Game looks very interesting to me.

I'm not sure I want to invest 25€ in a beta, especially since the game will be sold for significantly less once finished, but I wouldn't mind supporting a promising indie developer if their production(s) are of quality.

My question is : what kind of content is there already in the game, how many characters, stories, gameplay features, etc. ? How long does a typical game run last at the moment ? How long should it last once the game is ready to be released, and will it be content rich enough to be replayable?

I know you've released a new video on reddit (which is how I discovered your itch.io page), but I'm afraid of spoilers if I watch it till the end, which would deter me from playing and hopefully enjoying the game in the future.

Thank you very much for your insight and time.

Best of luck in your endeavours in any case.

Hi NissaRed, thanks for your interest in Idol Manager!

First off, I'll start by saying that the Kickstarter announcement video doesn't spoil anything related to the main story, and it may help answer some of your questions about the game, as it consists of a short "trailer" followed by a lengthier explanation of Idol Manager's gameplay systems.  There is part of one scene that is briefly shown on screen during the video, but this scene is just one example of many optional substories that exist within Idol Manager, so hopefully it won't be spoiling too much.  But if you'd like to avoid this part of the video, you can skip ahead to around 2:55 in the video.  (If you choose to skip it, the voice-over for this part of the video says, "Idol Manager is a game with a strong narrative focus.  However, rather than focusing on having a 'main' overarching story, most of the game is told through events and substories that will pop up as you play the game.  There will be several narrative points that will be common to each playthrough, like the establishment of the agency, the introduction of a rival group, and some of the endings you'll encounter, but most of the narrative content is based on the events that happen with individual girls and staff members that you encounter during your playthrough.")

There isn't a fixed number of characters.  Every time you hold an audition, the game will roll a set of idols that you can recruit.  Each idol has a randomly-generated name, stats, and is assigned a trait and personality that will affect gameplay and partly determine the way she acts in story events. (There are a set number of faces, hair styles, outfits, and accessories that the game will choose from when generating an new idol.  You can see examples of some of these in the video starting at around the 5-minute mark.) 

It's hard to briefly summarize everything that's been implemented in terms of gameplay, but many of the game's core features and gameplay are described in the video, and you can check the devlog for information on the major features that we've added since entering beta: https://sadambober.itch.io/idol-manager/devlog

Certain parts of the story are still not fully implemented.  This is partly because many substories are tied to gameplay mechanics that we're rolling out during monthly updates.  For example, the most recent update added cliques, bullying, and fleshed out the relationship system more by giving you the ability to talk to idols and gossip about who's friends with who.  This means that there were certain substories (tied to specific mechanics in the relationship system) that didn't get added until the most recent update.  The final version will have a number of endings that aren't in the current version of the game, and throughout the game there will be several interactions with some of the "main characters" that are introduced at the start of the story; the intros and early interactions for these characters are included in the beta, but the later interactions will be added in future updates (some of them will be tied to specific gameplay milestones).

Most of the substories are intended to surface through specific gameplay interactions.  Without spoiling too much, there are certain events that might only trigger if (for example) an idol has low mental stamina and becomes depressed, or if you begin dating someone and another idol becomes jealous.  Because many of the substories have specific conditions to trigger, it's likely that you'll complete the game without seeing everything, and can explore more of the game's content by doing multiple playthroughs.  But if you want to see all of the game's content, you'll probably have to choose a different playstyle for subsequent playthroughs; if you just do the same thing you did during your first playthrough, there's a good chance that you'll end up seeing some of the same events you saw during your first playthrough.

I hope that's helpful without being too vague.

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.

Thanks for the detailed feedback!  It's always valuable for us to get the perspective of a new player reacting to the game for the first time, so your input is really appreciated. Many of the other issues you noted are things that are already on our radar and we're hoping to address in future updates, and it's always good to have another voice to affirm that the changes we're experimenting with are things that people actually care about.

A few days ago we rolled out a new patch (beta 6.1) that should hopefully address the freezing issue you encountered, but please let us know if this issue persists.

Regarding the issue with Radio shows, can you clarify what you mean by "can't cancel?"  "Canceling" a show (by clicking the "cancel" button) basically deletes it from the list of shows that are in active production.  Is that what you're trying to do?  Is the issue that clicking the "cancel" button doesn't work, clicking it does something unexpected, or is it an issue that's separate from how the "cancel" button functions?  If you could provide a screenshot of the particular issue it would be really helpful in diagnosing and addressing this issue.

The early-game economy is something one of the things we're looking to adjust with the next patch.  I'm curious as to whether you made use of the "loans" feature to get an early infusion of cash.  If you did use the loans feature, what was your experience with that?  Did you take out loans from the bank, Fujomoto, or both, and did you continue completing quests from Fujimoto to get more loans or did you just take out an initial loan?  And if you didn't take out loans, was this due to you not knowing about it, not being able to locate the menu, or not wanting to have to have a loan payment that would subtract from future income?

The fact that getting rid of staffers is costly is sort of by design, but you can fire then without paying severance if you blame them for a scandal (this is represented in-game by the option to spend scandal points instead of money to fire staffers).  Is this something that you made use of at all?  If you weren't able to fire staffers using scandal points, was the issue that you didn't have enough scandals, or that you wanted to fire a large number of staffers and ran out of scandal points?  If the latter, was there a particular reason that you found yourself firing a lot of staffers (was it because you found yourself in an unexpected financial pinch and had to cut expenses, or because you hired a lot of staffers at the start of the game and realized later that some of them were redundant and/or not worth the cost)?  You can fire staffers without penalty in the first 30 days, which acts as a sort of safeguard against players starting a new game, hiring a bunch of staffers, and then realizing that they didn't need as many staffers as they thought, but it sounds like you were in the position of firing staffers outside that window, so I'd be curious as to how that came about.