Rock 2 The Top
Building Rock 2 The Top

From bedroom
to stadium.

Rock 2 The Top is a browser-based musician life and career RPG. Start at sixteen with little money, basic musical ability and a dream. Survive, practise, learn, work, write, perform and build a career from complete unknown to music legend.

🎸 Public Playable Beta Target: By 31 December 2026
Development target, not a guaranteed release date. Features and timings may change during testing.

Development Progress

A broad snapshot of how far the main game areas have progressed.

Life Simulation Core85%

Calendar, Energy, Health, jobs, housing, survival, equipment and lessons are substantially playable.

Music Creation80%

Practice, songwriting, refinement, recording and deeper song personalities are working; production depth, EPs and albums remain.

Live Career60%

Solo and joint busking, performance gigs and bandmate gig nights are playable; touring, festivals and larger career tiers still remain.

Bands & People75%

Band creation, recruitment, rehearsals and persistent relationships are playable. NPC autonomy, leadership decisions, member departures and gig-finding behaviour are being expanded and tested.

Releases & Audience50%

Player singles now generate daily streams, sales, revenue, fans and Fame and compete with AI releases in a unified weekly Singles Chart. Albums, richer promotion and deeper lifecycle behaviour remain.

Industry & Living World30%

AI musicians write, record and release into a shared market and chart, while demos and early promoter interaction are emerging. Managers, labels, media, radio and deeper autonomous careers remain.

Percentages are approximate development indicators, not promises of feature completeness.

Game Status

Updated as systems are built and tested.

Live

Character & Career Foundations

  • Create a musician with stage name, email, genre and primary musical role.
  • Choose Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Lead Guitar, Bass Guitar, Keyboard or Drums.
  • Allocate 20 starting points across Cash, Talent, Charisma, Intelligence and Health.
  • Starting cash scales with the points invested in Cash.
  • New musicians begin their primary musical skill at 10/100.
  • Instrumentalists receive a basic starter instrument; vocalists require no instrument.
  • Fame is stored independently from musical ability and begins at zero.
  • Musicians now have a real date of birth and begin their career aged 16.
  • Players choose their birthday day and month during character creation.
  • A one-time Day One story introduces the musician's starting situation.
Live

Calendar & Time

  • A 24-hour calendar is the central planning system for the player's life.
  • Sleep and Rest fill unused time and can be changed by the player.
  • Practice can be scheduled directly into individual hours.
  • Interviews, work shifts and booked lessons occupy real calendar hours.
  • System appointments such as interviews and lessons are locked against accidental editing.
  • Work remains player-editable so the musician can choose whether to attend a shift.
  • Hourly processing uses a ledger so the same calendar hour cannot normally be processed twice.
  • The live cron drives time-based systems automatically rather than relying on page visits.
Live

Energy & Daily Life

  • Energy runs from 0–100 and changes as calendar hours are processed.
  • Sleep restores Energy, with better housing improving recovery and reducing disrupted sleep.
  • Rest restores Energy at a lower rate than Sleep.
  • Practice costs 3 Energy per hour.
  • Work Energy cost is affected by the job's fatigue rate.
  • Busking, songwriting and band rehearsals have defined Energy costs alongside Practice and Work.
  • Exhaustion can force recovery time into the following day's schedule while protecting important appointments.
  • Illness and injury can reduce effectiveness and create enforced recovery consequences.
Live

Musical Development

  • Musical ability is tracked separately for each learned skill on a 0–100 scale.
  • A musician can learn multiple musical skills rather than being permanently locked to one role.
  • Practice improves the musician's current primary skill.
  • Instrument practice requires the appropriate owned equipment; Vocals does not.
  • Progress becomes progressively harder as ability rises.
  • Talent creates a soft natural ceiling rather than guaranteeing improvement.
  • High-level musicians receive much smaller gains than beginners.
  • Housing Comfort and Safety affect how productive home practice is.
  • Intelligence limits how broadly a musician can develop performance roles, while Songwriting sits outside that role capacity.
  • Newly learned performance skills become secondary roles while the starting role remains primary.
  • Every processed Practice session reports meaningful progress or lack of progress through News.
  • Crossing a musical rank threshold produces a milestone message.
Live

Housing

  • Players can move between progressively better places to live.
  • Current housing ranges from homelessness/street living through bedsits, flats and houses.
  • Properties have their own daily costs and move-in costs.
  • Comfort affects Sleep, Rest and Practice effectiveness.
  • Safety affects Practice conditions and the risk of theft.
  • Daily rent is processed automatically.
  • Repeated inability to pay rent can lead to eviction.
  • Poor Comfort and Safety can interrupt Sleep completely for individual hours.
  • Overnight disruptions are combined into a single contextual morning News story.
  • Homelessness and severe financial hardship can trigger additional survival events and consequences.
  • Housing events and consequences are reported through News.
Live

Jobs & Employment

  • A dynamic vacancy market determines which jobs are currently available.
  • Jobs have rarity, requirements, pay and working-pattern data.
  • Vacancies remain available for limited periods rather than existing permanently.
  • The Jobs screen shows the player's suitability against individual requirements.
  • Players apply for vacancies through the Jobs screen, with successful interview invitations placed into the calendar.
  • Applications can progress to interview or rejection.
  • Successful interview invitations are placed into the next suitable calendar slot.
  • Work shifts are automatically scheduled into the player's calendar.
  • Attendance and work performance are processed separately.
  • Poor attendance/performance can produce strikes and eventual dismissal.
  • Vacancies carry contract type, shift pattern, weekly hours, working days and workload information.
  • Players can quit a job and have only its future work shifts removed from the calendar.
Live

Equipment

  • Equipment is stored independently from musical skill.
  • Players have persistent ownership records for their instruments.
  • Equipment supports type, required musical skill, quality, value and description.
  • Character creation automatically supplies the correct quality-1 starter instrument.
  • The Musician screen shows learned skills and currently owned equipment.
  • Equipment condition can wear through successful instrumental activity.
  • Different equipment tiers can be acquired as the musician progresses.
  • The framework remains ready for repairs and more specialist music gear later.
Live

Music Teachers & Booking

  • Music teachers exist for all six starting performance skills.
  • Each teacher has separate playing ability and Teaching Ability.
  • A brilliant performer can therefore still be a poor teacher.
  • Teachers have different reputations, rarity, prices and teaching styles.
  • Teachers advertise dynamically instead of always being available.
  • Individual teachers have home-visit and/or venue teaching schedules.
  • Available lesson hours are generated as persistent slots.
  • More prestigious teachers are deliberately harder to book.
  • Players can browse teachers for their existing or potential new musical skills.
  • Lessons can be booked at home or at the teacher's venue where offered.
  • Home lessons use the player's housing environment; venue lessons use venue quality.
  • Bookings reserve both the teacher and player calendar hour.
  • Booked lessons display the skill, teacher and location in the calendar.
Live

News & Feedback

  • A persistent News feed records important events in the musician's life.
  • Practice results and musical milestones generate News.
  • Job application, interview and employment events generate News.
  • Housing payments, problems and other consequences can generate News.
  • The system is designed to become the player's running career diary as more features are added.
Live

Songwriting & Song Catalogue

  • Songwriting is a developed musical skill with its own progression.
  • Players can write original songs over multiple scheduled calendar hours.
  • Completed songs are stored permanently in the player's catalogue.
  • Song quality develops from the musician's ability and the writing process.
  • Completed songs can be refined further, with a hidden natural ceiling preventing endless improvement.
  • Songs now have distinct hidden personalities using Catchiness, Longevity, Originality and Live Appeal alongside Quality.
  • Different combinations can create immediate crowd-pleasers, slow burners, durable songs and strong live material.
  • Future writing time for a completed song automatically becomes refinement time.
Live

Recording

  • Completed songs can be turned into persistent recording projects.
  • Players can create demos or commercial recordings.
  • Recording can take place at home or in available studios.
  • Players can self-engineer or pay for engineering help where available.
  • Recording sessions occupy real calendar time and can carry hourly costs.
  • Finished versions retain their own recording quality rather than replacing the underlying song.
Live

Gigs & Live Performance

  • Players can find gig opportunities and place performances into the calendar.
  • Performance results respond to the musician's relevant abilities and condition.
  • Successful gigs can advance the career while poor performances have consequences.
  • Press reviews can be generated separately from the basic gig result.
  • Busking remains an early route to money, experience and exposure.
  • Players can invite a bandmate to busk, share the earnings and let the completed session affect their relationship.
  • Players can attend local gigs with a bandmate, spending real Calendar time and potentially gaining inspiration, discoveries or scene contacts.
Live

Bands, Rehearsals & Collaboration

  • NPC bands can advertise vacancies for specific musical roles.
  • Players can apply for suitable vacancies and receive scheduled auditions.
  • Auditions occupy protected calendar time and resolve from musical skill, Charisma, condition, creativity and other factors.
  • Successful auditions create persistent band membership with roles, leadership and band responsibilities; failed auditions leave the vacancy open.
  • Bands track Fame, Reputation, Tightness, Chemistry and shared cash.
  • Band rehearsals can improve Tightness, develop repertoire and teach cover songs.
  • Members can offer original songs to the band, with NPC members voting to accept or reject them.
  • NPC songwriters can independently create and propose their own material.
  • Band members have separate Personal Affinity and Professional Respect relationships that can change through shared activity.
  • Players can invite a bandmate to collaborate on a new song.
  • Players can invite a bandmate to busk together, with availability, shared earnings and relationship consequences.
  • Players can go to local gigs with a bandmate, turning the wider music scene into a social, learning and networking space.
  • Band leadership and member responsibilities provide a foundation for NPC-led decisions rather than requiring the player to control every activity.
Live

Health, Sleep & Survival

  • Health, Energy, illness, injury and exhaustion interact with scheduled activity.
  • Housing Comfort and Safety affect both recovery and the reliability of a night's sleep.
  • Individual disrupted sleep hours lose their normal Energy recovery.
  • Bad nights are summarised through contextual News rather than hourly message spam.
  • Homeless and broke musicians can face additional hardship and survival events.
Live

Demos & Early Industry Contacts

  • Players can send suitable recordings as demos and wait for delayed responses rather than receiving instant outcomes.
  • Feedback can vary by recipient and by the strength of the submitted material.
  • Promoter interaction is beginning to connect demos and local music-scene contacts to believable performance opportunities.
  • The system is designed to expand later into radio, labels, publishers, managers and other persistent industry relationships.
Live

Singles, Audience & Charts

  • Finished commercial recordings can be released as persistent player singles.
  • Released singles generate daily streams, sales, artist revenue, fans, Fame and changing momentum.
  • Streaming activity can come from fans, promotion, discovery, organic listening, radio, playlists and gigs.
  • AI artists independently create recordings and releases inside the same developing music world.
  • A weekly Top 40 Singles Chart ranks player and AI releases together from their actual weekly sales and streams.
  • Chart history tracks position, previous position, peak and weeks on chart, including genuine re-entries.
  • Weekly Chart News announces the number one and reports the player’s own chart result where applicable.
In Development / Playtesting

Immediate Focus

  • Live-test and balance player and AI releases competing together in the weekly Singles Chart.
  • Deepen release ageing, chart movement and commercial lifecycles before adding the Albums Chart.
  • Live-test the deeper Song Personality traits as they feed into performances, releases and longer commercial lifecycles.
  • Test and refine autonomous band-member behaviour, member interactions, leadership decisions, gig opportunities and the consequences of members leaving.
  • Test the private-function enquiry, booking, calendar-reservation and performance/payment flow end to end.
  • Continue deepening rehearsals, collaboration, joint busking and shared music-scene experiences.
  • Continue developing recurring friendly and rival musicians, progressive knowledge and the People screen.
  • Expand demos, promoter contacts and the simulated music industry while preserving meaningful differences between player and AI careers.
  • Continue balancing the connected economy of jobs, housing, Health, Energy, Practice, songwriting, gigs, recording and releases.
  • Continue expanding feedback, edge-case handling, UI consistency and production readiness before public beta.
Planned

Bands & Collaboration

  • Players can now create their own band and advertise missing roles through musician classifieds.
  • NPC musicians can respond to player adverts and be invited to scheduled auditions.
  • Continue expanding direct recruitment through contacts and persistent musician relationships.
  • Expand existing rehearsals, chemistry, member roles, relationships and shared scheduling.
  • Continue developing autonomous gig-seeking, band-member departures, replacement recruitment, poaching and lasting line-up history.
  • Band songs, recordings, gigs and releases.
  • Longer-term collaboration and player-to-player possibilities.
In Development / Playtesting

Releases, Charts & Audience

  • Expand the live singles system into EPs and albums.
  • Add a separate Albums Chart alongside the live unified Singles Chart.
  • Deepen release ageing so songs naturally decline, with longevity affecting staying power.
  • Make chart re-entry increasingly difficult after a song drops out, with a longevity-dependent normal eligibility window.
  • Develop richer promotion, press, radio, playlists and music videos feeding release momentum.
  • Expand persistent chart histories, milestones, number ones, certifications and long-tail royalties.
Planned

Homes, Gear & Musical Expansion

  • Build or upgrade rehearsal rooms and recording studios in suitable higher-end homes.
  • Home music spaces improving Practice, Rehearsal and potentially recording.
  • Gear repairs and deeper equipment effects.
  • More specialist instruments, musical disciplines and genres as the game expands.
  • Possible production, mixing, theory, stage-performance and other specialist skills.
Planned

Fame, Industry & The Wider Career

  • Fans, loyalty, commercial reputation and critical reputation.
  • Expand the emerging promoter/contact layer into managers, agents, producers, labels and wider industry relationships.
  • Contracts, promotion, press, radio, awards and major career opportunities.
  • Touring, festivals, travel and international careers.
  • Music income from royalties, releases, gigs and merchandise.
  • Long-term career history and major milestones without a compulsory fixed ending.

Future Ideas

The wider design backlog beyond the immediate development roadmap.

These are ideas and intended directions, not guaranteed beta features or fixed commitments. They are recorded here so the long-term design remains visible while development stays focused on the next playable systems.

People & Relationships

  • Persistent friends, rivals and recurring musicians.
  • Venue owners, promoters, journalists, managers, producers and agents.
  • NPC memory, progressive introductions and realistic knowledge.
  • Talk, Ask Advice, Busk Together and Invite to Band actions.
  • Persistent portraits, nicknames/stage names and former-member history.

Deeper Busking & Street Life

  • Joint busking is live; expand how complementary musical roles shape shared performances.
  • Build longer-term chemistry and reputations through repeated sessions.
  • Pitch rivalries, police/security and reconciliation.
  • Tip-jar tactics, repertoire, market days and hidden local knowledge.
  • More recurring street musicians and changing local scenes.

Player-Created Bands

  • Form a duo or band from musicians you actually know.
  • Recruit through contacts and musician classifieds.
  • Relationship, chemistry, ambition and personality affect recruitment.
  • Bandmate departures and independent career decisions are under development; firing, rival-band moves and solo careers can be expanded further.
  • Splits, reunions and long-term line-up history.

Band Dynamics & Rehearsals

  • Happiness, cohesion, ego, reliability and ambition.
  • Creative and leadership disputes.
  • General, song-specific, cover and set-list rehearsals.
  • No-shows and partial attendance have consequences.
  • Familiarity can reach perfection and later decay.

Songwriting

  • Writer's block, inspiration and variable hourly progress.
  • Talent, Intelligence and songwriting skill shape potential and consistency.
  • Co-writing and writing for other artists.
  • NPC songwriters improve and develop partnerships or rivalries.
  • Rejected songs remain part of songwriter history.

Songs & Recordings

  • Song momentum, popularity, staleness and revival.
  • Fan favourites and cult catalogue tracks.
  • Different recordings of the same song can perform differently.
  • Producer and engineer ability/style.
  • Multi-session projects, re-recording and deeper home/studio production.

Deeper Song Lifecycle

  • Quality, Catchiness, Longevity, Originality and Live Appeal are now live foundations; continue integrating them across the career.
  • Catchiness primarily helps immediate appeal and early hit potential; Longevity controls staying power and commercial decay.
  • Originality shapes distinctiveness and critical response, while Live Appeal influences crowd reaction and a song’s value in a set.
  • Exact values stay hidden: exceptional strengths or weaknesses are revealed through natural descriptions, NPC opinions, reviews, rehearsals, gigs and market behaviour.
  • Assessments can be imperfect and musicians may disagree about the same song.
  • Different combinations create flash-in-the-pan hits, slow burners, enduring classics, cult tracks and live favourites.
  • Song characteristics belong primarily to the composition while recording and production quality remain separate.
  • Older releases naturally decline; after dropping out, re-entry becomes progressively less likely and eventually normally impossible, with Longevity extending the viable window.
  • Exceptional future events may revive genuinely old songs without making ordinary re-entry commonplace.

Releases

  • Singles, EPs, albums and demos.
  • Release dates, artwork, track lists and lead singles.
  • Digital and physical distribution.
  • Independent versus label-backed releases.
  • Back catalogue, reissues and deluxe editions later.

Charts, Sales & Streaming

  • Separate Singles and Albums charts.
  • Player and AI releases compete in the same market.
  • Entries rise, peak, fall, leave and occasionally re-enter.
  • Daily sales/streaming and long-tail royalties.
  • Chart histories, commercial milestones and certifications.

Fans, Fame & Momentum

  • Actual fan count separate from Fame.
  • Casual listeners versus committed fans.
  • Fans drive tickets and release launches.
  • Fame drives recognition, press and opportunity.
  • Regional/genre audiences, loyalty and fading engagement later.

Gigs & Touring

  • Open mics, pubs, clubs, support slots and headline shows through arenas/stadiums.
  • Set lists, acoustics, crowd response and repeat bookings.
  • Geographic tours with transport, accommodation, crew and fatigue.
  • Regional fan growth, festivals and international careers.

Media, PR & Radio

  • In-game music press covering player and AI careers.
  • Reviews, interviews, chart stories, gossip and milestones.
  • Player/band PR ability or hired professionals.
  • Local, specialist and national radio, airplay and playlists.
  • Media relationships that develop over time.

Music Industry

  • Managers, agents, producers, labels, publishers and distribution.
  • Advances, royalties, commissions, options and negotiation.
  • Good and bad deals with meaningful trade-offs.
  • Labels compete for artists or drop underperforming acts.
  • A fully independent career remains viable.

Jobs & Working Life

  • Temporary and zero-hours work, contract expiry and promotions.
  • Health, reliability and music commitments threaten employment.
  • Choose between work and important music opportunities.
  • Better jobs through experience and Intelligence.

Housing & Being Broke

  • Shelters, hostels, friends' rooms and house shares discovered through people.
  • Food-bank and desperate-survival events at very low cash.
  • Better homes improve Sleep and Practice.
  • High-end homes can gain rehearsal rooms and studios.

Health, Sleep & Energy

  • Continuous effective Sleep and compounding poor nights.
  • Housing-dependent Sleep disruption.
  • Illness severity, enforced Rest and lingering effects.
  • Touring fatigue and Health consequences.

Skills & Gear

  • Targeted Practice and specific weaknesses.
  • Teacher quality, advanced tuition and masterclasses.
  • Repairs, maintenance and specialist stage/recording gear.
  • Used/vintage gear, old instruments as mementoes, theft and insurance.

Merchandise

  • T-shirts, posters, CDs and vinyl.
  • Production cost, stock and demand.
  • Sell at gigs and eventually online.
  • Merchandise grows with touring and audience size.

Weather & Seasons

  • Weather affects outdoor busking, gigs and festivals.
  • Covered/indoor pitches gain strategic value.
  • Seasonal activity without excessive micromanagement.

Living AI Music World

  • NPCs practise, write, form bands, gig, record and release independently.
  • AI artists gain fans, chart, succeed, fail, split, reform and go solo.
  • New musicians emerge and industry characters change over time.
  • Early acquaintances can reappear years later with transformed careers.

Career History & Legacy

  • First busk, gig, band, recording, release, radio play and chart entry.
  • Biggest audience, best gig, chart records and career earnings.
  • Major labels, awards, festivals, arenas and stadiums.
  • Decline, comebacks, reunion tours and retirement.
  • Produce, manage or write for other artists later in life.

Other Players

  • Public musician and band profiles without exposing hidden stats.
  • Human and AI releases eventually share the wider world.
  • Longer-term human collaboration where it improves the career simulation.

UI & Navigation

  • Mobile playtest completed for the main screens; Dashboard, navigation, Calendar and Jobs received responsive improvements on 9 October.
  • Continue standardising screen widths, headers, navigation, footers, cards and buttons where needed.
  • Responsive layouts and consistent messages/empty states.
  • People navigation and clearer Career, Music, Band, World and Life groupings.
  • Consistent portrait sizing and presentation.

Balance & New Player Experience

  • Balance income, rent, progression, gigs, Fame, illness and opportunity rates.
  • Avoid both unrecoverable bad luck and inevitable success.
  • Teach Calendar, Practice, busking, jobs and housing progressively.
  • Use characters such as Mick as subtle in-world guidance.

Production & Data Integrity

  • Foreign-key, duplicate-row and orphan-data audits.
  • Transactions, idempotent processors, indexes and logging.
  • Backups, migrations and versioning.
  • CSRF, validation, sessions, XSS, permissions and account security.

The Core Game Loop

The systems are designed to feed into one another rather than exist as isolated mini-games.

Create a musician → survive financially → manage Calendar, Health & Energy → practise & take lessons → write and refine songs → busk & play gigs → record music → join or form bands → build relationships & contacts → send demos & release music â†; build fans & Fame â†; climb towards the top.

Roadmap

The route towards the first public playable version.

September 2026

Life Simulation Core

Calendar, Energy, Health, housing, work, musical progression, equipment, teachers, lessons and survival.

Autumn 2026

Music Career Loop

Songs, recording, gigs, bands, relationships, joint activities and single releases are playable; the current bridge is deeper release lifecycles, audience growth, demos and industry integration.

Q4 2026

Career World

Deepen the live Singles Chart and release economy, expand autonomous band-member behaviour, gig bookings and industry contacts, then continue balancing, integration and wider playtesting.

By 31 December 2026

Playable Beta Target

A coherent public game where a new musician can begin at the bottom and build a recognisable music career.

Development Log

The game is being built system by system.

9 October 2026
  • Substantially developed the NPC band-member simulation, focusing on musicians behaving as independent people rather than passive band statistics.
  • Worked on interactions between band members, band leadership and the division of decisions between player-led and NPC-led bands.
  • Developed the behaviour and consequences surrounding musicians leaving bands, together with band continuity and future recruitment needs; this area remains subject to testing and refinement.
  • Expanded work on how bands and their members discover or pursue gig opportunities, reducing the need for the player to micromanage every decision.
  • Continued the private-function booking workflow, including player responses to enquiries and the connection between bookings, calendar commitments and performance payments; end-to-end testing remains important.
  • Completed a mobile usability pass: improved the Dashboard layout and shared navigation, added Calendar mobile styling, fixed a Calendar variable warning and changed displayed hour labels to 12-hour AM/PM.
  • Adjusted the Jobs page to display a single column on mobile and addressed mobile viewport behaviour; the mobile playtest found the remaining main screens broadly usable.
  • Refreshed the public homepage and Development page to reflect the latest band/NPC work and distinguish playable features from work still being tested.
8 October 2026
  • Made joint busking with a bandmate live, including partial availability, shared earnings and session-level relationship outcomes.
  • Expanded band relationships around separate Personal Affinity and Professional Respect, with existing relationships influencing how shared experiences are interpreted.
  • Added Go to a Gig Together: players can invite a bandmate to a persistent local music event, buy the tickets and reserve the whole night in the Calendar.
  • Added gig-night outcomes including relationship changes, small inspiration or learning gains, discoveries, local-scene networking and rare plausible future opportunities.
  • Successfully live-tested the booking flow with Maya Reed for the three-hour Glass Harbour multi-band night.
  • Expanded demos and early promoter interaction as another bridge between recordings, contacts and real performance opportunities.
  • Moved Quality, Catchiness, Longevity, Originality and Live Appeal from design into the live song model.
  • Refreshed the public homepage, development documentation and technical/design masters to match the current October build.
6 October 2026
  • Unified the weekly Singles Chart so player releases now compete directly with AI industry releases in the same Top 40.
  • Added explicit solo/band release ownership so chart credits can preserve the releasing act historically.
  • Added correct NEW, re-entry and week-to-week chart movement handling plus persistent peak and weeks-on-chart history.
  • Added weekly Chart News announcing the number one and reporting the player’s own chart performance.
  • Integrated Charts into the main game navigation and refreshed the chart presentation to match the wider game.
  • Designed the next-generation Song Personality & Lifecycle system around hidden Quality, Catchiness, Longevity, Originality and Live Appeal.
  • Agreed that ageing releases should decline naturally, chart re-entry should become increasingly unlikely, and Longevity should extend a song’s viable commercial life.
Early October 2026
  • Expanded player releases with persistent daily streams, sales, revenue, fans, Fame and momentum.
  • Developed the simulated AI music industry so autonomous artists can create recordings, release singles and generate weekly commercial performance.
  • Established a common chart-points model based on weekly sales plus streaming-equivalent points.
  • Continued band, rehearsal, calendar and shared-fund development while preparing the music-career loop for wider beta testing.
28 September 2026
  • Added player-created bands, allowing musicians to form and lead their own act instead of only joining NPC bands.
  • Expanded musician classifieds so player-led bands can advertise specific vacancies with minimum ability requirements.
  • Added autonomous NPC responses to player recruitment adverts, with applicant interest influenced by role, skill, genre, Charisma, ambition, ego and existing commitments.
  • Added persistent NPC applicant profiles and a player-controlled audition invitation flow rather than automatically recruiting respondents.
  • Integrated player-led NPC auditions into the Calendar as locked appointments and added the first audition-result processor.
  • Established an eight-member maximum band size and recruitment rules that automatically close remaining adverts when a band is full.
  • Expanded persistent musician identity with gender-aware portrait selection and reusable musician artwork across the People and Band screens.
  • Fixed the temporary 100% busker-generation test override and restored location/time-based random musician encounter rates.
  • Developed the next stage of genre simulation: raw musical skill remains independent from genre familiarity, while stylistic adaptation can affect band Tightness and improve through experience.
  • Designed hidden musical openness and taste so a musician's performed genre does not automatically determine what music they enjoy; auditions can reveal this naturally through dialogue.
  • Continued live testing with The Rubber Band, including its first NPC applicant and scheduled player-led audition.
27 September 2026
  • Expanded the persistent NPC framework beyond Mick into musician-backed world characters.
  • Built the first territorial street-busker encounter with friendly, neutral and rival outcomes ready for live testing.
  • Added time-and-location-based encounter chances for experienced buskers and support for multiple persistent street musicians.
  • Designed the People system so musicians, bandmates and other recurring characters can retain one identity and relationship history.
  • Expanded the portrait direction so recurring musicians can eventually keep the same face everywhere they appear.
  • Continued Band presentation and rehearsal planning, including leader-controlled rehearsal focus and multi-hour rehearsal design.
  • Added a consecutive-hours Busking repetition penalty and fixed Calendar persistence for location-specific Busking selections.
  • Expanded the long-term design backlog for relationships, joint busking, organic band formation, releases, charts, audiences and the living AI music world.
25 September 2026
  • Expanded bands with rehearsals, repertoire development, cover learning, member relationships and shared responsibilities.
  • Added autonomous NPC songwriting and band voting on newly proposed songs.
  • Added player-to-bandmate collaborative songwriting, now entering live calendar testing.
  • Added autonomous NPC PR activity for band members assigned the PR responsibility.
  • Simplified calendar rehearsal choices so non-leaders attend while the band leader determines the session focus.
  • Simplified Busking into one calendar activity, with the game choosing a contextual location when the hour is processed.
  • Improved the Dashboard with Currently and Up Next activity information.
  • Added random character-name and starting-stat options while preserving the 20-point character-creation budget.
24 September 2026
  • Confirmed housing-based disrupted sleep is live, with lost recovery and a single morning News summary.
  • Expanded musical roles into Primary and Secondary skills with hidden Intelligence-based breadth limits.
  • Added and refined songwriting, persistent songs and post-completion song refinement.
  • Added recording projects with demos/commercial versions, home/studio choices and engineering options.
  • Expanded live gigs, performance outcomes and press-review feedback.
  • Added band vacancy adverts, applications and scheduled role-specific auditions for playtesting.
  • Expanded job presentation with contract terms and workload, and added quitting with future-shift cleanup.
  • Continued Health, illness, injury, equipment wear and survival-system integration.
22 September 2026
  • Added the Day One opening story for newly created musicians.
  • Added date of birth and established age 16 as the beginning of every career.
  • Added player-selected birthday day/month while calculating the correct birth year automatically.
  • Age now advances naturally from DOB rather than storing a mutable age value.
  • Started natural cron testing of three consecutive Practice sessions after a full night's Sleep.
  • Created the public Development page and expanded it into the game's living feature catalogue.
21 September 2026
  • Added Practice as a proper calendar activity with a 3 Energy hourly cost.
  • Implemented Practice progression using current skill and Talent with diminishing returns.
  • Introduced Talent-based soft ceilings so innate Talent matters increasingly at advanced skill levels.
  • Added housing Comfort and Safety to Practice effectiveness.
  • Added Practice News feedback for every processed session plus musical-rank milestones.
  • Built the music-teacher database with separate performance skill and Teaching Ability.
  • Added teacher rarity, reputation, rates, styles and home/venue teaching options.
  • Built dynamic teacher advertising and teacher working schedules.
  • Added persistent teacher lesson slots with prestigious teachers receiving scarcer availability.
  • Built the Music Lessons browser and lesson-booking flow.
  • Integrated booked lessons into the calendar as locked appointments.
  • Added the first full lesson-execution logic ready for live testing.
  • Created a new public-facing Rock 2 The Top homepage and development roadmap.
20 September 2026
  • Continued integration and balancing of the hourly calendar, work and Energy systems.
  • Refined the stage-based visual identity used across the game interface.
September 2026 — Character & Music Foundations
  • Expanded registration so musicians choose a primary performance role.
  • Created the multi-skill player_music_skills system.
  • Established 10/100 as the starting level for a character's initial musical skill.
  • Created equipment and player-equipment ownership tables.
  • Added automatic starter instruments for instrumental roles.
  • Built the Musician page to show musical abilities and equipment.
  • Defined the long-term musical rank ladder from Beginner through Icon.
September 2026 — Calendar & Energy
  • Standardised player_calendar as the authoritative daily schedule.
  • Added Sleep, Rest and activity planning across all 24 hours.
  • Added an hourly processing ledger to prevent duplicate Energy/event processing.
  • Connected calendar processing to the live hourly cron.
  • Added housing-based Sleep and Rest recovery.
  • Added activity-specific Energy costs and exhaustion handling.
September 2026 — Jobs & Working Life
  • Expanded the job catalogue and employment requirements.
  • Built a dynamic vacancy market with rarity-based appearance and limited advert durations.
  • Redesigned the Jobs page with clearer requirement and suitability feedback.
  • Integrated applications into real free calendar hours.
  • Added interview/rejection decisions and scheduled interview appointments.
  • Built automatic future work scheduling for employed musicians.
  • Implemented work attendance, performance, strikes and dismissal logic.
September 2026 — Housing & Daily Survival
  • Expanded housing from homelessness through progressively better accommodation.
  • Added property Comfort and Safety.
  • Built moving, daily rent processing and non-payment consequences.
  • Added eviction after repeated unpaid rent.
  • Added Safety-linked theft risk.
  • Connected housing quality to Energy recovery and later to Practice effectiveness.
Earlier Development
  • Established the PHP/MySQL browser-game foundation and player accounts.
  • Created the musician Dashboard, persistent player data and initial life/career systems.
  • Established the central design: survive ordinary life while using limited time, money and Energy to build a music career.
  • Set the long-term journey from unknown teenage musician to major artist without requiring a single fixed win condition.

Small gigs. Big dreams.

Rock 2 The Top is under active development. Follow this page as the game grows from its life-simulation foundations into a complete musician career.

Create Your Musician →