- MUSIC MANAGER JUST GOT A LOT DEEPER - 14 August 2026
This update introduces some of the biggest new systems added to Music Manager during the playtest.Musicians now develop over time, pursue their own ambitions, build accomplishments across their careers, and form stronger relationships with their fans.Every three months, you also get a much clearer picture of how your acts are developing.QUARTERLY ACT REVIEWSEvery managed act now receives a Quarterly Review.It brings together what has happened over the previous three months so you can see how the act is progressing, how individual musicians are developing, how relationships are changing, what has happened with the fans, and which ambitions are moving closer to completion.The aim is simple: make the consequences of your decisions much easier to see.ASPIRATIONS & ACCOMPLISHMENTSMusicians now have their own career aspirations.They may want chart success, better songs, major tours, festival…
- Playtest 3 is now fully live! - 31 July 2026
Playtest 3 is now fully live and will run for two weeks. The game will be updated frequently as feedback is received.
- Final Playtest Begins 31 July - 23 July 2026
The previous Music Manager Playtest ended on 10 July and I have been busy working through the feedback since then. I am now planning to launch the third and final Playtest on 31 July. A COMPLETE LOCALISATION OVERHAUL The weakest area of the previous Playtest was the localised translations. Localisation support was introduced during the Playtest and I kept patching it as problems appeared, but the underlying system was flawed. Some sentences were built from separately translated fragments, which meant they could not form naturally in some languages. The translation catalogue had also become bloated with obsolete scenes and unused text, which stretched the quality checking too thinly. Rather than continuing to patch that system, I have replaced it completely. The localisation catalogue has been reduced from almost 11,000 strings to just under 6,000. This should allow for more natural tran…
- Playtest - 2 days remaining! - 8 July 2026
The second playtest is nearly over after two weeks online.Thank you to everyone who has submitted bug reports and feedback. I’ve acted on everything received, although two messages arrived slightly garbled because they were sent before the diagnostic system was updated.If you still run into any issues, please get in touch again and I’ll fix them.If you haven’t tried the playtest yet and would like to, now is the time. There are only two days remaining.
- Genesis Untitled - 1 July 2026
First, thank you to the player who reported this. Someone made a mod called genesis using the editor, which is genuinely impressive because I did not think anyone would be that deep into it yet.For some reason, there was a genre mismatch in the mod data, which meant the game could not generate song titles for new songs. It was tricky to recreate because I did not realise it involved a mod until I found it in the logs. It was almost like an invisible touch (Invisible Touch).That should now be fixed, along with more translation improvements. Translation work is still ongoing, so some rough edges may remain.The editor itself has not had much attention for a couple of months while the game has changed a lot, so it probably needs some polish. One of my final tasks before launch is Steam Workshop integration, so bigger editor improvements will likely happen around then.After updating, please…
- PR scene feedback update - 29 June 2026
A player very kindly sent feedback about the PR scene: “funny but i'm confuse something about PR”. I am not completely sure I interpreted it correctly, but I have added a tooltip to the Release Album button to explain when no recorded album is ready for release yet.If you encounter any problems, the Guided Tour can help introduce the main game concepts, and Pleccy can answer many common questions if you get stuck. Press F1, or open Pleccy from the top bar or ESC menu.If you were the player who sent that feedback and I have misunderstood, please contact me here, on Discord (https://discord.gg/g2NSDFCx4S), or by email at [email protected] again for the feedback. It really helps improve the playtest.
- Playtest 2 is now live - 24 June 2026
The second Music Manager playtest is now active and will run until 10 July.This version has been expanded since the first playtest. All feedback from the first round was gratefully received and acted upon, so if you sent feedback last time, hopefully you will see some of the impact in this build.New features in this playtest include:• Festivals – wait for an invite, then take part• Race to Christmas Number 1• Pleccy, your new in-game assistantIf you get stuck, please try asking Pleccy. You can open Pleccy by pressing F1 or by selecting the Pleccy icon from the in-game menu. You can type any question relating to the game and Pleccy will try to help.Pleccy is still learning, so the more relevant questions it receives, the better it can become during this playtest.I’ll be monitoring feedback regularly throughout the playtest and will try to fix bugs and errors where possible, so please loo…
- Summer's here - let's talk about Christmas? - 2 June 2026
Summer is here, so naturally it is time to talk about Christmas. A lot has changed since the last Steam update, much of it shaped directly by Playtest feedback.The biggest change is the guided tour. It was useful, but at around 120 steps it was also a bit daunting. It has now been compressed to around 45 steps with the help of some entirely sensible magical teleportation and time travel. The aim is the same: explain the main flow of Music Manager without making the start feel like admin.To support this, and future help across the game, we are introducing Pleccy, an in-game help assistant. Pleccy can explain how to do a task and highlight the correct button to press. Pleccy is still learning, so the more questions we throw at it during testing, the more knowledgeable and useful it can become.Events have also had a major overhaul, with the aim of making them more enjoyable to interact wit…
- Music Manager Playtest update - 17 May 2026
The first Music Manager Playtest has now ended. Thank you to everyone who took part and sent feedback.I’ve now gone through the reports, notes and messages, and I’m working through the changes for an updated Playtest version planned for late June.I’ve tried to thank everyone who sent feedback directly, but there is one person I haven’t been able to contact: the player who reported the bug involving a “Crisis Meeting” for an unmanaged act. I don’t have your contact details, but if you are reading this, thank you. That was a very useful catch.More details on the next Playtest build will follow closer to the time.
- Music Manager Playtest closes tomorrow morning - 10 May 2026
The Music Manager Playtest is still active and available to everyone who has been granted access.Thank you to everyone who has already downloaded and played the game. This is an early Playtest build, so your feedback really does matter. Even short comments are useful, whether you found something confusing, spotted a bug, enjoyed a particular part or stopped playing at a certain point.The aim of this Playtest is to learn what is working, what needs explaining better and what would make the game more enjoyable to play. Your feedback will help shape the next round of improvements.The Playtest will close tomorrow morning, so please send any thoughts before then if you can.Feedback can be sent using the in-game feedback tool, or by email:[email protected] again for giving Music Manager a try.
- Playtest Signups Active – Request Access Before Friday - 6 May 2026
The first Music Manager Playtest window will open this Friday at 14:00 BST and run until Monday at 06:00 BST.An initial limited batch of testers will be admitted shortly before the playtest begins. Visit the Steam page and click Request Access before 14:00 BST on Friday to be considered for this round. Sign up before Friday to avoid getting caught out by time zones (there is no penalty for signing up early)! Further rounds will take place during the summer.
- Playtest Update - 3 May 2026
The first Music Manager Playtest build is now finished and will be uploaded to Steam within the next 24 hours.There has been a lot of work this week on getting the build polished, particularly around tutorials, UI layout, feedback tools and localisation. The first upload will include support for nine languages:English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese.I had hoped to launch with more languages included, but localisation has been the part of the process taking the longest. Translation is only one stage of the work; every language also needs to be checked properly in-game because longer strings can affect buttons, tooltips, tutorials and other UI elements. That means a manual pass through a very large number of screens.Several other languages are already in progress and I will add them as soon as they are ready.The next step is Steam’s r…
- Localisation, screenshots and playtest progress - 26 April 2026
Hello again, and thanks to everyone who has followed or wishlisted Music Manager so far.I wanted to share a quick progress update, along with a few new screenshots from the current build.The main headline is that I am still on track to submit the first playtest build to Steam by the end of next week. When it actually goes live will depend on the feedback received, and whether any changes are requested before the playtest is approved. There is still plenty of testing, fixing and polishing to do, but the core plan has not changed.A large part of this week has been spent on localisation. Music Manager was originally built in English, but French, German, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Vietnamese are now at an advanced stage of introduction.There are still some UI sizing issues to work through, particularly where translated text takes up much more space than the o…
- Project Update: What’s Next for Music Manager - 18 April 2026
Welcome and thanks for taking an interest in Music Manager.I wanted to post a short update on what the next stage of the project looks like.The Steam page is now live and will continue to be improved over the coming weeks. Some of that work is presentation and community setup but the bigger aim is to make the page a clearer reflection of the game itself and where development currently stands.The game is already playable with the key systems in place. The focus from here is on improving balance, robustness and overall quality as well as refining or adding anything that clearly makes the game more enjoyable.Playtesting is coming soon and that will be an important step in shaping the next round of improvements. I want the game to be as strong as possible before launch and outside feedback will be a big part of that.I will also be starting a regular series of developer diaries to give a cle…
