The Game Guide

Points are time. Your active band earns 3 points every hour, around the clock. Almost everything you do - writing songs, practising, recording, promoting - spends them. You can only do so much in a week, so spend them where they matter.

One real day = one game week. Every night at 11:30pm UK time the world updates: records sell, streams count, charts recalculate, tours pay out, campaigns tick, and everything ages a week. Your dashboard shows the countdown in your own timezone.

Score and rank. Everything your band achieves feeds its score; the Rankings order every band in the world by it. Your rank updates hourly - the climb is the game.

One manager, many bands. Your account is a manager who can run as many bands as you like - create and switch from the Manager Dashboard. Points and actions belong to the band you're currently controlling.

Five vitals run your band: Happiness and Health are fuel - hard work drains them, and a miserable, burned-out band performs badly. Creativity feeds songwriting. Ability and Song Writing are craft - they grow with use and make everything you produce better.

Rest & Recover restores happiness and health. Don't grind your band into the ground - a rested band writes better songs and plays better shows.

Practice converts points into ability. Early on it's the best points you'll spend.

Write Songs turns points and creativity into tracks, each with a quality rating. Songs are the raw material for every single, EP and album - keep a stockpile.

Singles - one A-side and two B-sides, a producer, and studio points. The bread and butter: quick to make, chart fast. You can release one every 4 weeks.

EPs - 4-6 tracks, every 8 weeks. Bigger than a single, cheaper than an album, with their own chart.

Albums - 10-20 tracks, every 15 weeks. The big statement: the most expensive to record and the biggest seller when it lands.

Producers matter. A better producer costs more but lifts the record's rating - and the rating drives sales for the whole life of the release. Cheap producer on your best songs = money left on the table.

Where it sells is up to you. You choose which of your unlocked regions a release goes out in. It sells (and streams) every night while it's still fresh - sales fade as it ages. Watch it all on Chart Watch.

Artwork - upload cover art from the release page. Pure vanity. Essential.

Every market has its own charts for singles, EPs and albums, plus the World chart that counts everything everywhere. Positions update with the nightly sales run; your best-ever positions are kept forever on the release and your profile.

Streaming runs alongside sales - releases earn nightly streams (see the Streaming Chart), which pay royalties and feed your monthly listeners figure. Streams build more slowly than sales but keep paying long after the chart run.

Hit #1 in the world and the whole feed hears about it. There are achievements for the world Top 10 and #1 - and the season's chart-toppers tend to collect trophies too.

Campaigns cost money AND points, run for a set number of nights, and boost a release (or the band) while they run. Book them from a release page or the Promotion hub. Pick one tier per method - you can run several methods at once on the same release.

🎬 Music video - the flagship: pick a director (their fee adds to the cost, the right one multiplies the effect - some specialise in your genre), wait out the shoot, then enjoy the biggest sales boost in the game. One live video per release.

📱 Social push - fast, cheap reach with a shot at going viral. 📻 Radio rotation - steady popularity and sales in the markets you pick. 🎧 Playlist pitch - boosts streams, not sales; aim it at markets warm to your genre.

Band-level campaigns - 📣 Advertising builds popularity in any market (even where nobody knows you - it's how you break new ground), and 📰 Press & PR builds notoriety with the odd tabloid scandal thrown in. All publicity is good publicity… mostly.

Pre-release booking: you can book campaigns on a recorded-but-unreleased record - they activate the night it first sells, so launch week hits with everything at once.

Results land every week in your inbox as The Weekly Rundown.

Go on Tour in any region where people know you: pick the venues, pay the costs, play the shows. Ticket sales scale with your popularity there - and the report ("The Damage") shows exactly what each night made and what state the band is in afterwards.

Touring is hard on happiness and health, but it's immediate cash and it counts toward the Tickets Sold leaderboard and the touring achievements. And unlike record income, tour money is always 100% yours.

You start in your home region. Popularity is tracked per region (0-100) - you only sell records, stream, and tour where people actually know you.

Expanding costs money. Once your home popularity reaches 25, you can buy your way into new markets from Band Upgrades - each has its own price tag (bigger market, bigger bill). Buying in gives you a toehold of popularity there; advertising, releases and time do the rest.

Every market has taste. World Tastes shows how warmly each country takes to each genre - a market that loves your genre sells and streams better for you. And every few weeks a 🌊 genre wave sweeps a market - one genre surges there (sales AND streams multiplied) for a few weeks. Watch the feed for the announcement and time your releases to ride it: when the wave passes, the Wave Report crowns the band that rode it hardest, with an achievement to prove it.

The Feed is the world's front page - releases, #1s, viral hits, milestones… Hit 🔥 to hype a moment, or 💬 to join the conversation on it.

Rivalries - declare any band your rival from their profile. Every night it's a best-of-three: records sold this week, best world chart position, world popularity. Win the week and the feed hears about it. Bragging rights only - and that's the point.

Friend Groups give you a private feed of just your people; Compare puts any two bands head-to-head; Messages is band-to-band mail (and where the game writes to you).

Achievements - permanent milestones across releasing, songwriting, charts, promotion, sales, touring, wealth and fame. Once earned, never lost.

The game runs in seasons (roughly three months - the countdown is on your dashboard). Season stats track alongside all-time stats, so every season is a fresh race even for the giants.

Every season ends with the Awards - a full ceremony crowning Song, EP and Album of the Year, Most Streamed, Most Hyped, Road Warrior, Hitmaker, Newcomer and Artist of the Year. Winners and nominees are frozen forever - on the band's profile and in the manager's trophy cabinet.

Trophies are the long game. Ranks reset their race each season; silverware doesn't.

Patrons keep the game alive - and get: +1 points every hour for the active band, the gold ★ on all their bands. From $4/month - link your Patreon in Manager Settings.