I’ve Got a Crush on You – Cassette Crush: Mixtape Masters Review

I normally don’t do Kickstarters for games out of the blue, sticking with tried and true companies and game series that I enjoy.

For some reason, Cassette Crush just reached out and grabbed me as a relatively quick card game brimming with 80s and 90s nostalgia, and forced me to back it (yes, it was at gunpoint, but it was a good gunpoint!)

After realizing that the name was similar to another game, it morphed into Cassette Crush: Mixtape Masters (I actually don’t remember what the original name was, but it was something about a mixtape), and it recently arrived at my door.

And wow does the nostalgia factor pummel you quickly, if you’re of the age where you were actually making mixtapes as a lovestruck teenager or 20 year old (full confession, I made a mixtape for a woman when I was 25. I am…nowhere near 25 now).

Cassette Crush: Mixtape Masters (and I will not be typing that whole name again, so just assume) is a 30-45 minute card game where you are essentially recording a mixtape for your secret (or maybe not so secret?) crush back in the 80s or 90s (I think most of the song parodies are 80s? But I’m not sure).

The song parodies really make this game if you are of a certain age. If you’re not, well…the game itself is good enough but it will definitely lose something in the translation.

Before I forget, the game was designed by Rob Newton with artwork by James Churchill. It was published by Talon Strike Studios and while Boardgame Geek shows it as 2024, that’s when the Kickstarter went live.

I just received it a few weeks ago, in September 2026.

I played this game at work with somebody who is slightly older than me as well as two people who are much younger than me, and the younger folks did enjoy the game, but the the concept of making a mixtape for somebody was really foreign to them.

That whole thing about listening to the radio, waiting for a particular song to come on, and then punching Record at just the right moment, but then being seriously pissed off when the DJ started talking during the end of the song, that’s what we fondly remember.

Maybe people nowadays make personal Spotify Crush lists and send them to their crush targets?

I don’t know.

Anyway, each player has their player board with four sliders which will be going up during the game.

The three to the right will go up based on the mixtape that you are recording, but the Volume (leftmost) slider will only go up when you play your mixtape (or get a “bump any slider” effect), and then only if you’ve recorded songs that actually give you that ability.

Volume, of course, gets you the most points, so it’s probably good to record songs that give you that!

Before you even wonder about all of that, though, you need to know what your secret crush likes!

(Is it a secret crush? I actually don’t know, but usually crushes are unknown, I think).

That’s what you are dealt first, a double-sided crush card that tells you what types of songs they are interested in.

You may be able to woo your crush even without those, but they’d damned well better be cool songs if you’re going to do that.

Jamie will give you two points for each “Escape” (the rocket symbol theme) song that you record as well as 4 points for each set of Rock and Hip Hop songs that you record adjacent to each other.

I guess it’s not as cool if they’re just on the tape but don’t play one after the other.

In a cool aid to the player, the theme requirement actually gives you what the count of that theme is in each coloured song deck.

Which brings us to the songs themselves.

There are three differently-coloured decks of song cards. I don’t think there’s any specific theme to them (like pink cards are love songs or something), but I could be wrong about that.

One of your potential actions is going to be listening to the radio to try and find songs you want to record for your crush, which is basically drawing cards from the various decks.

Ultimately, your mixtape isn’t going to be very effective if you don’t actually have any songs on it.

You’ll be playing songs from your hand to “record” them, placing them in the next space to the left of your board on the row in which your tape is currently situated.

Some songs will have a “Record” effect, but you will essentially be paying for these songs by discarding other songs in your hand. So make sure you have a enough to do that.

Recording Ladies First will let you draw 2 more cards, for example.

Eventually you have to play your tape, just to see what how the songs flow and also to move back to the other side (top or bottom, whichever side you were not on before).

This is how (for the most part) you increase your sliders and also do other effects.

Playing the tape when you are recording the top row in the picture above, for example, will trigger the bottom portions of the card (draw one card and increase your volume slider one step).

Some songs will have ongoing effects rather than Play effects, like I Gotta Stay Hydrated, which will have you increase any of your sliders by one when you record a Rock song.

One of the big point-getters in the game, if you go that route, is the Love Notes.

Many of the songs you record will have Play effects of letting you write love notes to your crush.

When you play the top row of the above tape, for example, Mourning Moon will let you draw a card and then write two Love Notes.

This basically means playing two of the songs in your hand to your player board face down as Love Notes.

This is not exactly set collection, but the more Love Notes you write, the more points you will get at the end of the game.

If you manage to write 15 Love Notes during the game, that’s a whole 19 points!

But you’d better have been able to draw cards because when you use songs for Love Notes, you can’t record them (or use them to discard to record other songs).

That’s actually the small beauty of this game, choosing between recording songs (somebody recording their 10th song, 5 on each side of the tape, triggers the endgame) and writing Love Notes.

The songs you record will give you points as well, and even more points if you record them in the right sequence.

They will score the basic points (the left side of the top right of the card), but will only score the harmony points (the right side of the top right of the card) if the next song in sequence is the right colour.

Awesome Journey on the bottom left will get 1 point as a base score, but also gets one point as a harmony point for having the next song in sequence be a green one.

The top left card will not get that harmony point since the next song isn’t pink.

Sometimes the symbols you are going for because your crush wants them are more important than the harmony points you get for getting the colours correct.

Playing the tape to change sides from top to bottom will also move your sliders up one of each colour for each song of a colour that are on that side of the tape.

These will give you nice effects of maybe increasing your hand size from the beginning five (all the way up to 11 if you get that high!), or giving you a slight discount on recording songs.

The blue slider actually lets you draw more cards when listening to the radio, and then discarding one of them.

Each slider will give you points at the end of the game depending on where it is, though the Volume slider (which, as I said, is only raised through song effects of some kind) will get you the most points.

This all continues until somebody plays their 10th song, in which case you finish the round and everybody gets one more turn.

Total up all of these points and whoever has the most is the winner.

Cassette Crush is an extremely easy game to play, though there are a couple of odd things to consider for those non-gamers out there.

The concept of adjacency on the tape, for one thing, is pretty simple except that you have to remember that the last card on the top row is considered adjacent to the first card of the bottom row.

Vice versa for the last card on the bottom and the first card on the top.

It also kind of feels a little weird that you’re playing cards left to right rather than right to left, but that’s not too hard to wrap your head around.

If it were really like a tape that you played one side, then flipped it over and played the other side, you would think it would go left-down-right.

But that might blow some people’s minds!

Anyway, there are a few cards that, on recording them, will let you swap two songs on your tape, so there is a little mitigation you can do to make sure things are in the right order on your tape.

Again, doesn’t make sense thematically (unless you are a master tape splicer), but in game terms that can be a life saver if you aren’t able to quite get your sets or pairs of icons in the right place.

However, there aren’t a lot of them, so I wouldn’t count on them.

The other confusing thing about scoring is the pair/set issue on the two sides of your crush card.

One side gets you 2 points per pair of two icons that are adjacent to each other.

The other side gets you 4 points for each set of two icons that are adjacent to each other.

The only difference in this wording?

A symbol can be part of two pairs but only part of one set.

So say you have A-B-A-B-A-B next to each other.

For pair scoring, the interior “BABA” letters can count for two different pairs.

So you would get 10 points (2 for A-B, 2 for B-A, 2 for A-B, 2 for B-A, 2 for A-B)

For set scoring?

You get 12 points for that, but each one can only be used for one set.

So you have A-B, A-B, A-B, 4 points each.

That’s the only difference, whether or not a song can count twice.

It can be a bit difficult to wrap your head around

It’s a bit much for a quick card game, but overall the game is sound and enjoyable.

The game begins in kind of a rote fashion, since you only start with three cards.

It does then ramp up depending on the songs you get, which ones you record, and what colours you end up getting.

Some people go heavy into love notes (though keep in mind that after 15, it’s pointless to do anymore), some try to max out all of their sliders, and it’s always good to try and get high-value songs out there.

If you must record a song that doesn’t harmonize well, try to make sure the Harmony points are 0 or 1. It can be brutal when you’re missing out on two points.

One quick mention of the solo game, because unusually I actually have tried it out!

You have four different bot opponents of increasing difficulty, and you play your turns normally.

When you record a song, your discarded songs get discarded to the bot and it scores both the base and harmony points for the song.

This also applies if you have to discard a song for any other reason (hand size or your blue slider gives you an increased draw but you have to discard a song that you drew)

So make sure you’re discarding low-quality songs!

When you play your tape, the bot gets one card from the top of a coloured deck for each song of that colour you’re playing. These cards are worth one point each.

It’s essentially an efficiency puzzle, as you are trying to record your 10 songs while giving the bot as few points as possible.

Also keep in mind that at the end of the game, the bot gets all of the points for each card in your hand! So try to have a small hand at the end.

That’s tough.

It’s a nice solo system, though, and I can see myself trying it again.

Overall, Cassette Crush: Mixtape Master is a good, quick game with a couple of small bumps in the road that get in the way.

Once you navigate those bumps, even those gosh-durned kids can have fun with it.

Even if they have no idea what you’re talking about.

(This review was written after 3 plays and 1 solo play)