Protect or exploit your idols in the business sim / dark comedy Idol Manager

You take on the role of manager at a small (but growing!) talent agency. As you cultivate and train the newest generation of young pop stars, you'll have to decide who to hire and who to fire, who gets promoted when things go well and who gets reprimanded when things get sour. The personal lives of these young celebrities are a part of your business, and the life of a pop star isn't always a happy one. Their crowning personal achievements can be your greatest commercial successes, but their emotional meltdowns and PR nightmares can spell financial disaster for your company.

It's not just the idols you have to worry about. The world is full of gossip magazines, super fans, and rival groups, all thirsty for a scoop on the latest scandal. There's a lot of people who want to tear you down and are willing to play dirty, but try not to let it get to you. It's not personal, it's business.

Idol Manager is an unconventional satirical take on the idol genre, with a focus on the controversial issues that real producers have to deal with.

Decide how to deal with crises including gossip, vandalism, stalkers, or threats directed at your agency and the pop idols you manage.

Manage relationships between the different idols in your group, as you deal with cliques, internal feuds, and bullying.

Keep morale in the group high for better performance and be careful with your decisions - giving obvious preferential treatment to some girls is a recipe for disaster.

Grow your fanbase by varying your tactics and appealing to a wide variety of demographics.

Try to bring your group to mainstream stardom without pissing off your hardcore fans, who are easy to milk but hard to please.

Produce singles, hold concerts, organize huge TV events and overseas tours to capitalize on your group's popularity and bring in revenue.

Just make sure to budget some leisure time, since an overworked depressed idol can become a ticking time bomb for your agency.

Develop your agency's building. Start with simple offices and dance rooms to produce content and train your idols, and end with your own cafe and theater to create a steady stream of revenue. Hire and train staffers to help deal with logistics and keep your agency running smoothly.

Discover numerous substories - chains of events and visual novel segments, many of which are triggered by your play style.

Each substory can play out in multiple different ways based on your decisions, often causing serious consequences for your playthrough.

$9000 - 18+ content
While you're allowed to do some ethically questionable things to your idols in the base game, we still have to leave a lot to your imagination. Hitting this stretch goal will let us expand this part of the game with significantly more content and art.

$15 Student: Get a Steam key or a DRM free copy of the game. Idol Manager will be available for Windows, Mac and Linux in 2018.

$25 Intern: Participate in the closed alpha testing of the game. We plan to start the alpha in the late 2017. You'll also get access to our private forum and your name will appear in the game credits.

$40 Talent Agent: You'll be competing against many other idol groups in the game, and backers of this tier get to name one of them.
You'll also receive digital copies of the soundtrack and the artbook/guidebook.

$60 Manager: Physical edition includes a game DVD, a soundtrack CD and a booklet.
Early Bird tier includes free shipping

$100 Production Manager: Physical version of the artbook/guidebook. Hard cover, 48 pages.
Early Bird tier includes free shipping

$180 Producer: Design a random event with an illustration. Pick conditions that can trigger it and effects of player's decisions.

$300 CEO: Design a substory - a chain of events and visual novel segments which progresses depending on player's decisions.

Hey! I'm Max, the designer and programmer of Idol Manager.

As a fan of Japanese idols, I always wanted to play a game that could provide a more authentic experience of managing an actual idol group. Three years ago, I decided to try and make such a game myself.

From the very beginning, I focused on three core things:
- The process of running the agency should be as realistic and as detailed as possible, while also being fun to play and easy to understand
- No matter how ridiculous and over-the-top substories might get, we should always provide players with a variety of choices, with a focus on showing realistic consequences and avoiding moralization
- Relationships of idols with each other and with the player should be an important part of the game, to the point where one seriously pissed off girl could tank your entire business

The game went through many prototypes and iterations since then. I always knew that no matter how many surprises and cool little features we include, no one will get to see them if the core gameplay isn’t fun enough. I believe we finally have a good foundation now, and we’re ready to go into full production and fill the game with content.

So far I’ve been developing Idol Manager in my free time and paying for assets with my own money. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible for me to finish the game like this without dramatically reducing its scope.

This is why we need your help. If the campaign is funded successfully, we’ll be able to complete the game in a reasonable time frame without cutting any of the planned basic features. All of the money will be spent on producing required writing, art and music - the base campaign goal will cover half of the budget, with me paying for the other half. I will also be working on the game full-time.

Max Rogozin
Designer, Programmer

Justin Kuiper
Co-designer, Writer

Aiwa
Artist

Catherine M.
Pixel Artist

Cover art by Ninamo

Music by
(Koi)コイ。
Naisu
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Risks and challenges

Making games is hard, and sim games is not an easy genre. Implementing, fine tuning and balancing all of its systems requires a lot of iteration and testing, which takes time.

Our goal is to make a highly replayable sim game, filled with interesting decisions, surprises, and secrets to discover. We’ve already built a solid foundation for the game, so most of the challenges we’ll be facing going forward are of the creative nature.

In software development and especially game dev, things often take longer than expected. We know how frustrating it is when developers of kickstarted games go silent for long periods of time, so we can promise to always keep you in the loop by releasing monthly updates no matter what.