The Dreadnoughts are going to be famous. Not for our musical ability, but for the unbelievably good video game we just thought up in the van.

It's called "Rock Band: Reality".

First, you create a rock star character. You assign them various attributes: Songwriting, Stamina, Intelligence, Charisma and Liver, each on a 1-100 scale. These attributes will increase as you (hopefully) acquire a bunch of Experience Points. You choose your instrument (bass, drums, guitar, vocals, accordion, glockenspiel).

You are then released into the game, where you have to actually form a band. There are various ways of doing this (dive bars, craigslist, accosting random strangers), but if your Intelligence isn't high enough, you are likely to only collect other similarly retarded musicians.

Once you've formed your band, you begin to play shows. This involves:

• - booking shows. Until you've leveled up and acquired an Agent, you have to do this yourself (sending random emails, making phone calls, dealing with bar managers, etc).

• actually sitting at your TV or computer and driving the van for an average of five to seven hours per day. If you crash, you're all dead. If you don't make all the requisite stops (for gas, urination, cigarrettes, gatorade, beer, cider, food, vomiting) your band mates slowly become resentful of you and will eventually quit. You also have to select the proper variety of van music to satisfy their fickle tastes. If, say, one guy (let's call him "Druzil") loves 80s metal while another band member (let's call him, for no reason whatsoever, "Uncle Touchy") thinks that everyone associated with 80s metal should be strung up by their gonads and whipped to death with giant flaming canes, then you have to engage in creative problem-solving (involving such things as earplugs, sexual favours, etc.).

• actually finding the venue. Depending on your Intelligence rating, you may be provided with a detailed road map, a series of hastily printed Google Maps instructions, or simply a drummer in the passenger seat who calls himself "The Human GPS" and who shouts out random directions every five minutes. If you don't find the venue, the show is cancelled and you lose a ton of Experience Points.

• sometimes, you will find the venue but discover that the show has been cancelled. This happens randomly. There is absolutely no way to predict this or avoid it.

• setting up the sound equipment. This involves both carrying everything into the venue (requires good Stamina) and remembering how three dozen little wirey things connect into three dozen other little wirey bits.

• waiting for your show to begin. If you are still a low-level band, this involves listening to an average of five shitty teenaged emo-core nu-metal bands wallow in their goddamned sorrow per night. As you level up, you will occasionally enjoy better opening acts, though it will never be possible to avoid the stupid hair-in-the-eyes retards who think screaming like a little girl is singing. Each time you sit through one of these bands, your Stamina drops.

Luckily, there is a way to make the pre-show more tolerable: alcohol. You must decide how much to drink before each show. The more you drink, the more tolerable the stupid nu-metal assholes become, and with enough booze, it is possible that you may even enjoy them and your stamina will remain untouched. However, unless you've got a phenomenal Liver rating, your Stamina will almost certainly get lowered the next day.

"But wait," you might now be saying to yourself, "That means there's no way to keep my stamina from dropping!" You are correct. It gets worse:

• playing the show. This is just like the "Rock Band" video game we all know and love. However, several extra complications have been added to our version, and determine whether or not you "nail" the show and recieve the Experience Points:

1. If your Songwriting attribute is still low, all you get to play is "Don't Let The Sun Go Down on Me" over and over again. Only by gaining Experience Points can you acquire new and better songs, such as Groove Factory's "Poison" and Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract".
2. If you've drank a lot, the notes/beats on the screen swirl and distort randomly, making it nearly impossible to hit most of them.
3. If there is a hot girl in the audience, sometimes the notes/beats on the screen will randomly be replaced with pictures of her bosoms. These notes/beats are unplayable.
4. Sometimes, random retards will leap on stage and start trying to sing/play instruments extremely badly. Until you level up, you will have no bouncers to help you: fight them off yourself (here the game cuts to a "Street Fighter II" sequence).

You collect Experience Points in proportion to how well you "nail" the show. If you see a "did not nail it" message at the end of your song, you lose experience points and may actually go down a level or two. Playing any show makes your Stamina drop.

After the show, you have the option to "hit on women" or to "just go the fuck back to the damn hotel". Hitting On Women is the most difficult and stamina-taxing part of the game. However, if your Girlfriend Status is "yes" or "sort of", you have to call her first and enter Relationship Talk Mode. Depending on your Intelligence and how much liquor you've consumed, you may manage to convince your girlfriend that it's okay for both of you to "see other people" in which case you may resume Hitting On Women. However, this is extremely unlikely, and in all probability you will drop your Girlfriend Status to "none" (bad for Stamina when you're back home, unless your Charisma is phenomenal).

Hitting On Women is easier if you "nail" a show. If you actually succeed in Hitting On Women, you have a new place to sleep that night away from your bandmates. However, there is a 7% chance that the woman you sleep with will become your "Girlfriend", and you will not only be restricted from Hitting On Women in the future, but you will also have to answer whiny cellphone calls randomly while driving the van, making accidents more likley and further sapping your Stamina.

If you fail at Hitting On Women, your Stamina drops.

Finally, your Stamina will occasionally just drop by a significant amount for absolutely no reason. If your Stamina ever reaches 0, you die.

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: "Rock Band: Reality".