Idol Manager is a business sim about conquering the entertainment industry using any means you deem necessary. · By
Apologies in advance if someone else suggested this already but maybe add the option to outsource choreographers and producers on singles? It might be more of a k-pop thing but very often, groups will outsource producers/choreographers to work with their idols on songs, lyrics, dances etc. It would just boost specific demographics like any other option when creating singles.
After starting what is possibly my fourth "playthrough" of Idol Manager, I ended up having a few ideas during the initial dialogue sequences. I think it would be great if we could have some sort of pause menu during dialogues (kinda like the in-game 'Settings' tab, but adapted to the dialogues). I really wanted to mute the game during my intro sequence, but the 'M' shortcut didn't work, and I couldn't open the settings and mute the in-game music, so I had to play through the whole dialogue before being able to fiddle with the settings.
Other than that, I kinda wish Idol Manager would feature some sort of 'bio' section at launch, once the multiplayer features are added to the game. You know, maybe being able to set up a 'profile' for your group, with a customizable bio, some basic stats about the group and its members, singles released, concerts, and other stuff. All this information would be available for other players to read. In order for this idea to work, Idol Manager would need to have some sort of indexing system, where the player could look up Idol names, Player names, Group names, etc. Then, the player would have to hire scouts (or maybe have managers do the scouting), so they can gather even more, in-depth data on the desired group. Every week or so, the scout/manager could update the dossier on the targeted idol/group with new info, so then the player can decide if they want to snatch any idols, or even possibly pick some other intergroup interactions (how cool wouldn't it be to have some sort of interconnected SNS tab, or even a 'News' tab featuring other groups!). Of course this is a lot of work, and since you devvies are aiming at a 2019 release, I don't think that would be an achievable goal. You probably have the whole influence thing to work out before you even get to the point where IM can be actually considered a multiplayer game. Still, the idea stands, and even if 90% of that is impossible to be impleneted into IM, just having the ability to write your group (and maybe even yourself, staff and idols) custom bio sections, doesn't matter if it can be read by others or only by the players themself, would be quite nice.
Also, I think having semi-randomized results with estimates for promotions, performances and spa treatments could add a little more realism to the game. For example: A Lv. 1 Performance, instead of always yielding a 10k profit, could yield a random amount of yens between, say, 1k and 20k. For Promotions, instead of always getting 7 fans, maybe work with a random number between 1 and 15. For Spa Treatment, between 5 and 15 stamina points. Of course, as the player levels up those activities, the values also go up.
The system would work similarly to World Tours, SIngles and Concerts, for example, that also work with estimated values. Not sure how much luck is involved there, but the thing is there's no surefire way to know exactly how many fans you'll get from promoting your group, or how much money a performance will add to your pockets, and I feel IM could benefit from reflecting those real life conditions in-game.
Hi! I saw several friends playing this game on twitter and I've been sinking many hours into it since I bought it this Friday, good stuff.
Here's my in depth experience/observations followed by some features I'd like to see
My Overall Experience
For background, after several playthroughs where I would go bankrupt, I felt kinda railroaded into focusing on hardcore fans only just to make money, so that colored my experience. I didn't bother training my idols/enhancing their stats at all.
It was frustrating at first to understand what needed to be done without a tutorial (But I'm sure there'll be one in the final release/explanations of each management tab when first playing) so I had to restart a few times before I had a good enough understanding of the game to not fall into overwhelming debt before having any means to produce singles/shows etc. By the fourth/fifth playthrough I was finally able to turn a profit after organizing the second concert, although I was having a glitch where idol's initial satisfaction with their salaries didn't change so I didn't have to deal with that until I updated to 9.1, so that might've kept me in debt for longer.
I liked how challenging it was to have slightly manageable debt: Contracts were helpful but not super reliable at the lower star levels so I was having to plan out how to finance concerts, singles, and shows that could help increase cash inflow despite having to take loses while taking out loans to actually release things. It made me pace myself and it felt very rewarding to see the expenses eventually be outweighed by our revenue! Finally being able to host a senbatsu and seeing the results was also fun.
My Observations
(As a disclaimer, my salary satisfactions were not changing until the update so that could've obviously made my game easier.)
I feel like the pacing/balancing of the game is off: the beginning once you get the controls down is pretty slow with only incremental developments as you struggle to get to ~6 singles for your first concert, all my runs begin that way with just working to a concert with singles that aren't really markedly more popular than the last one or very helpful to the finances situation, they're just a means to the end of getting to concerts, which are profitable.
The "mid-game" is the part I had the most fun with, where you can afford to take on more idols, start upgrading the copies of your singles/venues for your events and have a bit of freedom to decide how you'll both get out of debt and how you will continue making money on top of that
The "late-game" by contrast was my least favorite part to play, where your fame is rising very quickly and the singles start printing money because of how powerful having a large hardcore fanbase is (And then add in handshakes!). Even by the time the update restored salary dissatisfaction and I adjusted them to bring everyone to a reasonable level, those expenses (~1.5M) were a drop in the bucket compared to my coffers at that point (600M). Concerts grossed 80M, singles also did 80M: I had gotten to a higher fame level with several popular stars but it resulted in a snowball effect that wiped any difficulty via being restricted by money. I could take several more expenses without worrying about it. I was turning down Deals Lvl 10- contracts without even thinking about it as they weren't ever going to be more profitable than a one-off single. And this is with about 150k fans in around two days of play on that game.
So if I had to chart pacing: it'd be like:
Early (No stars-2): very slow
Singles don't have impact, probably need alternating loans from Fujimoto and the bank to not stay in debt over a month. Fujimoto's loans having conditions after taking them was a nice touch that added difficulty/an element of planning and timing.
Mid (2-6): good
First concert, starting to become independent from loans, singles show noticeable growth and change depending on your choices, exhaustion/injury and idol selection/recruitment start mattering
Late (7-10): over-accelerated
Releasing a single/concert just prints money and makes any expenses you have 0
While difficulty is;
Early: high w/o tutorial, autopilot w/ mechanics mastered
It feels like a lot of the game doesn't properly start until the first concert happens
Mid: challenging
Late: low
Seems like there's nothing left to conquer after your fourth concert or so, I hadn't even had enough time for girls to graduate at this point
This is getting kinda long so I'll make another post detailing some features I think would be cool to see!
Things I'd like to see in-game
Additions:
I did find it weird how at one point I released a single coming off of a 100% fan satisfaction one, got 8% fan satisfaction, but suffered no consequences for it as the sales between the two singles increased, leading to my next few ideas:
Subgenres and music trends
I saw in an early demo from 2016 that there was an idea to have the current in-game major genres like Pop, EDM, Rock, R&B etc. behave more like skill trees which progress through subgenres/genre families rather than solely increasing in efficacy through the research points. Like EDM would be an umbrella for Tropical House, House, IDM, etc. and these individual subgenres could be either trendy during the time of release or rising trends. I thought this was a great idea and was sad to not see it in Beta. The people I discuss this game with share this opinion, some noted there's no real incentive/push factor to change up what type of single you produce unless you're a completionist who wants to do all the genres. Some genres will ALWAYS be unattractive to casuals, core, etc. Doing the same love>cute>pop progression will ALWAYS sell well with hardcores, even on the 20th iteration of that combination. So why think about the singles production anymore after you hit a certain threshold of fame?
With the trend+subgenre system, I could see more engaging game play, and gameplay that evolves your tactics: making your single a subgenre that's a rising trend could boost its sales and appeal among casuals+teens/YAs, and usher the subgenre into being a current trend. Current trends could increase that boost even more but over-saturate that sound and push it into being a "past" trend which might cause fatigue and penalty/decreased appeal and sales and encourage players to explore other subgenres and try to either chase or predict the next trend.
Fan feedback/SNS feed
I also saw this in the demo and thought it was a great idea: Fans giving indications of what styles might be upcoming, if they're getting bored with the group's current image, which idols are on the rise/descent, current events etc. Imagine if there's a political election coming up in-game, so releasing a political single might have more efficacy than usual, or the hardcore base is under a lot of stress as of late so an anxiety single has more potential.
Subgroups/Sister groups
Thought of this because it's difficult to A) look at the girls when they're all on one menu, especially as you add more B) it's hard to organize the girls and evaluate who should be in what single C) I want to use all my girls and produce different types of singles but with frequent release penalties it's difficult to build them up.
I think adding in a system like how AKB has SKE, NMB, HKT etc. or 46 has Nogi, Keya, Hina etc. would be very useful: Players could have all idols under one group, but sort them in established subgroups/sister groups for convenience AND in-game bonuses. For example, I could make a subgroup where I put my girls with high Sexy stats, and another for girls with high Pretty stats, and have the first group release singles targeting men while the second targets women. An in-game bonus could be that these groups still need a month between their OWN singles to avoid a fatigue penalty, but releasing within this period of another sister group's release wouldn't trigger it. To balance this out, maybe hardcore fans would be less willing to buy each subgroups' singles/only their favorite subgroup, but would combine for the full group singles depending on team composition.
Additionally, maybe girls could form cliques/relationships based around their sister group as well? Fans/casuals could associate certain lyrical styles, dances, and genres with certain sister groups and find it off-putting if a sister group suddenly changes its style. The fullgroup could have combined appeal metrics/demos but negative/positive opinion of subgroup could possibly not have a direct influence on another sister group, enabling experimentation. And if there had to be a distinction between what constitutes a full group single vs a sister group single, it could be that any single composed of girls from more than one group/girls who are groupless become fullgroup by de facto.
Rival Groups
I think I've read something about this being implemented? I think it would be a great addition. Possibly siphoning fans and contracts/casuals away, forcing your group to change up their image to compete: I'm really looking forward to that if it's happening. I also thinking groups already existing when you show up could help spice up the early game and require you to employ different tactics in each playthrough if some semi-randomized groups of various levels of establishment were there to beat and/or also on the rise all the time. (For example casual attention is already on a randomized "sexy group who does energetic pop songs" so you either have to beat them at their own game or specialize and outdo them at something else if you want casuals/contracts).
Changes/Suggestions:
Producer role/points
I've seen a few people bring up how the Producer is a major bottleneck right now: Every project and socialization has to go through them meaning they can't accumulate research points for media and lyrics at the rate every other role does. Similar problem with how the Manager can't accumulate points if you're searching for business deals and pretty much requires two, but you obviously can't hire a second Producer. I think either making a new role that works on Lyrics OR allowing the Producer to gain Research points even if they're working.
Estimated sales/concert changes
With concert prices, I wish there was a button to just immediately set price for maximum profit OR maximum attendance, since I imagine these are the only two prices relevant to a player, rather than having to fiddle around with it. I also feel like concerts might be a bit too OP in how quickly they start doubling their production costs if you just up the ticket price. I was able to score 20-30M on my second/third concert despite having 33% attendance. I think having a negative effects for trying to abuse concert pricing/going to too big a venue could be good, like having an expensive price or a concert with only a 1/3 of the seats filled could give groups a hit in buzz and bad press?
Additionally the songlist available for organizing the set starts getting overwhelming very quickly, a different menu style might help. I also think there's really no incentive to use your oldest songs at the moment, when in real life several old songs continue to live on in setlists. Maybe there could be bonuses for including older songs such as "fan favorite" for the debut single, the first single to sell 100K, the first single/center appearance of a popular member, etc., to give the old songs some use.
Relationships/events/conflict
Not sure if it's just my playthroughs (Because I do not use the dating options at all) but in all of them I only get some fight events with not very noticeable effects other than sometimes a slight ding to the relationships. I think some insertion of qualities like jealousy/rivalry between current top idols, between rising/pushed idols, and between old guard and new guard could add some interesting dynamics. (I noticed how in the demo it wasn't just moving a girl to a farther back position that makes her disappointed, but ALSO bringing up/adding a newer girl or a girl who was behind her can sour her mood, which I didn't notice in the Beta.)
I think it's great how public spats/resentment can put your contracts at risk, that bad chemistry and bullying can take idols out of commission and lower the efficacy of singles. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing, both in ways you've currently implemented and in new ways.
Elections/Senbatsu
Lastly, I think the elections are my favorite part of the game, concurrently organizing a single and concert and seeing how the girls' ranks change is challenging and a lot of fun. I think what would be a great addition is emulating what AKB does, where the senbatsu election members lead a special single after the election. Maybe in-game you could do something like the Top 10 instantly (Or on a 2-week timer) releasing a fatigue-free/frequency penalty bonus-free single with increased hardcore appeal or a stamina-free marketing plan/a special marketing plan reserved only for the post-election single? Or some kind of special benefit only reserved for the post-Election single.
I would love it if the income/expenses tooltip includes the current week's income and expenses from activities, like Performance and Spa. Seeing a huge negative no matter how hard you're working is very disheartening. But if we see that our five Performances this week at least made a dent in the losses then at least it's something, right? Even more when we finally see that this week, we finally break even.
Well I've played the new update for a couple of days (as best I could, had to reload the game very often to avoid the event/fullscreen lockup bugs), and here are my thoughts on the addition of the charts:
Very neat, and provides a nice layer of immersion! The trending genres plus your tweaks to the demographics with a "soft cap", whatever those are, have helped make my game more engaging/challenging in a fun way. Before I'd be plowing through the game with 500k+ singles after the first election: now I'm still having trouble selling all copies of my singles at single 12, and that's with ~20k sales. I'm much more invested now, now that the game seems to be better paced, and I'm enjoying watching my group climb the chart little by little. I'm also changing strategies between each single in order to increase sales, which is engaging.
If I were to nitpick: the chart could be more dynamic, both in groups and song titles. I think the pool the game uses to generate song names could be widened a bit, cuz I get a LOT of iterations of "She/He Knows/Thinks..." "...Her/His Love", etc. It's not super noticeable when used for the player's single name generation (since it's one title and I think a player would rarely use it), but when it's generating 29 titles at once every month, it gets very repetitive (There was a point where I got a string of around 10 songs all being in the "He Knows I Love the ___" format for the same month.)
I also think the ranking could be more dynamic: I like how the sales can fluctuate somewhat (ie the top group generally sells 1million but can dip below this every so often), it feels like the 28 groups on the chart excluding you and your rival keep their positions, with only the sales total changing in step with every other group (To keep the aforementioned ranking). I notice slight changes, but it's always with a +/-1 deviation. Top 10 always does 100k+, etc... While the chart feels real, the groups/songs that populate it do not, and could use some work. Something as simple as new groups entering the charts over time, old groups exiting and returning, rising/falling... I also feel like generating more groups would help? Having 30 positions still, but maybe not every group releasing monthly could add variety.
I believe "Groupe idol rival : [blank]" is the rival group devs hinted at? (That is how it shows up on screen, btw, mine is called "Groupe idol rival : FairyGirl's"). I'm guessing more will be added to them, but I'm not sure how I feel about them ALWAYS selling just a bit more than you, rather than being subject to the same trends as you are (As in, I kept selling more with each single, and they were always ahead: THEN I sold a little less with my next single and then they ALSO sold a little less.).
And for a hope, I'd love to possibly see the subgenres incorporated somehow, like in the kickstarter video! Would help to personalize singles even more.
Here's a suggestion for the issues you're having with the lack of single title variety. One of the game's files is called name_generator.json (IM_Data/StreamingAssets/Languages/en/JSON/Misc). If you open it, you can edit, remove or add new entries to the list of possible song title combinations. Might be a possibility if you don't wanna wait for new variants to be officially added by the devs.
Also small QOL/worldbuilding feature, but do you think it'd be possible for the game to track formations beyond the last 10, and outside of just the formation page for the creation of a new single? I was on the Stage48 wiki and thought it was cool how the single pages track who was in that single and who was center, as well as how the member's individual pages also show what single they were in/centered. Maybe the released singles tab could also show what the formation was when you click on it, and each idols' profile could have a section listing what singles she's been in and whether she was center? I'm just particular in that it'd be really satisfying to click on a popular idol and see all the singles she was in be listed, lol.
Aesthetic ideas?
I love the artstyle of the game and was wondering if there were plans to make the general visuals more varied/dynamic? The twilight lighting looks great but after playing for a while it gets a little repetitive, I think changing it up with midday/night versions of the cityscape would really take it over the top (Maybe even seasonal variations like rain/lightningstorms, snow, and fog scenery over the city and under the lighting as you move through the year?)
Also this might count more as a bug, but I think the projected buzz for formation creation, the fame levelup bar upon single release, and the fame percentage on the taskbar should stop adding more stars/more bar length/more percentages after you hit fame/buzz level 10. Visually it does kinda start looking ugly when you've already got a 10-star group/several big idols and the game tries to put 20-25 stars on your projected buzz for the formation, stretches off the side of the screen to show your fame upon single release, and reads 13000% completion on the fame level in the taskbar.
Also (sorry to double post, but it's not really the same topic), I'd REALLY find a manual option for typing salary+a "set all salaries to [number]" button useful. It's a lot easier than clicking and getting jumps in the number+since the girls' satisfactions change in relation to what others are getting paid the more senior girls start approaching 0 as newer girls start having their salary bumped up, so being able to quickly bring everyone's salary to a base level again would be a godsend rather than clicking upwards of 15 arrows 10-20 times each.
Here are some ideas I've had while playing the current Beta:
