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Welcome to Music Manager, the game where you take control of a fledgling rock band and try to steer them towards success and that all important record deal!

MM is a relatively easy game to play and you should work out what to do pretty quickly, however there are certain aspects which you need to know about if you are to make any success of your band.

CONTENTS:

1. Hiring Band Members

2. Recording a song

3. Playing a gig

4. Promotion

5. Sacking and resignation

6. Holidays

7. Band Practise

8. The Demo Tape

9. Beta Test Information

The most important part of a band, apart from the songs of course, are the actual people that write and perform the songs. Your band will consist of four main members each of which will have a specialist instrument. Your band will therefore include a Vocalist or ‘Lead singer’, a lead guitarist, bass guitarist and a drummer. All the members of the band have their own unique personalities and traits, which affect the outcome of the game. A person has many stats that fall into two distinct groups; ‘Hidden’ and ‘Visible’. The visible stats are listed in the ‘Band Member’ box when you click on a particular person, and include stats such as ‘Talent’ and ‘Gender’. Hidden stats however cannot be seen but are equally as important, Morale for example is a hidden stat.

All stats are a rating out of 10

The Visible Stats:

Age: The age of the person, has no real relevance to the game, included for realism only.

Gender: The sex of the person, like age, this has no real bearing on the game.

Instrument: The instrument that this person plays in the band.

Talent: The persons talent on their instrument.

Charisma: Charisma is a very important characteristic when appearing for a radio or T.V interview.

Attitude: The persons professionalism, the lower the rating the more likely they are to upset the rest of the band.

Appearance: In today’s shallow world, the looks of a person are just as important as their talent and this stat reflects this.

Morale is an extremely important statistic, but because it is a hidden stat it is very hard to measure. To get a rough idea of how your band is feeling, select a particular person and then click on the ‘More Info’ button. This will give you a vague description of how they are feeling and how they are getting on with other members of the band. Morale is affected by many different factors, such as making a band record a song or practise when they are too tired.

The second most important part of a band, apart from it’s members, are the songs that they write and perform. Once you have assembled your all-conquering musicians you can order them to start their journey to success by writing a song. Simply do this by clicking on the ‘Write Song’ button, and off they will go to write the next hit. If your band has only just completed writing a song, or have been practising then they will be reluctant to start work on a new track straight away. After a few weeks they will be ready again, but if you are being particularly sadistic, or simply need a set of tracks fast, you can force them to write a song despite their objections. Beware however, as forcing the band against their will is certain to reduce their morale; You just can’t rush genius! It will take at least three weeks before a track is completed, once it is finished you will be notified and the song will appear in the ‘Track List’ window.

If your band wants any kind of success then at some point they are going to have to try and get a gig and show the world their talent (or lack of it!). To book a gig, click on the ‘Book Gig’ button, this will take you to the Gig booking screen. Here you will see a list of venues, the ones which are greyed out are already booked and therefore unavailable. Some venues are better than others and the bigger the venue the more popular your band will become. After selecting a venue, click the ‘Apply’ button, you will be told instantly whether or not the venue has accepted your application for a gig.

If the venue lets you play a gig, then you will be able to select six tracks from your Track List which you will perform at the gig. Once this is completed, click on the ‘Play Gig’ button to continue.

Your band will perform the gig and a window will appear telling you how the performance went, as well as the most popular song in the set. You will also receive a cash payment for your gig, although at the first two venues on the list - where you will play most of your early gigs – you will receive no money.

In the early days, you won’t even be able to get a gig. The only way around this is to perform some sort of promotion; this includes advertising in magazines and local newspapers and even performing impromptu gigs in your mates garage, just to get that little bit of recognition. There are four modes of Promotion, None, Small, Medium, and High. All have their own cost and equally their own benefits. It is wise at the start of the game to perform some small promotions for the first few weeks, just enough so that your band is well known enough to get a first gig.

It’s a sad truth that one day things may be so bad within the band that the only way to restore harmony is to get rid of the offending party. There may come a point where a particular member is hated so much by other members that morale within the band drops rapidly, there is a solution to this and although a little harsh it will hopefully restore some peace. Sacking a particular member will decrease the bands popularity, especially if they were talented. However, the other members of the band will be much happier and their morale will increase dramatically if they didn’t get on with that person.

This is drastically different from a performance related sacking; If a particular person within the band is not developing as fast as other members or is continually unhappy then you may wish to sack them and bring in some fresh talent. Be warned though, this will have an adverse effect on the bands popularity and morale, especially if there was a strong friendship between the members.

Every now and then your band deserves a little treat, a hard few months of song writing and doing gigs eventually takes it’s toll on even the toughest of people and as such they are entitled to feel a little under the weather. To combat this, you have the option of booking a holiday break for you and the rest of the band for some well earned R&R. However, this is not cheap and will set you back £300, so use this option sparingly. Sending the band on holiday is a quick fix for band members whose morale is slipping, a break will allow them to recharge and come back fully revived!

When you advance to the next week, by clicking the ‘Next Week’ button, you will be presented with a dialog box asking whether or not you would like your band to practise. Obviously you would, but sometimes the band has other ideas. If they are particularly tired then they will try and protest, if you want to be cruel and make them practise anyway then you can force them to do so. However, this will reduce their morale for obvious reasons and is not advised. The main benefit from band practise is that the talent of individual members will slowly increase, you will be notified of who has increased in talent after every weekly session. Don’t expect instant results, it will take time for a persons talent to increase a ‘notch’ up the rating, but if you are patient and plan sessions well, you will soon have a potentially world dominating band!!

Ah, the Demo tape, the single most important factor in your bands rise to fame. After a few months or maybe even years of song writing, live sets, arguments and endless promotion, you and your band will find yourself in a good enough position to send a Demo tape to a recording company. A Demo tape is basically a single track of your best work that allows the Record company to get an idea of your style, and just how good you are. Of course this is no easy task, Record companies get hundreds of tapes a week so yours has to stand out as something special. As well as the Demo itself being good, the band itself has to have big enough recognition so they can prove to the Record Company that they can really go places. A word of advice when choosing a Demo tape – Try picking a song that always comes out on top at gigs, this is a good way to tell the quality and appeal of a track.

This game is still in the Beta stage of it’s development, which basically means it is not fully finished and may still have a few bugs in it. This means that we require ‘play testers’ – people who play a game and report any bugs or problems. By playing this game, you are in theory play-testing and therefore we would be eternally grateful if you could e-mail us with any bugs or problem that occur. This way we can correct them and finish the game much quicker than if we had to test it ourselves.

Please e-mail gecko_games@yahoo.com with the nature of the problem and we will rectify it and if you wish, send you the corrected copy.

Thank You,

The Gecko Games Team