Game Spotlight – Kenny G: Keepin’ it Saxy

Today’s spotlight game is a little vanity press game from Big G Creative, LLC (who also do Bob Ross: Art of Chill as well as a game called Kraft Heinz Variety Game Pack which…what is that even?) and Kenny G. Inc. Normally one might see a game like this and think to themselves, “A celebrity game? Hard pass, I’ll stick with something from Renegade Games Studios or Pandasaurus Games, they do some good stuff.” but then you would have missed this surprisingly fun cooperative game.

The point of Keepin’ It Saxy (and I really kinda love the title of this game) is to help Kenny G get through his day without losing his groove. Kenny G’s day is divided up into morning (first half, second half), Afternoon (first half, second half) and Evening (first half, second half) and each phase has a number of events to overcome. Players use the cards in their hand (sound cards and occasionally an ability card) to resolve these events which threaten to rob Kenny G of his groove.

The colored spots on the bottom of the event cards need to be matched in order from cards in the players’ hands, which can be harder than it looks. Pesky spots and their order.

Players play their hands open and are encouraged to strategize how best to overcome the many obstacles that show up to thwart our man Kenny G. The morning obstacles are bothersome but not so difficult and you don’t lose much groove if you fail them. The afternoon ones are a little more challenging while the evening ones are serious. I appreciate the game ramping up the threat level as you go along rather than random draw or full on boss mode. It’s a nice choice to ease you into the game play.

(Note that the event cards have little sub texts to help you along your way…I mean, Kenny G’s Day has to have some perks right?)

You also don’t have to finish an event by the end of that day’s phase, although you still have to roll against any unfinished events when you hit the end of the play phase for each day. Game play continues until you lose all of Kenny G’s Groove (awwww) or he makes it through Evening, second half with at least 1 Groove left

Things I liked:

The instructions tell you that for fun you can “say the Sound words that make up the riff out loud before you discard the Event: Bop WaWuhWah Woop!”
I heart the events and I really wish there were twice as many as there are. Am I saying there ought to be an expansion pack? I think I’m saying there ought to be an expansion pack!
The instructions come with Sax Facts!

There's a Kenny G soundtrack on Spotify for while you are playing the game! That Kenny G thinks of everything. — Thanks go to Aldolphe Sax.

Things I didn’t like:

The purple and black dots are hard to distinguish from each other, at least over the internet (I’ve only played this game during COVID times and hadn’t seen a copy up close until I bought this one for the Games Library-in person there’s more differentiation. It also helps that the symbols are different so…)
At first glance, the graphics are kinda simple and repetitive but on closer inspection there is a lot of variety when there doesn’t have to be. I can’t decide if this is genius minimalism or maybe too subtle to stand out. I’m leaning towards liking it but it takes a while to notice and maybe you won’t really play the game enough to appreciate the slight nuances.

Although the saxophones are all in the same place, there are several different kinds of saxophones here and the cards are shaded slightly differently.

There are only 36 event cards (12 per time of day) and with 5 players pulling 17 events throughout the game there is a good chance you will have seen all the events sooner rather than later making replay limited.