Idol Manager Gameplay

[Cristhian Cinq-Mars]

Ihave a few more thoughts but I tried to keep it to just balance fixes and the like. If I had to suggest something more substantial, that would be shareholder goals and requirements. I feel the exponential growth of income would be better served by investors who want bigger and bigger gains as time passes. Think Activision disappointing with record profits lol.

Stupid forum software doesn't have a rational quote function...

>There's really only one way to start the game, without managers you run out of money fast, and starting out with managers, the game is a cakewalk.

Maybe for you, not so for me... Not without spending a ton of money on offices and managers, and even then it takes a while to reach that point.

>It's too easy to get silver/gold/platinum idols when recruiting

The RNG has blessed you... For me, it often takes spending a million yen or more on local auditions to get a bare handful. Takes a long time to get that money back.

>Regional and national scouting seem to have no effect. If it does, it's not cost effective. Perhaps restrict the rare cards idols to those?

I agree with this... You spend a ton of money on those, and the current return is simply not worth it. Nor does your fame seem to increase the quality of girls who audition.

>Daily tasks are essentially useless after the game gets going.

Performances are borderline useless, granted... But Promotion remains useful when leveled up, and Spa Day is handy after a concert.

Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback! It's evident that you've spent quite a bit of time with the game, and it's always good to hear from players who have played the game enough to have an understanding and offer a critique of the core gameplay systems. We'll take it all under advisement, and some of the things you mentioned in your post are things we're currently working on.

We've made some changes to idol recruitment with the latest update (which just shipped earlier today), which might address some of the concerns you have in that area. Also, there are new training policies that allow you to control auto-practice in a more fine-tuned manner; you might find these potentially helpful.

This is not a bug. Idols don't consume stamina from sitting in the stylist's chair (whereas they do consume stamina while doing dance or vocal practice), so the game will allow them to be styled regardless of their current stamina level; this is the intended behavior.

I saw the patch notes, that's a lot of progress for just one month! I really like most of what's been done, the new potential system is really neat as well. Will the idol rarity be visible after they are recruited along with the OVR value? If this is already in the game, please ignore !

You can still see idol rarity (and their current stats/overall rating) on the recruitment screen before deciding to hire them (much like the old system, when you hold an audition, you're taken to a screen where you get to see all 5 idols and can choose whether or not to hire them). The rarity/overall rating is based on their potential/true stats.

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.

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: -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.

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.

3a8082e126