01The goal
You are a beatmaker starting from nothing: $1,200, 365 days, and three hours of work a day. A season is one in-game year, and it ends one of three ways:
- A year in: you play day 365. That is the season complete.
- Plaque on the wall: at some point you earned a gold record, and you still finish the year. Earning it does not end the game early.
- Evicted: you miss your weekly bills three times. Over the whole career, not in a row.
The numbers are compressed on purpose. In a real producer's year the bills are heavier, sales are far rarer, and a first placement can take years. Here a whole year fits in one evening.
02Setting up your career
You pick your producer name (you can change it later on your profile card) and where you live. Your home sets your weekly bill and how fast you grow:
| Home | Rent + living, per week | Training | Beat quality | Sleep gives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student room | $55 + $20 = $75 | −18% | −7% | +30 energy |
| Social housing | $115 + $30 = $145 | normal | normal | +34 energy |
| A flat of your own | $165 + $45 = $210 | +25% | +4% | +39 energy |
The setup screen shows the rent only. The real bill adds the cost of living, and it grows with your reputation: about $2 more per week for every reputation point, up to +$126.
Social housing is the balanced start. The student room is the cheapest and the hardest: in our test runs, careers started there reached the gold record about four times less often.
You start with two tier 1 contacts, craft skills between 10 and 18, reputation 2, judgement 8 and credibility 50.
03How a day works
Every day you get three hours. Hours do not carry over; energy does. Energy comes back by 16 every night, and sleeping for an hour gives 30 to 39 depending on your home.
| Action | Hours | Energy | Cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cook a beat | 2 | −24 | free | A new beat for your catalog |
| Train | 1 | −20 | free | Drums, melody, mixing, sound design or people skills |
| Work the room | 1 | −15 | $12 | A chance to meet a new contact |
| Mix for hire | 2 | −28 | free | About $43 to $58 at the start |
| Push a drop | 1 | −8 | $32 | Buzz, today |
| Sleep | 1 | +30 to +39 | free | Energy back |
Next day moves exactly one day; unused hours are lost. Fast forward skips quiet days and stops as soon as something needs you: an event, a contract offer, a commission, or Monday's bill. Since the bill comes every week, it never skips more than seven days at a time.
Keyboard: 1 to 6 for the six actions, Space for Next day.
04Cooking beats
When you cook, you pick a style: TRAP, DRILL, RNB, BOOM BAP or AFRO. Each style leans on different disciplines, so the same producer makes better beats in some styles than others:
- Trap: drums first, then melody.
- Drill: drums above all.
- RnB: melody first, then mixing.
- Boom bap: drums and sound design.
- Afro: melody and drums.
Quality also depends on your gear, your home, your run of working days, a bit of luck, and your energy after paying the 24: below 60 your beat comes out 7% worse, below 35 it comes out 18% worse. Now and then a session is exceptional and the beat jumps by 28%.
Beats are labelled rough (under 38), decent, solid, excellent (74+) and rare (88+). After 45 days a beat starts to age and loses a little quality every day, so the catalog is a shelf, not a vault.
The sound of the season is one style at a time, for 38 to 58 days. On-trend beats pitch better and pay 22% more; off-trend beats pay about a sixth less.
05Your first sale
You have one pitch a day. Every contact card shows a number: what that artist demands. Your pitch score is your beat's quality (worth a fifth less if the style is not the artist's), plus your standing (reputation and buzz, up to +26), plus 4 if the beat is on-trend. If the score reaches the demand, they are interested. There is no dice roll.
Your first beat will not sell on quality alone. It usually misses the easiest artist by about 15 points. The lever is Push a drop: $32 and one hour give you buzz the same day, and buzz counts in the pitch right away.
The pitch sheet tells you exactly how far you are: "N short" or "+N clear". Borderline only works at zero or better. Choosing an interested artist does not use your pitch until you pick a price, and backing out is free.
A refusal uses the pitch and the artist cools off for 5 days. If a tier 3 or higher artist is more than 18 points above you, you also lose a reputation point for wasting their time.
Buzz fades every morning, so push a drop on the day you pitch, not the week before. Your demands also rise as your reputation grows (a third of a point per reputation point), so standing is a race between your name and your beats.
06Naming a price
When an artist wants your beat, you choose:
- Ask for more: 35% more, and the sheet shows the exact odds they accept. About 38% at the start; better with a comfortable margin, loyalty, credibility and people skills. If they walk, the pitch is gone and they sulk for a week or so.
- The number on the table: the listed price, certain.
- Friend price: 30% less, certain. The artist gains loyalty and mood, and a better mood lowers what they demand next time.
Loyalty is what grows a network. A contact with loyalty 2 or more can introduce you to someone a tier above them. Loyal artists also come back sooner, and they accept a higher price more often.
07Beat sales and placements
Tier 1 and 2 artists buy beat sales: non-exclusive, small (about $25 to $120), and the beat stays in your catalog so it can sell again.
Tier 3 and above sign placements: exclusive, the beat leaves your catalog, and the fee is real money.
| Tier | Demands (before reputation) | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30 to 36 | about $25 to $40 |
| 2 | 41 to 47 | about $74 to $120 |
| 3 | 52 to 58 | about $608 to $983 |
| 4 | 73 to 79 | about $2,028 to $3,276 |
| 5 | 94 to 100 | about $6,552 to $10,584 |
A placement pays the fee the day you sign, and nothing else yet. The record comes out 21 days later (tier 3), 35 (tier 4) or 56 (tier 5), which gives you buzz. Fourteen days after release it gets a verdict: flop, solid or hit. Solid and hit are where the reputation comes from, and a hit earns the gold record. The artist is then busy for 130 to 210 days, less if they are loyal.
Once your reputation and buzz are high enough, your catalog also earns weekly leases, paid with Monday's bill.
08Contracts and judgement
Two kinds of offers arrive on their own, in the Deals tab: a label offer (from day 14, reputation 14) and a publishing offer (from day 48, reputation 40). An offer expires after 4 to 7 days, and letting it go costs nothing.
Half of the offers are predatory. How much of a contract you can read depends on your judgement: the advance and your split are always visible, the term and exclusivity need 22, the publishing clause 48, reversion and audit rights 70. The rest reads "standard terms, as far as you can tell".
Have a lawyer read it for $140: every clause becomes visible and your judgement rises by 3. Signing a good deal you read raises judgement; refusing a bad one you read raises it more. Sign blind, and a few weeks later someone explains what you signed, which costs credibility.
A signed deal pays an advance now and a retainer every week. It expects results: after three weekly payments with no placement or commission delivered, the label drops you and you lose 3 reputation.
09Money: bills, tax and eviction
The bill comes every Monday, from day 8: rent, cost of living, the reputation surcharge, and anything you have added (a rented studio room, insurance). It is taken even if you cannot pay.
If your balance ends below zero, that is a missed payment: reputation −2, the debt is written off, and you get a warning. The third missed payment ends the career. They never reset during a season.
Tax takes 22% of everything you earned since the last tax bill, on days 92, 183, 274 and 365. It is charged after the rent check, so a big tax bill can leave you short at the next Monday. Keep a cushion before each quarter.
Cash when you need it: Mix for hire pays the rent early on. It needs mix clients, and selling beats slowly costs you those clients, so it fades as your career takes off.
From reputation 50, a manager can show up at any Monday bill (45% chance a week). They stay, and they take 15% of sale, placement and commission fees.
A card warns you loudly when your balance won't cover the next bill.
10Gear
The Gear tab sells ten pieces, from studio headphones ($340, +7% quality) to a rented studio room ($3,200, +14%, and +$180 on every weekly bill). Their bonuses add up, and buying costs no hours. Some unlock with reputation or placements: acoustic panels (reputation 12) make most actions cost less energy, and a faster machine (reputation 22) cooks a beat in one hour instead of two.
11Commissions
From reputation 25, people start asking you. A commission comes from a contact, with a demand 9 points above their usual one and a deadline of 4 to 6 days. It pays 35% more than their fee.
Deliver a beat that clears the demand and you earn money, reputation and buzz. Deliver one that doesn't and you lose the beat and 4 reputation; miss the date and you lose 3. Only take one on when you have, or can cook, a beat that clears it.
12Events and one-off cards
Life gets in the way: a remix due tomorrow, a label offer, a leak, a tax audit, the interface dying, a backstage invitation, burnout. Some days an event asks you to choose, and most choices trade money, credibility, buzz or energy.
From day 12, a one-off card can appear: a course, a favour, a beat battle, a documentary that wants a beat. It is there for that day only and never comes back.
13The gold record
There are three ways to earn it. The first one counts:
- A hit record. A placement whose verdict is a hit. The verdict weighs the beat's quality, the artist's tier, your buzz, whether the style is the sound of the season, the artist's loyalty and your reputation, all read on verdict day.
- A tier 5 commission, delivered successfully.
- Going viral: four Mondays in a row with at least $235 of weekly leases and buzz of 88 or more.
Tier 5 artists don't come from working the room, which tops out at tier 4. They come through introductions (people skills 40 or more) or a festival backstage.
In our test runs, no career earned the gold record before day 200. Placements take weeks to pay off, and a record still waiting at the end of the year never gets its verdict. Start placing by mid-year.
14After the season
When a season ends you choose a door:
- File this season: give it a title, put it on your wall, and start from nothing.
- Season 1+: play the year again with a legacy: a reputation head start, your best loyal contact (tier 3 or below), and your cheapest piece of gear. Only after a finished season, never after an eviction.
- Season 2: in the works. Leave your email to hear the day it drops.