Amazon.com: Customer reviews: DropMix Music Gaming System

This game deserves way more attention than it got. It's so much fun!

Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2018

I'm so disappointed that this game didn't get as much publicity and attention as it should have. I feel like if it had been promoted better, they would release a lot more songs for the game. I only bought it based off of an article I read about it being an "under the radar" game worth checking out, and I'm quite glad that I did. I bought two of the 16-card expansion packs when I bought the game board, and I loved it so much that I went out and bought several more to expand my deck collection. I plan on getting all of the remaining expansions as well (except maybe for the $100/card PAX specialty promo cards! Yikes!)

It IS a bit of an expensive investment unless you get it on sale, but it's well worth the investment. While it is marketed as a "gaming system" I feel like that's a bit confusing. It's not a "gaming system" like the Xbox or Playstation is a gaming system, as you can't play other games on it -- but it also doesn't require one of those systems to play it, like Rock Band or Guitar Hero does. It's a self contained game with an electronic board, like Battleship or Operation, but I wouldn't call either of those games "gaming systems" either. You do need a phone or tablet to play it (to show the game animations, play the music, keep score, etc.), but that can also be hooked up to external speakers by bluetooth or the devices headphone cable port. Having it LOUD is GREAT!

The "versus" modes are good fun, and give the game some focus, but honestly I'm happy just to sit around and remix songs for hours on end! The mixes are mostly seamless (unless you just rip a card off the board without timing it right!), and mostly quite good! We've experienced very few 'painful mixes,' but even those can be corrected by manually adjusting the tempo or pitch, or just trading out the ill-fitting card for another one.

While playing it with some friends the other night, we had a party idea... plug DropMix into the stereo, and let the party guests just add/remove cards throughout the evening.

If you like music, if you like table games, if you like unusual games, or are just impressed by the thought of a gameboard skillfully mixing Carly Rae Jepson's vocals with the bassline from Black Eyed Peas, the guitar lick from Michael Jackson, and the horns from Cake, then definitely pick up a copy of this game.

3 people found this helpful

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Israel Chavez

A must-buy for anyone that likes the idea of mixing music for fun with friends

Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2018

Verified Purchase

This game is technically impressive, with software that can sort and mix tunes that makes you feel like a DJ - with no experience required. it's easy to learn, and portable enough to take to a friends house. Even though this is 5 stars, I do want to spend my most of my review on why this game isn't perfect.

There are two downsides: 1) The condition of the cards - this is something you will notice in several other reviews. They look used and crooked, and the cards I got felt dirty even though they came in factory packaging. I ended up taking a slightly damp cloth and wiping the cards so they felt clean (there was some black dust on the cards) before I put them in card sleeves. I gave this downside a pass, because there are chips inside the cards. I get the impression some of the people that wrote about how the cards not being flat weren't recognizing that there are chips inside of them, and since these cards functioned perfectly even after I put them in card sleeves, I don't really take a star away from that because it has no impact on my experience. I can even see the outline of chip if you look at the card from certain angles.

The 2nd downside: the limited music library of the cards - no doubt this is primarily because of music licensing rights, but this game is so fun, you will get used to the 60 stock cards fast. Also keep in mind that 60 cards DOES NOT mean 60 different songs. 1 card could be vocals for 1 song and then another card could be the drums for the same song. Keeping in mind the song pool is smaller than your card pool, you will get bored of your cards fast because the game is so fun. Harmonix was on it and releases more cards (sold separately) while the price is a little steep for the separate packs, the game is good enough where I'll know I'll get more than my money's worth in entertainment, so its also not worth losing a star from me.

3 people found this helpful

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W. Wehrs

Accomodates competitive or casual play for 1-5 players and plays well for many age ranges

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2019

Verified Purchase

Something I learned quickly about this game: you will dance, whether or not you intend to do so, whether you are sitting or standing, and regardless of whether you’re playing solo or in the presence of others. You - yes, you - will dance. Something else I’ve witnessed: everyone wants to tinker even if they don’t want to “play” by rules. Kids as young as five play freestyle using colors, which brings in parents and grandparents who can’t help reaching in as well, and the group of teens, tweens, and millennials who hear songs they know being played in new arrangements actually look up from their cell phones (consider that a victory).
This game can be a great thing to have around the house to pass time solo, serve as inspiration for music, or to keep people entertained at a party. It all depends on the mode you are in, which requires some explanation of the game mechanics.
The base unit has five spaces where cards can be played, each with a low-energy near-field communication reader. Each slot has one or two colors associated with it using stickers and lights up on either side of the card play area. A button at the foot of the board syncs it with a phone or tablet and has other function during game mode. The head of the board has a notch to hold the phone or tablet you’re using for control and display.
Each card wraps an enclosed microchip that matches musical tracks. The card features unique art, the artist and title of the music on the chip, and color-coded indicators of what the music or sound is. Different color cards will represent the different tracks that are mixed together to produce a song. Play all the cards of a given song to hear it as per usual. Create a karaoke version of the song by removing the vocal track. Mix it up by putting the rhythm track of “Call Me Maybe” with the keyboards from Sia’s “Chandelier” and the vocals of “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy”. Use the contols to change the key or tempo to get inspired for a unique take on a song... Cards may also be colorless or rainbow, meaning they may be played anywhere on the board. Colorless cards produce effects while rainbow cards have all tracks for their song.
Cards also have a value of 1-3, represented by bars in the upper lefthand corner. This is the card’s rank and combines with the color to determine where they may be played and how heavily they will influence the mix. Powerful cards can drastically alter key or speed, giving your favorite song a new sound as it slows way down and uses all new notes.
There were three play modes when Dropmix was introduced, but an update in August 2018 introduced puzzle mode. Here is what I would recommend for new players and game owners:
1) freestyle mode - anyone can pick up cards and play them, matching colors to the board. It’s hassle-free, lets anyone who can tell colors apart play, and still produces some fun mixes. Make music and have fun, or try out new cards.
2) party mode - the players (2-5) put cards into slots attempting to cooperate and earn the highest score as a group. Color limitations still apply, but players are restricted to play only equal or higher level cards on cards already in play. So if the slot nearest the foot of the board has a level 2 blue card, only level 2 or 3 cards may be played on it - but since it’s the only slot to play green cards, tying it up with a blue level 3 means you can only play level 3 cards from that point on, making placement of green cards problematic. Luckily there are times the game will prompt you to press the Dropmix button and a virtual spinner is triggered, allowing you to clear some (or all) card slots so it’s easier to keep going.
3) puzzle mode - this solitaire mode presents five queues that align with the card play areas on the board. The player finds the combination of color and level to try to clear the queues before the timer puts more blocks in them.
4) duel/competitive mode - in a matchup of 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, or even 1 vs 2, players try to take control of the board and earn points. Control of a playing slot is indicated by the side of the board lit and is changed by playing legal cards (subject to color and level) or by using the Dropmix button to force your opponent to clear card positions they control. Points are scored by playing your own team’s cards and it’s possible to earn bonus points by playing into colors or slots the game display is highlighting. Colorless cards have special abilities; they don’t score points themselves but can force cards to be cleared, allow extra actions on your team’s turn, add bonus points to your score, let you draw extra cards, take points away from a team, etc. For tournament competition, mix your hip hop deck with the hard rock and a few from the country playlist, make sure you’re in compliance with tournament rules for points allowed in a deck, and hit the board. Competitive deck building can be as serious as you are.
Dropmix requires a few things to play, including batteries and a Bluetooth enabled device with which to sync. You may also want to find a speaker to pair with your tablet to get a nice, rich sound everyone can groove to, and you can preserve and share mixes you really like to the online community.
Warning: you will end up buying extra music, so keep some cash on hand for the playlist packs.

14 people found this helpful

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M. Downey

Great Game

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2023

Verified Purchase

We've had this game for a few years and love it.

TIPS: If you find the game monotonous, buy expansion packs and mix up your genres. If you are purchasing expansion packs, invest in card covers and a card case. Use a decent Bluetooth speaker to have a wider range of sound and bass compared to a small low quality speaker (doesn't have to be an expensive one)

PROS: The music is fun and you feel like a DJ. The cheesy, immersive sound effects. Many times you can find surprisingly fun card combinations during a match. Watching the reaction of a person whos never heard of the game, experience it for the first time.

CONS: Having to reload cards when you get a new phone (understandable but annoying when you have a large deck of cards). Sometimes you also have to reload the cards after an app update. The app is unavailable for Galaxy Tablet.

Fun Annoyances: No "Winners go first option" when playing multiple games. Sometimes you find a card mix thats really annoying. 20min dance breaks when you hit a really good mix. Watching your opponent dance for 20mins because they hit a really good mix but you're down 10pts.

4 people found this helpful

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Shantel Pionke

This item should be pulled from the shelves

Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2024

Verified Purchase

This item should be pulled from shelves because the app that works with it is no longer supported. We even tried the APK versions with no luck. I was super excited to give it to my kid for his birthday and it’s a huge downer that none of the stuff actually works anymore. I’m not sure why they’re still selling it.

6 people found this helpful

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Jinja

I enjoy this game very much and the first time you ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

I enjoy this game very much and the first time you lay down the cards onto the game board it’s really like magic how instantaneous the music starts to play. The main game is basically about area control with deck building elements. You and your opponent are fighting to take over spaces with different color coded cards. Playing certain cards next to each other will get you more points and getting control of an entire field will score you a big bonus; the game does indeed require strategy. The app does a terrific job of explaining how to play the game and keeping track of everything from your score to the amount of cards that are supposed to be in your hand. Anyone can learn and jump in to play within minutes.

I gave the game five stars, however, I do have a major problem with the game and it’s the music aspect of it. The music does not really work into the actual gameplay of it and I wish they intergrated the music element more into the game. I could easily turn off the volume of the game and still play and from a gameplay perspective the game wouldn’t change. Now, the music does indeed make the game a lot cooler, but I am strictly talking about gameplay. Since the game requires an application to play I can see them maybe updating the gameplay or adding new modes later on.

The game at the end of the day is a unique party game that can be played with people who are more hardcore, but also be enjoyed by casual or non gamers. I could easily see this as a gateway game into other board and card games.

14 people found this helpful

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Ben C

Taking little bits from different songs and combining them together is just so fun and magical that would almost be reason enough to ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2017

Verified Purchase

This toy/game/gadget is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. Every friend I've shown it to has been blown away. If you feel blasé about technology this will jolt you awake. Taking little bits from different songs and combining them together is just so fun and magical that would almost be reason enough to shell out for this admittedly expensive game. But as if that weren't enough, there's also two quite fun game modes to play as well. And I'm hoping they'll continue to explore what they can do with this setup and add more game modes in the future.

You get a good collection of songs out of the box but the business model is quite devious in it's temptations. If you want to buy more cards (which are currently very difficult to find) you'll end up paying about a buck a card, largely for a single part of a song. In an age when a whole song costs that much online that seems absurd but you're really paying for the chip in the card plus the technology and time Harmonix put into making each sample work so well with every other one. It's pretty difficult to find a bad sounding mix in this game, that's what makes it all so impressive.

I'm betting this will be a big hit this Christmas, especially if Hasbro wises up and starts marketing more towards adults. I haven't seen any advertisement of the game and NO store clerks know what it is. Moreover a lot of the songs will appeal more to adults due to their nostalgic/classic selection. Still everyone needs to try this game out!

25 people found this helpful

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Jeremy M.

This is a fun game!

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2021

Verified Purchase

We purchased the drop mix after playing it at a friend's house. It's amazing for parties or just hanging out with the family. It takes almost no time to Lear and the freestyle mode is great when we're are having a small party. Everyone loves it when we have guest's over. I'd recommend this to anyone who likes music it also has Bluetooth so we connect it to our Sony speaker and it works great. They have an app you download it's very easy to use. We also purchased a few different music card packs from Amazon to have a different variety of music. After a year of using the drop mix still works great haven't even had to change the batteries once and we use it quite often.

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Sandy

Found My Next Favorite Board Game!

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2018

Verified Purchase

Absolutely love this game! I picked up DropMix hesitantly when it was on sale for $50 on Amazon thinking I should not have bought it as the cost of this game is much higher compared to other board games I had bought before. Nevertheless, those regrets instantly went away after playing the game for the first time with my family. The rules were initially hard for me to pick up as no rule book is provided in the box, but rather within the app itself. Even then, the rules could still be even more complicated if you plan to deck build with the playlists beyond the starter decks.

I love how the app has a built in deck builder to ensure your custom deck follows the rules such as having a power level of less than 80 while also having atleast 30 cards within the deck for clash and even identifies which DropMix cards belongs to who if you play with people who have their own decks. But for ease of play, you can make a rule-legal deck by just utilizing two of the four pre-configured playlists included as the creators of DropMix had stated within their video on Youtube. I wont go into detail of all the rules, but by playing the game one can easily pick up on the rules as the app helps the player know the rules as they play such as if a card is placed in the wrong color slot, has a too low power level to be played in that color slot, and even lets each player know how many cards they should have during their turn. My eight-year old brother easily picked up on how the game was played after the second time to put it into perspective.

Each of the cards has a built in RFID identifier which the board recognizes and displays the card to the screen of the phone. The cards are able to be stacked and still each be recognized by the game, even identifying the number and type of cards in a normal deck. This is what makes these cards unique compared to the many other card games. It is also where issues will most likely arise with the board potentially not be able to recognize a card if it is damaged internally even if it looks physically fine or having a few cards look warped or physically worn even before the first play-through. I was unfortunately one to face these problems with my first set which is the reason for my lack of a five-star rating. Only one card in my first DropMix set would not recognize out of the 60 provided despite looking physically fine and that card was "Down With the Sickness", a wild card which is vital to the game. The majority of the other 59 cards already appeared warped. Luckily Amazon understood this issue and immediately issued a speedy replacement while I returned my first DropMix set. Hasbro is understanding with replacing individual defective non-readable cards if you are past the return period, but having these issues arise with a brand new set of cards is concerning of itself with the longevity of the cards for many more years to come. The replacement set and other playlists I purchased later on still had the warped cards issue, but I did not mind as much as all the cards read just fine. I sleeved up my cards with Ultra-Pros which helped to mitigate the warping.

All in all, I love this game despite the many card issues mentioned above. It may seem as if I am too critical of the card quality, but when each of these cards costs nearly buck apiece at msrp for the 15-card playlists I expect the cards to generally be in better physical and working condition though I understand implementation of the RFID Identifier may explain the majority of the card quality issues.

TLDR Buy this game! You will not regret it!

4 people found this helpful

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Tyler Walpole

A fantastic, casual card game and party utility, (your mileage may vary)

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

Since their early days on the PS2 game FreQuency, I've followed Harmonix's tracks wherever they lead: plastic guitars, motion tracking dance games, etcetera. Now, evidently, we're on to music mixing card games.

I eagerly followed Dropmix's development and picked it up as part of a joint purchase when the starter set was on sale for $60 this last November. Since, I have sunk hours into just the freestyle mode alone, as well as some extra cash into card packs, if you're a fanatic for music and mashups, this may very well be straight up your alley. Great for parties if you either want an easy, (albeit limited,) DJ set-up, or if you want a card game you can teach to even drunk people who wonder why Ginuwine's "Pony" has been on loop for 45 minutes. (Really, I taught my parents how to play this in like five minutes flat.)

There's a bit of a catch, and it's one of the mere two things that I'm unhappy with: card availability. After I'd gotten Dropmix, I pretty much immediately went out to get more cards. This was right before Black Friday and holiday rushes, so I picked up quite a few Series 1 packs fairly easily, and had a couple gifted to me without much hassle. However, as of the time of writing this review, (Feb 19, 2018,) the stores around me that carry Dropmix merch are completely barren, and even retailers such as Amazon don't stock the playlist packs or have very scarce quantities. The vendors that sell through Amazon mark up the price up to 4x the original cost. Some playlists are also store-exclusive, to places such as Target, Toys-r-Us, etc., which can also be cause for headache. Even now, as new playlists and discover packs have been revealed and made available, it's hard to get these anywhere but the Hasbro store.

I absolutely love the game in both solo scenarios, (as someone who loves music but isn't very musically inclined,) and with friends/at parties. There's something truly special about Dropmix, and I can safely say every dollar spent on it has been put to good use. Card availability and the future of content for Dropmix is worrying in the long run, but as a solid party game or a simple tool for those that love music, I'd gladly recommend Dropmix.

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