Long Live Rock and Roll

Scott Hardie | August 31, 2014
I'm thrilled to announce that Rock Block is coming back to Funeratic! The game will launch at 10am Eastern on September 6, next Saturday. There should be a lot of concert activity over the debut weekend. I hope that you can join in the fun during that weekend and beyond!

Please feel free to ask whatever you like. Here's answering some questions that I anticipate:

First of all, I'm a newbie: What is Rock Block?

Rock Block is a music-themed game in which you collect some of the greatest (and some of the latest) stars of rock and roll history, plus artists with crossover appeal from genres like pop, country, hip hop, electronic music, and so on. In a series of "battle of the bands" concerts against other players, you take turns placing your artists on the concert stage. By choosing carefully where to put them, you can take over more of the stage and win the concert, thus expanding your collection. There are all kinds of unlockable extra rules that slowly add complexity, and seasonal tournaments that put a fresh twist on the game.

Rock Block originally ran from August 2007 to January 2012, and was one of Funeratic's most popular creations, second only to Celebrity Goo Game.

If Rock Block had to go away, why is it coming back now?

It's a long story, but here's the brief version.

In 2009, this site was healthy and my career was not, so I embarked on a long-term plan that would slowly convert Funeratic into a business that could help to support me. I was not comfortable making money on a game that I did not invent (the core mechanic of (Rock Block is inspired by a video game), so I replaced it with Pirate Paradise, a game that felt similar but was totally original.

Today in 2014, my career is doing just fine, and it's become clear that the site has only suffered for most of the changes that I've made, not to mention the time that I've wasted going in the wrong direction. After some lengthy consideration (and some good advice from Samir), I have abandoned the business plan and look forward to pursuing other goals for this site. The first item on the agenda: Let's get rocking again!

Does this mean the end of Pirate Paradise?

Not necessarily. I see no reason why the two games cannot co-exist. That said, I have a limited amount of free time to work on this site, and participation in Pirate Paradise has dwindled to almost nothing. I need to make a decision soon as to whether I should invest some time and effort into getting activity happening in Pirate Paradise again with new features and new events, or whether I should scuttle that game and devote my time to other projects that are likely to yield better results. What do you think I should do?

Will us veteran players pick up where we left off in Rock Block?

The differences between the old game and the new game are subtle but significant enough that I cannot support the old concerts and old artists in the new system the way they were. We'll start over with a clean slate. However, your profile in the new game will have a section listing your accomplishments from the old game, including tournaments won. That way, you get the best of both worlds: You get to have the fun of discovering and collecting and unlocking all over again, while still receiving credit for what you achieved the first time.

How will the new Rock Block be different?

Many of the changes are too subtle to mention, such as programming changes and numerical-balance changes. There are a number of big new features debuting with the new game, and I'll update this page daily over the next week to announce them, along with previewing some brand-new artists that never appeared in Rock Block before.

Almost all of the elements that were part of the old game are back in some form -- sorry Angel and Devil, you didn't make the cut -- but some of what used to be separate pages have now been merged together for the sake of simplicity. My approach has been to streamline the game by favoring quality over quantity at each step. The new game looks better, too: Big artist photos, more legible fonts, icons for play and trade rules, and so on. Rock Block also benefits from the redesign of Funeratic, in that it's fully functional on mobile devices and should look good on all screen sizes, and will be fully searchable.

Here's looking forward to playing this great game again soon! I'll post updates here each day this week, then I'll be online all day on September 6 to fix any launch-day issues that come up. I hope to see you join the fun that day by playing a few concerts, and stick around for years to come in this exciting game. For those about to rock again, I salute you!

Chris Lemler | August 31, 2014
Scott do we get to keep the techniques that we got in the old rock block? And do we get to keep the cards we had?

Scott Hardie | August 31, 2014
The roster of artists is quite different now, and most of those that remain have different values, so it's not possible to bring old artists forward into the new game. The same is true of play rules and trade rules. Undertaking the journey to unlock them all should be worth taking again, because that journey will be different the second time.

Chris Lemler | August 31, 2014
Well Scott I will be looking forward to your new RB

Scott Hardie | August 31, 2014
Thanks! Here's the first of six daily previews:

New Feature

One of the key differences in the new Rock Block is that you'll earn artists by playing. In the old game, artists were distributed near-randomly by the Card Exchange. In the new game, every victory in concert will earn you another artist. You can claim that new artist right away as an R1, or wait and win a second victory to claim a new R2 instead, or wait further and win a third concert to claim a new R3, and so on. You'll need to collect a certain number of performers at the lower ranks to begin collecting artists at the higher ranks, but you're in control of the rate at which that happens.

Plus, you'll have more say in which rock stars you collect: In the old game, the Card Exchange chose artists for you, often giving you duplicates. The new game will ask whether you prefer to have artist A or artist B, and it will never offer you one that you already have.

New Artists

She appeared in the original Rock Block as a member of the Supremes, but Diana Ross had enormous success as a solo artist in the 1970s with hits like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Love Hangover." She'll make her debut as a solo artist in the new Rock Block. I consider her hit "I'm Coming Out" to be the unofficial anthem of Rock Block's re-launch, and it's the song that I'm playing right now.

Flame-haired rocker Ed Sheeran has a good excuse for not appearing in the original Rock Block: He was still in high school at the time, or whatever they call it in Britain. He'll bring his unique blend of hip-hop and acoustic folk rock to the new game.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2014
Rock Block, now with 100% more side-boob! I approve!!

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2014
I'm a butt, so I'll ask questions as I think of them:

If you earn a R1, and then attempt for the 2nd win, but lose, what happens to that artist? Goodbye, thanks for trying? Do you keep it as an R1, and you cannot attempt to raise it above R1?

Are there only additions to the band rosters, or are some artists no longer with us in RB?

Is it launching on September 6th as a birthday present to me? :)

Scott Hardie | September 1, 2014
Losses have no bearing on pursuit of new artists. You can win one concert, then lose ten more, and still claim your R1 for that victory. You can win one concert, then lose ten more, then win a second concert, and claim an R2.

Furthermore: You don't have to take the highest available rank. If you have won three concerts, you can claim one R3, or one R2 and one R1, or three R1s. The choice is yours, as long as you have enough artists at each lower rank to begin collecting the next higher rank.

Many old artists are no longer in the new game. We're back to the same number that we started with in 2007, although the starting roster isn't the same this time. I plan to add additional artists to the game more gradually than in the past. Again, my philosophy is quality over quantity.

I hesitated to launch on this coming weekend, due to your birthday and Erik's and the football season getting underway. But I've had this game 90% done for a couple of months and I'm anxious to launch it already, and I'm going to be busy for the rest of September, so this is my chance. Umm, happy birthday, I got you a game! :-)

Steve West | September 1, 2014
This game is such a huge welcome return. I'll have to message Ryan Dunn. Thanks.

Scott Hardie | September 1, 2014
Ryan likes it when you knock twice on his door.

New Feature

The phrase thematic integration may not sound sexy, but it's a significant if subtle improvement. In the old Rock Block, you could play themed concerts like "artists from California" or "artists named after animals," but these themed concerts were not played with your own collection and thus had no bearing on your scores or anything else; they were played separately just for their own sake.

In the new game, you'll play themed concerts using your own collection like any other concert. That means risking your artists with trade rules, but it also means that a victory in a themed concert counts like any other victory, and you'll get the aforementioned reward for that victory (a new R1). It also means that you'll need to have the right combination of artists to gain access to a theme: Once you collect five artists from the United Kingdom, you'll discover the "British Invasion" theme, for instance. Happy hunting! There are three all-new themes in the game at launch that were not part of the old game, and I plan to add many more,

New Artists

Steve Winwood's band Traffic wasn't together for long in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they broke the mold of mainstream rock with more experimental productions that challenged audiences and critics. They were good enough to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but not in the original Rock Block, so they'll have to make their debut in the new game.

All these years later, Bobby Day is considered a one-hit wonder for 1958's "Rockin' Robin," but he originated many songs that became hits when covered by other artists including "Little Bitty Pretty One" and "Over and Over." He'll be one of the artists representing the classic 1950s era of rock & roll in the new game.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2014
I thought it was knock three times on the ceiling if you want him...

If you get access to a theme, then lose one of the bands, do you still have access to it, or do you lose it until you get it back? I am thinking of old school Rick Astley (Rick Rolled). I think I lost access to that a couple times in the old games (or I could be misremembering...). Actually, you would have to lose it, because how could you play without the required cards? Duh.

Will the requirements for the themes be straight up told to us, or will we have to get them by trial and error? I can see the benefits of both (and disadvantages), but I am curious in what direction you are planning to go.

Back to artist acquisition: If I win, I get a choice of Band A and Band B (using your example). If I like neither of them, and I win another battle, do I still have the same 2 bands to choose from, or are they different choices? Are the bands ranked already, or could you choose one of the bands offered at R1, and make it an R2 for you? I feel like letting everyone rank their bands themselves would be a logistical nightmare, but what do I know about anything?

You will probably cover this later, but will artists have numerical values (the old 2/2/2/1, 3/2/1/1, or 4/1/1/1 for R1s, for example), and are they always the same, or can you try to get all the bands you like with the numbers you prefer? Again, I think individual customization would be a pain in the buttocks, but I don't know nothing about how I know anything.

Scott Hardie | September 1, 2014
In the old game, you gained certain rules (like Rickroll) by having certain artists in your collection, and if you lost those artists, you lost the rules. That's no longer a problem in the new game, where earning a rule once means it's yours forever.

But you're right, you must have at least five artists from a theme in order to play it, even if you used to have them and lost them. The option to play that theme won't appear in the "Start a Concert" form unless you have at least five artists that belong to it.

For now I'm going with trial and error for finding new themes. I think that a combination of memories from the old game, player instinct, and just plain luck will be sufficient for all themes to be found sooner or later. I may start offering hints in the future.

The pairs available to you will always be the same at each rank until you make a choice. Let's say you win three concerts and gain access to an R3, and randomly you're offered either a punk band R3 or a pop star R3. You choose instead to take three R1s, so the R3 option disappears from the artist A/artist B selection page. Later on, you again win three concerts, and look at the page, and again the options are the same punk R3 and pop R3 rather than two other artists.

I did it that way to encourage discovery of new artists through concerts: The only two ways to discover which artists are lurking out there in the game are to play against them in battle or to get offered to have them join your label in the A/B form. You're going to see an awful lot of that A/B form, and I'd prefer for players to get out there battling each other to make new discoveries, so I limited the rate at which the A/B form will show you new options. Once it randomly chooses a pair of artists to offer you at a given rank (like the punk/pop pairing in my example), the only ways to clear that choice are for you to pick one of the two options, or for one of the artists to get promoted out of that rank,*

That brings me to the next point: Artist ranks are fixed. Every copy of Diana Ross has the same rank and the same sides. But with the legendary stars taking up ranks two through ten, the game would eventually get clogged with lots of R1s getting added, and an all-R1 Rock Block wouldn't be much fun to play, so periodically I'll promote artists up the ranks to preserve a proper distribution across all ten ranks. When I promote an artist, all copies of that artist will be one rank higher, and their sides will increase slightly. You as a player cannot promote your artists or change their sides.

The sides work like they were before, just like you cited for R1s, but with more variety this time. (There's no new variety at R1, but collect at higher ranks and you should see what I mean.) When you're choosing artist A or artist B, you can definitely opt for whichever one gives you the numbers that you want, rather than whichever one you like more or whatever. It's up to you.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 1, 2014
OK, but if I have the two victories, and I choose 2 R1s, would I have to take both artist A and artist B, or would I get a new artist C and D choice after choosing the first one (either A or B)?

Obviously, I am not in any way interested in Rock Block. ;)

Chris Lemler | September 1, 2014
And are we gonna start off with 5 cards that are R1?

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2014
Once you make a choice between A or B, that pair will go away as an option. The next time that you need to pick an artist at that rank, your options will be C or D. (If you picked A, then B might be an option the next time; it's random.)

*I neglected to mention one other way that the A/B option pairs can be reset: If you acquire one of those artists by defeating an opponent in a trade concert. The site wants never to offer you an artist that you have already.

You will start with a blend of R2 and R1 artists, and you'll get the same A/B method for picking them instead of having them assigned to you randomly. I'll explain a bit more about the starting set later this week, since it's tied to one of the new features.

Scott Hardie | September 2, 2014
New Feature

Starting new concerts is a necessary part of playing Rock Block, but in the old game, it wasn't easy: You had to walk through a long multi-page form that often asked you to resubmit if the values weren't exactly right after each step. That won't be a problem in the new game with a single-page dynamic challenge form that redraws itself after every selection to make your remaining choices easier by removing incompatible options.

For example, if you pick a brand-new player as an opponent, they'll only have a few low-ranking R2 and R1 artists, so your high-ranking R10 and R9 artists will disappear from the options because there's no way to use them against that player, and the advanced play rules and trade rules that the newbie hasn't unlocked yet will disappear too. Similarly, if you choose an advanced play rule, the themes that don't feature it will drop off the list of options, and the players who haven't unlocked that rule yet will vanish too. You can always uncheck options to get back what was hidden if you change your mind.

This new form will make starting each concert a cinch, because it takes out the mental calculation and lets you focus on picking what you can play with instead of distracting you with what you can't. It also should be possible to start a concert in a a fraction of the time. A miniature version of the form is built into the page where you accept a challenge from someone else: At that point, artists are the only options to choose, but it still helps you pick only the artists that add up to the right sum by dynamically removing those that won't add up after each choice is made.

To help you get the most out of your collection, a red asterisk will appear on the form next to any option that you haven't won a concert with yet.

New Artists

The seductive, super-fly Curtis Mayfield was a dominant presence in soul music throughout the 1970s, earning Grammy Legend and Grammy Lifetime Achievement awards. He appeared in the old game with his original band the Impressions, but he'll make his solo debut as one of the inaugural artists in the new game.

With hits like "Ho Hey," folk-inspired indie rockers the Lumineers have quickly found their audience, making their 2012 album one of the best-selling debut albums of this decade. They'll appear for the first time in the new Rock Block.

Scott Hardie | September 3, 2014
New Feature

One of the best innovations in Pirate Paradise is being ported to Rock Block: The site will spawn automatic concerts at random between pairs of active players. Unlike in the pirate game, you don't have to fill out a form to declare your interest and adjust your settings before this happens: This feature is always on for all players, using random play rules and artists (but always the None trade rule so that you don't risk losing an artist under terms that you didn't choose). There's an option to skip automatic concerts if you're not interested.

New Artists

Over her long and very successful career, Chaka Khan has explored many genres including soul, funk, disco, gospel, jazz, and adult contemporary, but she never found her way into the original Rock Block. That oversight will be corrected when she appears in the new game.

Swedish rockers Europe scored hits with cheesy 1980s synth-anthems like "The Final Countdown" and "Carrie," briefly enjoying success as big as their frizzy permed hair. They'll make their Rock Block debut in the new game. Hmmm, "The Final Countdown" gives me a good idea for a tournament...

Scott Hardie | September 3, 2014
I can't count. There are five brand-new themes at launch that weren't in the old game, not three.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 4, 2014
What if, you only have five bands, and you lose one in a match? What happens then?? Or are you disallowed from being in matches where you can lose a band unless you have 6 or more or something?

Will there be a list of all bands in the game this time around? Will bands be blanked out until you find out about them? If so, are they blanked out until you see them, or until you get them in your stable? If it is until you see them, will there possibly be any functionality for keeping track of what bands you have/had in your stable, just for annoying completionists like myself, who won't be happy until they catch them all (or at least once had them all), pokemon style?

It gets hard to think of questions...

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2014
The game is programmed to prevent you from entering a concert where you can lose so many artists that you're down to less than five.

The Collection Guide is back. It's a big checklist of all artists that slowly fills in as you collect them all, reminding you which you don't have yet. You can click on any artist in the list to see who else has it that you can go challenge.

Artist discovery is back and more strict this time. You can discover new artists in only two ways: When they belong to your opponent in concert, and when they appear in the A/B form to choose the next artist in your label. Until you discover an artist, it appears as a mysterious "Unknown Artist," but its sides, rank, and decade are visible. When you make a new discovery, a blue alert shows up at the top of the page to notify you.

I'm a completionist too. :-) There's an achievement waiting for the masochists like us.

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2014
New Feature

One of the original game's limitations was that you couldn't bring the same artist to more than one concert at a time. It made a certain sense: If you risk the same valuable R10 artist in two trade concerts at once, and lose both of them, and the first opponent takes that R10 from you, then the second opponent can't also take it and that's not fair to them.

But a significant majority of concerts use the None trade rule and don't need such a strict limitation. That's why artists are now re-usable: You can play the same artist in as many simultaneous concerts with the None rule as you want. Concerts with any other trade rule will still temporarily lock the artist so that you cannot risk it in other for-trade concerts, but even when that lock is in effect, you can continue starting more None concerts with the locked artist.

For this reason, you will found your label with only five artists, since you can play those five in as many simultaneous concerts as you like and quickly earn more.

New Artists

New-York based indie pop band Fun (often stylized as "fun." to distinguish them from other bands with that name) scored several big hits in recent years including "We Are Young" with Jonelle Monae and "Some Nights." Fresh from the Grammy stage, they'll appear in the new game.

In the early 1960s, The Marvelettes were one of the first successful all-girl groups, scoring hits like "Please Mr. Postman" before being eclipsed by Motown label-mates like the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas. They won't be forgotten in the new Rock Block.

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2014
On artist discovery: I was reluctant to hide all artists from view until they're discovered, because it limits how much search engine traffic I'll get, and because makes the game harder for outsiders to understand as they consider playing. But ultimately I think it's for the best: Discovering is another kind of collecting and it's too fun to pass up.

On the Marvelettes: "Please Mr. Postman" is unrecognized as a document of mental illness. The lyrics are basically: Mr. Postman, I know you checked your bag already, but my boyfriend must have sent me a letter, so I insist that you check again -- over and over. Look lady, there's no letter in that bag, and your unshakable conviction that there must be demonstrates a break from reality. Stop haranging the civil servant and let him get on with his deliveries.

Scott Hardie | September 5, 2014
New Feature

Some play rules, like the complicated Decades, benefit from more explaining than can fit in one line on the page. The new game will offer rule modals that open up on a click to explain each rule in more detail, with diagrams. There are two all-new rules in the game at launch, with plans for more in the future, and this feature will come in especially handy while you're learning those new rules.

I'm using modals for more, too: Click on artists to open artist modals showing big vivid photos, biographies, videos, and game stats, all without leaving the page you're on. When you're choosing the terms of a new concert, click on theme names to open theme modals explaining the terms and listing the artists that appear. There are more modals built in. I intend to go on looking for more ways to improve the arrangement and accessibility of this information-rich game as it unfolds, and I'm always open to suggestions.

New Artists

Awwww, freak out! With hits like "Le Freak" and "Everybody Dance," Chic dominated the disco scene of the late 1970s, and they remain popular on tour to this day. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has yet to induct them after nine nominations (!), but they'll make their overdue appearance in Rock Block soon.

Fuel struggled in obscurity for over a decade before finally becoming one of the biggest stars of the post-grunge era of the early 2000s with hits like "Hemorrhage (In My Hands)" and "Bad Day." They've had to wait for inclusion in Rock Block too, but that wait is almost over.



That's the last daily preview, folks. Tomorrow we play! I can't wait!

I'd like to thank a few people who made this possible:
- Samir for giving me a lot of good advice earlier this year (Rock Block is only the first of several undertakings from that conversation)
- Kelly for giving me time and putting up with my project obsession for the summer
- James, Nathan, and Nkosi for giving me advice over lunch one day about ways to optimize a particularly dense bit of computation
- everyone who has publicly and privately voiced words of encouragement since hearing the news
- YOU for reading this announcement and, I hope, getting excited enough to play :-)

Aaron Shurtleff | September 6, 2014
I will be working most of the day tomorrow (noon-8), but I'm going to try to pop in after work (maybe during break?), so I will definitely be playing some matches tomorrow, but not right away.

Try not to battle each other so much that you already have enough bands accumulated that you have R10s before I get here! ;)

Chris Lemler | September 6, 2014
Scott will there be any tournaments like in the old RB?

Scott Hardie | September 6, 2014
Aaron: Working on your birthday? Too bad. I hope it's a happy birthday anyway. :-) We'll be ready to rock when you are.

Chris: Yes, definitely! Tournaments were some of the most fun in "Classic Rock Block" and I couldn't leave them out of the new game. But I'm borrowing a change from Pirate Paradise and offering more variety: Whereas the old RB ran a single big tournament every summer, the new RB will run a mix of small and big tournaments throughout the year on no particular schedule. I'm keeping a list of tournament ideas as they hit me and it's over a dozen so far, so I can't wait to get started. :-)

Chris Lemler | September 6, 2014
I will be looking forward to it Scott

Aaron Shurtleff | September 6, 2014
One hour to go!!! Are you ready to rock??

Scott Hardie | September 6, 2014
I am! Right now I'm adding Rock Block to various parts of the site infrastructure. You can now subscribe to RB notifications. I did not port the old game's Dashboard subscriptions into the new system because some people might wind up with tons of data that they didn't expect, so you'll need to opt in if you want them again.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 6, 2014
*drool drool*

Samir Mehta | September 7, 2014
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | September 7, 2014
Simmons has got a point about the music industry leaning too heavily on manufactured pop music and being threatened by a digital revolution. But new rock music is still being written and recorded by bands today. Turn on the radio and you can hear plenty of new rock; explore online and there's plenty more out there. Whether or not it's any good, well, time will tell. How many of the great albums of the past were not recognized at first? Comparing the greats of the past to today is always going to be a losing proposition for today, because 1) the greats have had time to emerge from among the countless legion of failed acts of their day that produced nothing of value, while we're still sorting through the music of today, and 2) baby boomers have put their generation of musicians on a bigger pedestal in our culture than any other generation is able to do, so naturally it seems like nothing will top their work, and 3) survivorship bias. Rock Block makes me acutely aware of how many of the stars considered truly great are stuck in the increasingly distant past, but it also keeps me up to date with the good rock and roll still being recorded today, more so than Gene Simmons apparently.

Aaron Shurtleff | September 9, 2014
I think I saw what you meant by variety on the card sides. In the previous incarnation, didn't one side have to have the value of the card rank (like a R2 had to have at least one side of 2)? Because I think I saw one that did not meet this. Or I might be misremembering...

Scott Hardie | September 9, 2014
Yes, exactly. That's one subtle change to the system. Good on you for noticing that detail. :-)