Rock Hard 1977 – Ear Candy – Coming in August 2026

This isn’t exactly “news,” because designer Jackie Fox has been talking about it for a while on Boardgame Geek.

But hearing more detail (including a relative release date, which may have been announced before but it didn’t register in my brain) made me decide that I wanted to talk about it briefly!

One of my favourite games of 2024 was Rock Hard: 1977, a game designed by Jackie Fox (a former guitarist for the 1970s rock band The Runaways).

You can read my rave review of the game here!

Jackie’s been talking about an expansion for this game for a while now, and she also says that it will fit in the Folded Space insert that I bought for the base game, which is music to my ears!

The expansion, now called Ear Candy, has its own Boardgame Geek page now, so you can keep tabs on stuff as it comes out.

Jackie has mentioned (and maybe previously has on November 17, but as I said, it hasn’t registered with me until I saw Jackie’s post about it today) that it will be coming out for GenCon 2026, so sometime in August.

That’s not that far away now!

In the post I’m referencing, she details a little more about what is coming in the expansion, and it’s piqued my interest even more.

There is a new mechanism about writing certain types of songs, from hard rock to glam and many others, and these will be based on your life experience.

Does that mean based on the Life Experience cards that you take at the beginning of the game?

Who knows?

You can also use the “Hire Indie Promo” action to help yourself move up the charts, and it sounds like there will be some kind of track for that, because she says “Highest position at end of the game wins the points, with a bonus for making it to #1”.

(Yeah, sorry, there are no pictures for the expansion, so I’m just giving you pictures of the base game).

There will also be two new characters, so I’m interested to see what new asymmetric powers they have compared to the others.

Most importantly, there will be two more managers!

(Again, managers from the base game because no pictures for the expansion are out yet)

I’m a bit sad, as that’s still not that many if you’re playing a 5 player game. That will result in 8 managers and 6 will be revealed to choose from.

Still, it’s better than 6, so that’s something at least.

At least it will be more variety if you’re playing with less than 5.

There will also be new cards for all of the Hangouts, which will just add to the richness.

(Again, picture from…oh, never mind. You know the drill now)

I’m assuming they will keep to the general aspect of each hangout, where each one will more likely give you something of one or two aspects (like one of them more likely to give you reputation or songs, etc).

The November 17 post actually mentioned 2 new types of Candy too, which really intrigues me because in the base game, there’s the basic “+1 action” candy, the “sugarless” candy that gives you no free actions (but also doesn’t add to your addition) and the “+2 action” candy which is awesome because it still only adds 1 to your addiction level.

What could the new candy be?

Inquiring minds want to know!

When I asked about it on BGG, she said “I’ll leave that for everyone to discover and just say that it gives you more control over the quality of the candy you consume.”

Even better for some people (though doesn’t interest me that much), along with Ear Candy will be released a solo/co-op version of the game with print-and-play on Boardgame Geek.

I am so psyched for this expansion to come out.

Can it be August yet?

Are you a fan of the game and, if so, are you excited for this expansion?

Let me know in the comments.