The rules are simple and easily understood, making it an excellent choice for families seeking fun gaming experiences. It’s certainly a game worth checking out for those looking for a light-hearted, engaging board game.
📝 Disclaimer: We received a review copy of On The Road from the publisher, Helvetiq.
