Idol Manager

Idol Manager

105 ratings
Slow pace Realist Guide
By hawede
Being in the game for days now, I tried many ways to really enjoy the game and always turns bankrupt or the idol got injuries and on hiatus.

Had read other guides as well that was posted on Steam and the Web, but mostly seems unrealistic and feels like cheating, might as well use cheat engine for that. Rushed progress on the first month, reload when you had bad idol RNG, Loan, 10,000 yen ticket sales, and production line with 4 staff to produce single like printers.

So, this is my way of playing the game, that i like. A slow pace business grinding and realistic way of financial, employment, and MANAGING people. This method i write is for the story mode without tutorial, in the first year it will take one month to complete 1 single at best, and fast forward button is your friend.

1. Start the game with your office, and one breakroom (put it on the rent free floor)

2. Immediately do audition and recruit one trait that the batch is in common with. i usually goes with CUTE since the hardcore fans usually produce most of cash flows.

3. Do research and socialize with your members one at a time, at least do it twice for each members (for the story progression)

4. <b>At the same time</b>, put your idols to promotion every day, and if you want to, add 1 or 2 day in between for performance, at least to cover the idol salaries per week which is your only expense at the moment.

5. When you manage to reach 430 research points, BUY (500) x 3 research on Marketing, Choreography, and Music (Invest around 330,000 yen instead of renovating and hiring staffs)

6. On Marketing, choose Digital Release Only

7. On Lyric, Choreography, and Music, choose whatever traits your team is common with.

8. YOUR character can do 4 tasks needed to produce singles, so start creating single lyrics, then marketing, song, and finally choreography.

9. Don't forget to do STEP 4 to keep the cash flow in balance and increasing the fan base.

10. By the time you ended august, you should already have one crappy single. And this is a gamble, sometime it will be crashed (bad sales) but mostly it will at least sell around 80 copies. But that is not the goal here. We need the single to level the promotion up.

11. Make another single, this time the lyric quality should be slightly better.

12. Keep doing all of those promotion and performance, and since there is a break room you won’t have a problem with injury risk and doesn't have to give a spa treatment to the idols, Every Yen is counted.

13. By the time the second single ready, you should already had 1000 fans.

14. Keep doing step 11 and 12 until you published 5 singles, <i>you can add an internet show and radio if you want to level up promotion (but be wary of the idols stamina)</i>

15. For my play through, at 5th months my cash flow is stable and never less than 4 million yen in account with only idol salary on expense (20,000 yen per week) which is worth two days performing, the idol payed for them selves.

<b>From this step, you can do whatever you want though and play managing game instead following my guide.</b>

16. Now its about time to spend, lets prepare for a concert. (you can still do everything yourself, but for me now is the time i hire specialist) Basically at this moment, you already had a stable income if you repeating step 12, but to gain more fans, promotion is not reliable and slow. Your idols will also start to demanding more salaries, so this is a sign of a RAT RACE, you need to step out and continue the next step soon or you will drown in looping priorities.

17. Renovate a dance room on rent free floor, and one manager office on a new floor. Hire instructor for Production, and Manager for Job finding.

18. Start preparing for the concert. If the expected revenue of concert and fans is not ideal, do a better single and/or increase the fan base.

19. When you reach full capacity (500 seats) then you had a decent steady cash flow. Audition a new and better team, keep the original team as a cash maker.

20. Enjoy the game.



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12 Comments
sylvain_ch21 6 Dec, 2023 @ 12:20pm 
Thank you for that "realist" playstyle
matcha latte 22 Jun, 2023 @ 2:47pm 
ty for helping me not go bankrupt so soon
Bumble 27 Dec, 2022 @ 6:43am 
This is my go to for every playthrough now. Solid foundation. Thank you.
DerismicCube 18 Jan, 2022 @ 4:33pm 
Highly recommend doing the tutorial and then cancelling out of it after auditions because it guarantees you get a gold idol, and when you have the money, buy a theater, it will almost always put you in the green. Also the slice of life mod is great since it gives you more random events!!
BonPadre 5 Jan, 2022 @ 10:53pm 
Thanks so much for that guide. So helpful to get a decent start 👍🏻
Illumi 25 Dec, 2021 @ 11:09am 
Thank you man, I tried really many and weird strategies but always went bankrot. Finally i can play this game xd
Marmorkatze 25 Dec, 2021 @ 5:43am 
Thanks for the guide. The tutorial really makes me burn through cash because how it's build up. But good to know the MC can deal with singles just fine until cash starts to flow in.
leaderj27 21 Oct, 2021 @ 5:52pm 
it would be cool if they added more small events good or bad that can help u a bit more or make it harder lol
ingvar-spb 12 Sep, 2021 @ 7:30am 
1. Build Producers office and put him to work, start generating reserch points.
2. Buid Restroom on the same floor (mainterance is free)
3. Hire one idol. Now promoting and performace activities is avaliable
4. Set Idol salary to 1 This Idol salary is the only expenditure for you.
Now your have two ways to develop:

- spam Performance activity and gain 10000Y every day. Your Idol spend 3 stamina but gain 5 from restroom. This is eternal moneymaker. I've tested it till January 2022 and then i get bored.
For some reason Average Recent Earnings for Idol continues to grow. Despite it's obvious she can't generate more than 7*10000Y= 70000Y per week. Because of that you will have to get rid of that Idol (She will ask for salary raise as soon as single release)

-spam Promotion activity and gain fans. This will be the fans of your Idol.If Idol is gone fans will leave too. Fujimoto will help you for the first month and promotion activity will generate 13 fans instead of 7
2D Trash™ 22 Aug, 2021 @ 11:38pm 
This is great. I really like the way this playstyle scales. You're right in that it feels more "natural" this way to have the MC do everything themselves for a while. Your guide also made the rest of playing easier for me, 'cause I love stat man games but I'm shit at them. This is simple, easy, doable, and flexible. Good stuff. Bless your heart.