As I am getting ahead in Rising Star, my mind is putting together a bit of a story of what is being simulated in this game about becoming a successful musician. This time I won't talk so much about the game itself, which I've done in this post, but the narrative around it. While a lot of it is probably the exact interpretation as it was intended, many other things don't make much sense, not (necessarily) because the game doesn't cover it, but it could be just because I failed to put two and two together. In any case, this is what I came up with:
At the Beginning It Was Just Me
And as if that wasn't enough, it seemed like nobody even wanted to hear me. In my case that's not the least bit surprising, since the only instrument I play is the piano, and there's no way I would drag a piano out onto the street. But since renegade busking is the only option available to unknown musicians, I had to resort to strumming around, without much skill or talent, on a borrowed guitar, while shouting on top of my untrained voice. I know, it wasn't pretty, but it certainly showed my will and dedication.
Persistence Pays Off
If you keep shouting loud enough, eventually someone is bound to join in, especially if they are drunk. In this way I managed to increase my fans, and work myself up to being admitted to Open Mic Nights, and eventually to playing Midweek Support Shows. Sure I needed to gather enough drunks out in the streets before they even let me enter the venue, but in the end they allowed me to play... a little. After a while I even got my Busking License, though to be honest, since that kind of permitted busking requires three times the time, and more than four times the energy of the Illegal Busking, it's no wonder that I continued playing in the streets.
Meeting Fellow Musicians
Once I reached the two minor goals of playing a Headline Slot and a Saturday Gig (though still no Saturday Headline), I finally encountered some like minded folks: Bo and Luthien are both keyboardists, albeit without any instruments. Nevertheless, by pooling our skills and fans together we managed to sign up for any of the minor gigs without needing extra fans. When it came to the Saturday Headline however, our fan base still not big enough. So one of us had to keep going out into the streets and parks to gather up the drunks, and hopefully score a discarded pizza slice on the way. That's how we got our break-out: finally we could play gigs outside of our home town!
Not Enough Skills for So Many Fans
It was around this time we got to grow our little group by three new members: Tiana, a wannabe songwriter with even less skills than me, Gameboy Ali, a vocal entertainer around the level of Luthien, and the epic artist Kinsey, whose fan base and skill level are far beyond those of any of us. Having her on our team would mean the end of illegal busking, as our combined fan base reached close to a thousand. Instead, we got to face another kind of problem: Our combined skills were barely half of the number of fans. The way to remedy this was by taking music lessons. After all, we can't have three keyboardists perform on our Mid-Range Acoustic Guitar without knowing any chords!
Where Are We Going Next?
Since Kinsey arrived, everything has changed. Not only has skill development moved into the center of our focus, but there is increasing talk about getting instruments and forming a band. Kinsey's eyes are of course on the Keystar 1A, a keyboard with a shoulder strap costing a pretty penny. "We could sell Luthien and Gameboy Ali on the slave market. They would fetch about as much as the Keystar would cost," she keeps saying. Each time though, the other two retort that selling Kinsey would even fetch a much better price! But would it be worth it in the end? Whoever heard of a band with three keyboardists anyway? Not to mention that we are not even close to the level where we can even attempt a piano lesson. So instead we keep focusing on singing and guitar skills, and gradually move up in the local gig circuit. We've already given a few Radio Interviews, until they got bored of us. Seems like we'll keep going back to playing Saturday Headlines in our home town, in order to gain Starbits and XP points.