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Headliner

Created by Chris Couch Games

A music–themed card game of building bands, chasing hype, and stealing the spotlight. Draft the right mix of talent, style, and sound to become the act everyone came to see.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

New Headliner Unlocked! + Final Hours + Origins Preview Achievement Within Reach
3 months ago – Thu, May 28, 2026 at 10:35:07 AM

Hey rock stars!

WOW! What a final 24 hours it's been. We hit the 350 backer mark and the $14,000 mark! I'm so grateful to have y'all in the band. You are the real show stoppers 😎.



New Headliner Card is Added to the Backer Promo!

Thanks to all of you, we hit this awesome stretch goal!! Blake was able to whip up the art for Ned Schneebly, and we've added a phenomenal new card to add to the game. ALL BACKERS will get this for FREE included in the Backer Promo.
 


🤘 Poster Giveaway Winner(s)

We hit another 50-backer milestone, which means another backer wins a custom poster! 

  • Congrats to backer "Ronny Cox"! 
  • Also congrats to Drew for being our most engaged backer during the campaign! You have also won a free poster that will be added to your pledge!
  • If you read this, please leave a comment letting me know which poster you'd like. Also, I will DM you to make sure you see it :)
  • We'll unlock another poster winner if we hit 400 backers AND/OR 50 likes for Headliner on the BGG Origins Preview (check the achievement below). Let's do this in the final 2 hours!

📋 BGG Origins Preview - Help us spread the word

We only need 16 more likes for Headliner on BGG's Origins Preview to do another Poster Giveaway! This helps us show off the game to more people attending the convention. I've added the community achievement below, but you can click here to "like" our games on BoardGameGeek's website.

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Updates Going Forward

I will have some other cool announcements next week after the campaign closes. If you're familiar with me from past campaigns, you know that I am very transparent and communicative throughout the entire process. I want y'all to know how much your trust in me and in Chris Couch Games means. I do not take your decision to spend money with us lightly. I will honor your pledge by providing a quality product, supporting the board game community, and doing everything possible to get you the game swiftly.

Here's what you can expect from me going forward:

  1. You will receive updates at the end of the month, every month, until fulfillment is complete.
  2. I will keep you up to date on manufacturing process and give y'all as much behind the scenes as possible, basically a backstage pass.
  3. I will be finalizing the rulebook design soon. My computer crashed last week, so I have to buy a new one (time for an upgrade), and it's slowed me down a bit. I will also be filming a how to play video that you can expect in June.

That's all for now! Let's finish the campaign strong, and don't forget to Kick Back and Play!

- Chris P. and the CCG team

Final 24 Hours 🤩 + New Headliner Added + Poster Winner!
3 months ago – Wed, May 27, 2026 at 12:23:42 PM

Hey rock stars!

We had a very eventful last few days with the campaign! We're now in the final day before the campaign wraps up tomorrow. I'm thrilled and humbled by your support thus far, but we still have a few more songs on our setlist before we walk off stage!

🎸 A New Headliner Joins the Band Soon

Thanks to everyone for voting on the new Headliner color and "van". It was a tie between Black and Blue, so I spoke with the designer and the team to make the final choice on the player color being Black. This is also because of the cool idea to bring some inspiration from School of Rock into the game. Here is a look at the art sketch and wooden school bus that we can add to the backer-exclusive promo. You'll get this and other bonuses for FREE if you back Headliner before the campaign ends tomorrow!



I did a bit of reworking of the quote from my manufacturer, and we will be able to add this card and meeple with 350 backers instead of the original 400! I know this will be a fun addition for everyone, and it will allow us to have another SKU we can sell at conventions in the future to promote the game.

🤘 Poster Giveaway Winner

We hit another 50-backer milestone, which means another backer wins a custom poster! 

  • Congrats to backer "Elizabeth R"! 
  • If you read this, please leave a comment letting me know which poster you'd like. Also, I will DM you to make sure you see it :)
  • We'll unlock another poster winner once we hit 350 backers AND 400 backers AND 50 likes for Headliner on the BGG Origins Preview (check the achievement below).


📋 BGG Origins Preview - Help us spread the word

We are over halfway to our goal of 50 likes for Headliner! This helps us show off the game to more people attending the convention. I've added the community achievement below, but you can click here to give Headliner and our other games a "like" on BoardGameGeek's website. Once we hit 50, I'll do another poster giveaway.

THANK YOU all so much again. I can't express my gratitude enough, and we'll be working hard to make sure Headliner gets to you as soon as possible. Let's close out the final 24 hours strong!

Kick Back and Play,
- Chris P. & the CCG team

Final 5 Days! + New Stretch Goal Added + Geekway Recap
4 months ago – Sat, May 23, 2026 at 03:49:45 PM

Hey rock stars!

We're in the final 5 days of this campaign. It's been so fun to see all the support for Headliner, and I can't wait for you to get your copy of the game :)

🎲 Geekway Recap

Last week I was able to attend Geekway to the West in St. Louis, MO. I was a vendor there with a 20x10 booth, and got to do a ton of demos for Headliner. Everyone had such a blast! We got to play games at all player counts which was great to work out those final tweaks. All went swimmingly well. I sold a good amount of Holiday Hills, Jingle Bell Roll, and Kraken Skulls, and it was great to see two of my designers Kristen Mott (Garden Club and Petal) and Marcus Ross (JBR)! Overall it was profitable, and it was so great to see people who were backing Headliner already. It meant the world to me!

Below is a pic of my booth setup, but if you want to see more pics check out my Instagram post. I'll have a cleaner booth at Gen Con and PAXU, but this was a great test run.



Final Stretch Goals


👩‍🎤 New Headliner Added to the Game - 400 Backers

If we can hit 400 backers, we'll add a NEW headliner to the game, included within the Backer-only stretch goals pack. This means, all backers would get this Headliner for FREE ($5 MSRP value, this SKU would include the wooden first player token and the promo card as well).
 
There are two news polls for you to check out. Vote on what color you'd like to see this new Headliner be, as well as their Van style. If we hit 400 Backers, I'll have Blake do some new art for this Headliner, and we'll finalize everything before we go to print in June. Leave a comment on what artist you'd like to see us embody for this new Headliner. 👀 

🎸 Wooden Guitar Pics - $20k

We have our final stretch goal of hitting $20k which will unlock wooden guitar pic tokens for all backers! This would mean we need around 200 more backers to get that, which is totally possible! We have over 600 followers for this campaign, and now is the perfect time to jump in and help us hit this mark.


📋 BGG Origins Preview - Help us spread the word

We are about halfway to our goal of 50 likes for Headliner! This helps us show off the game to more people attending the convention. I've added the community achievement below, but you can click here to give Headliner and our other games a "like" on BoardGameGeek's website. Once we hit 50, I'll do another poster giveaway!

📣 Headliner featured on Dice Tower's Crowdsurfing

I appreciated seeing Dice Tower cover Headliner on their most recent stream. They had nice things to say and were very complimentary of the art in the game. Blake has done a bang up job with the art! As the person behind the graphic design at Chris Couch Games, my job gets easy when I have killer artists like Blake and the other folks I've worked with in the past.

S/O to all our content creators who are featured in the game! You can find a list of them on campaign page under the Wildcards Promo section. You can also enter a giveaway for a custom card pledge by visiting @tae_eat_tea's Instagram post.

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That's all for now! I'll have a couple more videos for y'all before the end of the campaign. Like this video from the designer of Headliner, Jaedon! 

I know it's Memorial Day weekend, and I want to say thank you to all who have served and to those families and ones who've sacrificed, you will never be forgotten 🇺🇸 💜 . I hope everyone gets to spend some additional time with loved ones and I hope you all get to plays some games! 

- Chris P.

🥁 Headliner Hits $10K! + We're at Geekway! + Stretch Goals & Giveaway
4 months ago – Fri, May 15, 2026 at 11:15:17 AM

Hey rock stars!

Thanks to all of YOU, we hit $10,000 in funding! With that, we've unlocked the latest stretch goal. We're adding The Queen to the Wildcards Promo, allowing you to choose between The King or Queen of Pop to use with the Private Jet during gameplay. This is such a cool addition, and I'm thrilled we were able to make it happen.

Final Stretch Goal

Now, the final stretch goal has been revealed! If we can hit $20,000 by the end of the campaign, we'll upgrade the chipboard guitar pics to be wooden guitar pics in the game! 

Achieving this mark would mean we hit around 500 backers, which is a huge milestone that helps us to print more copies of Headliner so more people can play.

Geekway to the West

I am currently at Geekway to the West in St. Louis, MO! It's been so lovely to see people again in this community. I'm a regular at this con, and the attendees have seen our company grow and are a major reason why we're able to grow and make more games.

I'm testing out our 20'x10' booth layout as I prepare to have this booth size at Gen Con and PAXU later this year. If you're at Geekway, please come say hi! We are demoing Headliner and the rest of our titles, and have had some great games so far. This helps us finalize development of the last few rules tweaks to Headliner, and even after just day one there's been so many positive reactions to the gameplay.



I'll be at AdventureCon in Arkansas and Origins Game Fair in Ohio in June. If you'll be at either of those, please find me!

Poster Giveaway Winner

We just hit another 50-backer milestone, which means another backer wins a custom poster! 

  • Congrats to backer "DragonInvoker"! 
  • If you read this, please leave a comment letting me know which poster you'd like. Also, I will DM you to make sure you see it :)

EDGE7 Bag

I will be filming a few videos regarding Headliner and EDG7, or collaboration partner for Pocketopia. I posted an Instagram reel showing off a bit of the bag. I love it. I took it with me last night to a brewery where a bunch of us played small box gmes (Petiquette and Wriggle Roulette from OINK Games) and it was the perfect size. We also ended up singing karaoke (I sang WAY too many songs and it was amazing. I felt like a real headliner haha). 

That's all for now! I hope we continue to hit these poster giveaways and eventually our final stretch goal! It would be an incredible achievement. Til next time...

Kick Back and Play,
Chris P.

Two Stretch Goals Unlocked! + Two Giveaway Winners + Happy Mother's Day!
4 months ago – Sun, May 10, 2026 at 01:48:53 PM

Hey rock stars!

Wow! Y'all have been jamming on our stretch goals and community achievements. We've unlocked Spot UV treatment on the box cover along with a Linen Finish 🤘. And we have two poster giveaways to announce!

Poll Results - Private Jet added

Thanks to everyone for voting in what was a TIGHT race. Private Jet (28) won out with Limo (24) and Helicopter (23) not far behind. The King (and Queen) will arrive in style when you use them in the game 😎.



Our next Stretch Goal - The Queen

Once we reach $10,000 we will add a NEW Headliner to the Wildcards promo, The Queen. Any guesses as to who this character is meant to personify? We will reveal The Queen when we unlock this Stretch Goal!


Poster Giveaway Winners:

Backer #38 - Ian Klein
Backer #190 - Dannstarrplay

Congrats! Please let me know which poster you would like to have added to your pledge, and I will get it included when we launch the Pledge Manager :D (Photos below for Giveaway transparency).




Community Achievement - Like Our Games on BGG's Origin Preview

Chris Couch Games will be at Origins Game Fair in June, and the list of game previews just launched on BGG! I've never asked this before, but other publishers do this quite often, so I thought I'd ask our community. If you're a BGG user, it would be super helpful for me if you can go and give a "like" to our listings on the Origins Preview. This gets our games some attention, and it costs a lot of money for me to travel to Origins. So sales to new customers is usually my priority so I continue to afford getting a booth at these conventions.

  • If we can get 50 likes on Headliner on the preview page, I'll do another Poster Giveaway! 
  • If we can get 50 likes on ALL of our listings, I'll give away one Custom Card pledge to a backer!

Additional copy of Headliner Add-On

I realized that I did not provide the option for you to purchase additional copies of Headliner as an Add-On. If you would like to, you now can.


Happy Mother's Day!

Most importantly, I want to wish all the moms a Happy Mother's Day. Our team at CCG includes three mom's and they've been so kind to always open their home up for our crew to meet and discuss the business. So thanks to Meaghan, Natalie, and Marlene! A special thanks to my mom. She is the most talented artist, illustrator, painter, I've ever seen. I used to watch her do her art as a kid on and off the computer, and she is the main reason I have creativity and entrepreneurship in my blood. Love you mom!! :) 

Have a great day everyone, and thanks again for your support of Headliner.

Kick Back and Play,
Chris P. and the CCG team