Greatest Hit is a play by post game hosted by Fabong on the Official Nintendo Magazine forums. It is currently in its second 'round' (found here
) since the first one (found here) finished. The idea of the game is to create a music star or band and lead them from obscurity to fame. The game is played over five years, with each year split into twelve months of four weeks each, with actions of varying lengths chosen by the players to create songs, albums, singles or just get their act into the public eye. The game is open to anyone with an account on the forums, and is relatively easy to pick up and play.
The effect of the player's actions is indirectly observed through the music publications posted after each phase of one month. Though several magazines have featured, the two main ones are Pop Monthly and Rhythm Review, which are written in a style so similar to each other they are interchangeable in all but logo. The game is not entirely serious and features many a Running Gag and Self-Deprecation at the hands of both the host and players. Acts created by players eventually become Non-Player Characters, joining the ones created by the host specifically to function as good examples for players to follow. Event actions, one-off, unique actions available at certain times keep the game fresh and sometimes shake it up considerably.
The first game set the scene and introduced the strange alternative universe the game takes place in, showing off many features that would show up in the sequel, including superstar Alison Redd, the unusually dry city of Richmond, Virginia and the highly influential Beatles-expies, The Silver Quarrymen. The second game brought in a greater density of Non-Player Character releases, with at least one per month, and introduced many new characters and two new record labels. The third game is set to feature a heavier focus on event actions.
Excerpt from TV Tropes:
- Alternate Reality Episode: Line of Sight's concept album is about another band, with the Technicalities taking this to the logical extreme and marketing the Hypotheticals work as an entirely different band. Things only get more complicated when the Hyptheticals and Detectives collaborate.
- Author Avatar: Fabong inserts himself into the game as a producer of music. Who eventually marries Jenna Fischer, just because.
- Berserk Button: The host does not care for STMB or gobbadino, with the latter being the only player to ever be booted from the game.
- Cover Version: They only take a week to make rather than a fortnight, so they're fairly popular, in fact The Moon even made an album just out of these.
- Dimensional Traveller: In a reference to GH, the finale of Dimensional Dungeons also takes place in a destroyed Richmond, Virginia.
- Epic Rocking: All the time. All Stars, All Right being a notable example, as it is written by several different characters and eventually functions as the game's final performance.
- I Heart My Little red Guitar, both as the closing song of Alison Redd's double album and as the finale to her Surround Sound Tour, where it is rocked up to eleven.
- Previous Player Cameo: Acts from the first game are recycled as NPCs in the second.
- Shameless Self-Promotion: The acts are not above this, with songs named after projects run by their respective players not being uncommon. Even the host is not above it at times.
- Shout-Out: Everything from a really bad Layton fanfic to a book of made up facts get referenced.
- To expand on the latter, Richmond's lack of unusual rain and even Fabong's nickname come from the Complete World Knowledge series of books by John Hodgman.
- The Beatles are referenced at every opportunity, with whole albums dedicated to being subtly like them. The Silver Quarrymen are the most blatant and enduring example.
- One update is written in the style of Dimensional Dungeons
- The Movie: Each of the acts were given a chance to create one of these in the second act, with a mixture of dramatic, serious movies and self-mocking movies starring the acts as themselves being spawned.
Have super fun times!
