Thank you for your diligent and extensive reply. It motivated me to purchase your game yesterday. I have since gotten around to play it, and it has been enjoyable so far, if a bit chaotic. I would like to provide you with some feedback.
What I've learned is that the game balance currently seems to punish the player for rushing, unlike other sims. It's much safer to multiply manager offices than to set up actual dance or recording studios, which could seem a bit contradictory in an idol sim. That is fine, it just takes time adjusting.
Second I thought it was fairly questionable that I could fulfill higher level "skill achievements" before their lower level. To provide some examples : with the Performance skill, I can easily get 1000 fans before ever releasing a Single. With the Promotion skill, I can rather easily have my idols appear in magazines before launching an Internet show, or get advertisement payments before launching a radio show.
This brings me to my next observation regarding balance : releasing a Single is probably the most difficult task in the whole game (I couldn't get to concerts, but more about that later). It requires 4 different characters to achieve and more money than we start with. Yet, this goal sits extremely early in the Performance skill tree, at level 2. This essentially blocks income for the beginning of the game, which forced me to create 3 manager offices, to generate enough money to survive, before even thinking about setting up a dance studio.
I think the balance is fine if a financial challenge is what the player is a looking for in an idol sim. It can be easily overcome with some thought, and experience of other equivalent sims I guess. However, if the player is only in the game for the story and idol management, which I initially was, then maybe a difficulty setting like normal/hard would be welcome, especially since some (most?) events seem to be linked to the most "iconic" (and expensive) rooms used by the idols, and not managers/producers or other financial considerations. It takes a fairly long time to get to the events while keeping a healthy game progressing.
Next, I would like to share some observations and suggestions, not necessarily in order of importance. Please keep in mind that I've only played for a rather short time, so they may or may not be adequate to what you have in mind for your game.
1/ It would be cool to be able to queue interactions, to avoid having to pause the game each time a task is finished. I know some tasks can be set on auto for some characters, but others cannot. I'm more particularly thinking of the "dating" task, but also of some tasks which I'd prefer to keep handling manually, like focusing on the repeated and accelerated training of a special idol : dance, sing, dance, prettify, etc. The "auto" feature doesn't allow me to do this.
2/ I noticed one of my girls got bullied. I had no idea how to counter that, so I summoned her to my office, and did the only reasonable thing I could think of, which was to ask her about the group (life). Despite a reasonably good affection gauge level (>80%), she told me that it was none of my business. I do think it was my business actually, as it's of any decent manager, and would have liked more options how to look into the issue.
3/ Managing contracts right now is not the most user-friendly task in the game. There is a list, but I can't sort it, by $/day ratio and by descending expiration date most importantly. More generally, it would be good to have stuff that matters appear directly on the idol in the UI : how long till I can summon her again, how many contracts she has, when do they expire or in which shows/media she participates. Once launched, I couldn't find a way to list the cast of a show/media either. It would be helpful to get a clearer overview of what idol does what, not to risk overworking some of them.
4/ I think talking to idols ("dating") should restore some stamina, as some kind of extra motivational push to her in her job, especially if the player takes the well-being of the idol into account, like asking for and granting her wishes, paying a decent salary and filling her affection gauge. This should be especially true for idols that are interested in the producer. I do not know if it currently happens in the game, since all the idols who I could flirt with in-game rejected advances.
5/ I do not have extensive knowledge of the idol business in RL, but I thought that the salaries of the staff assisting the player with the idol management are way too high, and uninterestingly so, since as a player I can do nothing about preventing them from rising higher and higher with time. One could argue that skill deserves higher pay and I would agree with that, except that my most essential employees, the idols, get (and request!) peanuts compared to others of the team. The doctor/nurse for example is woefully inefficient and slow compared to what it requires to set them up. Sound engineers and dancing instructors are equally lazy, raising the skills of the girls 1 by 1 only. Only the managers really deserve their pay, but I need several of them and wait for the mid/end-game, for my business to stabilize, because they keep failing in their job by quite a large margin at the beginning.
6/ It seems that rebuilding a room elsewhere, to save some on the rent and costs (which is very important at the beginning of the game), is not possible in the current version of the game. In the same way, it doesn't seem very wise (and almost impossible) to fire staff members (which has a severe price and consequences in reputation) to look for other people (say replace a coach by a producer), because by the time one could afford to pay the allowance, the employee already has the best skills as both. Finally, failing a single contract sums up to a death sentence, because penalties are so dire that the whole business would go under over night. What I'm trying to say is that all this doesn't make the game feel very dynamic. Penalties should be so bad that the player would try everything to avoid them, but if worst came to worst, they shouldn't compromise hours and hours of gameplay in a single event.
This brings me to the more glaring issues I'm currently having with the game :
1/ I had to stop playing the game around March 2019 because the time gauge would no longer progress. If I quit the game, and reload it works again for a short while, then stops like before. I have no explanation as to why this happens (maybe some kind of Unity memory leak?).
2/ I can't cancel radio shows it seems. Contrary to other medias, it seems that the game wants me to wait for some time to go through with that, but once I reach expiry date, the show is not cancelled and another deadline is created. This keeps my idols busy participating in a show that should no longer exist, and of course draining stamina.
All in all, and despite my feedback above which might seem negative, I'd like to say that the game keeps my interest.
It's true that I expected many more interactions with the idols than I got : some related to their personality or wishes, some to their current task (dancing/singing), some about the group life, some maybe about seeking advice about professional or personal questions as they grow up in age. However, I also expect this to be added to the game with time as it was planned during the kickstarter.
The UI could be a bit more efficient in conveying crucial data, but that might be personal preferences. It's functional as it is, and one isn't lost for long if one has played simulation games before, even without tutorial or documentation like a user manual.
It's my opinion that a difficulty setting would be welcome to tweak the current stamina losses and contract incomes, as they make the game unnecessarily frustrating if the RNG doesn't cooperate. Some contract offers/penalties can be ridiculously low/high after playing for a long while, for experienced idols with thousands of fans.
What really stands out to me is that game tries to breathe some fresh air into the dating simulation/idol management games. What I could find of the events already implemented with the game were very enjoyable and had me really thinking twice before answering, wondering about the consequences. I wish we could get more of them, so that no month passes without something happening, to motivate the player to further go through the "grind".
The art is fine and even sweet looking for some of the idols. I wish the game would have let me reach the concerts, where I suppose the biggest of the jaw-dropping and kawaii-inspiring "fireworks" are awaiting me, to reward me for my "hard work". I hope that in a future version of the game we will be able to dress the idols, which seems like a major feature to an idol game to me, complementing their own style but also the style of their group and finally of the company.
Finally, as I said, I don't mind supporting original and promising games, and this one indeed seems to be original and promising. If you allowed me one last small observation it would be about its current price. It seems like the game could benefit from more testers, and generally more people showing a potential interest in buying the game in the future. As it stands, the price seems too steep to me to attract such a crowd. It was an impulse buy for me, because of your reply to my post, and because I thought you showed some passion and intelligence in doing what you try to achieve with this game. This is very commendable, and enough for me, but may not be enough for most.
Now that I've bought the game, I eagerly look forward to the next versions, hoping to contribute again if I think I can do so in the future, and I feel it's welcome of course. Please keep up your good work, and may the game reach Hatsune Miku levels : the sky is the only limit.