itch.io

If you want to use the Steam key to gift the game to a friend, probably the best thing would be to send them the Steam key and let them redeem the game on their own account.

My understanding is that if you attempt to redeem a Steam key for a game you already own, Steam will reject the key and say that you already own the game (this is a question that gets asked and answered in the Steam forums and other gaming discussion forums from time to time).

We're working on a tutorial/documentation that will cover this, but for the moment, the best place to start would be to look at the Steam workshop entry titled "Example: Custom BG, CG, FX and Music"

You can download the mod by subscribing to it on the Steam workshop and then launching Idol Manager on Steam; this will download the mod (check C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\821880 for local copies of all mods you're subscribed to in the Steam workshop.

(This requires that you have the game on Steam, but you should have access to a complimentary Steam key for the game if you bought the game on itch.io; instructions for that can be found here)

Please note that (as per the readme file) only .wav files are supported at this time.

Hi LunaLunatic, you may want to read the latest Kickstarter post for more info, since it addresses several of your questions. Specifically, there's a bolded section marked "multiplayer," and I believe the rest of your questions are addressed in a much longer section titled "Clarifying the situation with the Steam release's age rating."  We're absolutely in agreement with you regarding the Steam's age rating when you say that "this doesn't make sense," but unfortunately it wasn't our decision.

We don't have any new developments on the situation to report since that post; we're still waiting on Steam's decision regarding the game's age rating, and until that verdict comes down, our hands our tied. We can't really say anything further at the moment, due to the uncertain and tenuous nature of the situation which is still developing. Please rest assured that once we are able to say more about this situation, we will say more about this situation, and we'll have some announcements to make as well regarding our Kickstarter stretch goals and how we intend to go about fulfilling them.

Currently we have no plans to release an English dub for the game.

Apologies if you felt misled by the original trailer as to what content would actually appear in the game: we hope that the game's lack of English voice acting isn't a deal-breaker, but if it is, please feel free to request a refund from Steam. (Steam should be able to issue a refund for the game as long as you request it within 14 days of having purchased the game and have logged a playtime of less than 2 hours.)

We addressed this in a recent Kickstarter post here, if you want the long explanation (scroll down to the section labeled "Clarifying the situation with the Steam release's age rating").

The short explanation is that despite the fact that we did NOT intend for Idol Manager to be a "adults only" game, Steam decided last week to classify it as "adults only," which prevents it from appearing in certain territories, including Germany. Since then, we have been working with Steam to attempt to rectify the situation and submitted a new build of the game, but unfortunately because this came up so recently, we were not able to resolve it in time for release. We are still waiting for their verdict, and due to the current uncertain situation, we can't disclose any further details, but once Steam has passed judgment and re-evaluated our game, we'll have more announcements/updates to share.

Currently, there's no difference between the itch.io and Steam versions of the game, apart from Steam-native features like Steam workshop for mod support and Steam achievements.  If we end up making any patches that would cause the two versions to be different from each other, we'll make an announcement about it.

You can switch between versions without losing your progress -- in fact, you don't even need to take any extra steps to "transfer your progress," as both versions of the game write data to (and read data from) the same folder (located in %appdata% if you're on Windows).  If you install a different version of the game, when you launch the game it should locate your old save file and automatically pick up right where you left off.

Instructions for locating your Steam key can be found here: https://itch.io/t/1551984/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase

Instructions for locating your Steam key can be found here: https://itch.io/t/1551984/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase

(Please note: this information is for those who purchased the game through itch.io. The information in this post does NOT apply to Kickstarter backers: if you were given an itch.io key as a reward for being a Kickstarter backer, your Steam key should be visible on the same page where you received the itch.io key (check this page if you're a Kickstarter backer and aren't sure where to claim your rewards.)

How to obtain your Steam key through itch.io:

1. Go to the game's itch.io download page

There are several ways to do this.  One is to log into your itch.io account and go to this page, then click on the "download" button under "Idol Manager": https://itch.io/my-purchases

Alternatively, you can go to this page, and enter the email address you used when making the purchase: https://itch.io/docs/buying/already-bought

That should generate an email with a link to your purchase page.

2. On the download page, scroll past the downloads to the field that says "Claim your Steam key" and click the button "Get Steam key".  The Steam key should be a 15-digit code.

3. In case you're not familiar with the process of redeeming product keys on Steam: open the Steam client, and from the Steam menu, select Games > Activate a product on Steam > follow the on-screen dialog and paste your key when prompted.

The key should work even if you're in one of the countries where the game is not available on Steam yet.

If all of the text is showing up as one line, I'd recommend opening the dialogs.json file in an editor with a json formatter.  For example, you can use Sublime text, with the Pretty JSON package: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Pretty%20JSON 

But if you don't want to deal with installing and using a new editor, probably the quickest thing to do is find a web-based json parser from among the numerous ones that will pop up if you google search for "json parser" or "json formatter," like one: https://jsonformatter.org/json-parser Then upload the dialogues.json file, hit the "format JSON" button, and then download or copy it back into your editor. The result should give you something like this: 

Hopefully that helps!

Hi Peyton, thank you for your interest. Playism is handling the localization of the game in Simplified Chinese, which will be available when the full game is released on July 27.

You are free to create videos using footage from the game's beta, or from the full game after its release. A number of players have already shared beta gameplay on other streaming and video sites, and using a site like Bilibili to share gameplay or other Idol Manager-related content would be fine.

Beta update 21 includes the addition of an in-game tutorial system that interacts with the game's UI to step the player through the process of using various gameplay features.

Tutorial can be enabled when starting a new game. You can review any tutorial's text via the "log" button in the tutorial window in the main menu:

Do you think there's something that should be tutorialized that we missed? Let us know!

Hey everyone! We're still putting the finishing touches on the next update, but we're close to being done and you can expect to see it go live next week. In the meantime, here's a small update to let you know what we've been working on and some of what you can expect next week:

The next update will include changes to negotiations, including changes that will make the experience more interactive. We're also adding  a new system that gives you the chance to try and influence idols to stay with the group longer if they're planning to graduate soon. Additionally, we're making making a number of changes to the auditions system that will be detailed in the full patch notes when the update goes live.

Aside from that, there's some other stuff that we're still tweaking, along with some UI changes and other improvements, so please stay tuned for the details when the update drops next week! When we post the patch notes for next week's update, the update post will also include more information about the future of Idol Manager. This month's update is a bit on the smaller side, but fortunately since the last update we've made a lot of progress on other soon-to-be-released features: at this point in the game's development, most of our focus is on core features for the main game, including the main story, a proper tutorial system, and a more fully-fledged romance system. We're not quite done with these, but we're really forward to looking to sharing them with you in a BIG update that will be coming later this year!

EDIT: We came in under the wire for meeting the October deadline, but the update just went live and is now available for download!  I'm still writing the full update post, so full patch notes (and more news/info about future updates) will go up within the next hour or so.

Hey everyone! It's been awhile since our last beta update, so we just wanted to pop in to give an update on how progress is going:

We'll be shipping an update next week that includes several new changes.  While the biggest thing that we're working on right now (the main story) still needs more time before we're ready to release it, this update will be making some gameplay and UI changes to the game in anticipation of the full story being added.

In particular, changes are being made to the way that tasks (and the task widget) work. Tasks will be part of how players advance through the main story, but you've probably already interacted with the tasks system in the beta if you've ever taken a loan from Fujimoto or socialized with an idol and asked her about her wishes.  You'll get your first taste of the reworked tasks system with next week's update.

Besides the updated UI, this update also includes some changes to the gameplay interactions for completing these tasks (and the rewards for completing them).

Those aren't the only changes that are coming -- we'll have more details to share when the update ships next week.  Until then, thank you all for your continued patience!

Hey guys, as some of you have noticed, it's been more than a month since the last update. We've been hard at work during that time, but most of the work we've done over the past month is working on events and features that are related to the main story. While we usually add new features to the beta as soon as they're ready, we're holding everything related to the main story back until the whole thing is complete so that players can experience the story with the pacing that we intended, rather than having it slowly trickled out several months.

Within the next week, we'll be shipping a smaller update including bug fixes and miscellaneous improvements and balance changes. This update won't include any major new features, but I'll also be posting a story preview along with this update post to give you all a small peak at what we've been working on, and give you an idea of what kind of experience you can expect from the finished game once the main story is completed. Thanks for your patience!

If a single is on the "production" tab and you're working on the checklist items for "lyrics," "song," "choreo," and "marketing," you need to drag the studio into the office of the person who will work on that item.

For example, in this screenshot: 

Looking at the second single, "Give Me All You Got," we need to finish the choreography in order for the single to be ready to release.  Dance choreography is done in the dance studio by the dance coach.  In this screenshot, I've clicked down on the single's card in the production tab and started to drag it; notice how in the building view, the dance studio is lit up, with the text "Choreography: 27" popping up to indicate that if I drag my single into the dance studio, that task will be done by a staffer with that rating.

For each task, clicking on the card and starting to drag it will cause relevant rooms to light up with the relevant info.  Once you've completed every item on the checklist, the green "release" button on the single card will light up.

I think this addresses the part that you seem to be having trouble with, but if this explanation doesn't answer your question, it might help if you post a screenshot of the part that you find yourself getting stuck with.

To answer your other question, dating will be added in a future update (including content that was part of our first Kickstarter stretch goal).

The cache folder you have to delete (which is located in your %appdata% folder) will only exist if you've already played the game before.  This is different from the actual mod folder (which is located wherever you installed the game to).  If you just got the game for the first time, you may not have to delete anything.

If you need to delete your cache (that is, if you've already played the game before installing the mod), and you are having trouble locating the %appdata% cache folder, can you post a screenshot of where it is that you're looking?

Hey folks,

It's been about a month since the latest update, which means that right about now is when we would ordinarily expect to have the next update ready.  Right now, we're still working on putting the finishing touches on a new feature, so the next update will be coming a tad later than expected.  In the meantime, we thought we've give you a preview of what it is that we're working on.  (Note that all of the following is still in development, and may be subject to change as we continue to tweak things over the next week.)

Award shows!

Award categories include things like best debut idol (to recognize the standout rookies), top single (to award the group that really tore up the music charts), and best idol group to work for (to reward groups that keep their idols well-rested and well-paid).  Each award category comes with its own set of rewards.  (For example, if you get an award for being a great workplace, you can expect the quality of candidates in your auditions to improve!)  While winning the award will give you a big bonus, simply being nominated will give you a smaller version of that bonus.  (As they say: even if you don't win, it's an honor just to be nominated.)

Each category has nomination requirements which are known to the player.  The requirements for winning each category are hidden, but if you get nominated for the same award enough times, you'll get a better idea of what's needed in order to win.  You can track your progress toward meeting those requirements:

We're still working out the details of awards (and the award show events that go with them), but hopefully this small taste gives you an idea of what you can expect once we're ready to ship.

The update will also be including some balance changes to existing systems, miscellaneous content additions (including some new cosmetic options), and various UI changes quality-of-life fixes, which we'll have more details on once the update goes live.

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.

Hey BreC5, the latest update just dropped earlier today, sorry this one came a bit later than expected.  In the future, we'll try to give everyone a heads up if it looks like we're going to be taking more than a month to finish up an update. (We'll probably do this with a post in this forum if we expect it to be a short delay, and possibly something like a Twitter post plus an update post for Kickstarter backers if we expect it to be a longer delay.)

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.

Also address one thing you specifically mentioned in your post:

• [Bug] Stylists do not respect the stamina threshold like dance and vocals coaches do.

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.

Idol Manager beta update 8 is now live. See the dev log for the full patch notes.

Here's a rundown of the parts of this update which pertain to modding:

You can now customize the accessory rate for idol portraits. (By default, only 65% of idol portraits have accessories.) Add "accessory_chance": 100 to the params.json of a portrait to always render the accessory layer. (This can be useful if you want to use the accessory layer for things other than the normal system, e.g. if you wanted to use the accessory layer for hair for a custom portrait, and ensure that idols always have hair.) 

All json files in IM_Data\StreamingAssets\Languages\en are now moddable. Just keep the folder structure.

For example, if you want to mod the folder: IM_Data\StreamingAssets\Languages\en\JSON\Singles\genres.json

Copy it as: IM_Data\StreamingAssets\Mods\*ModID*\JSON\Singles\genres.json

You can use this to make balance changes, rename things, and so on.  If you run into issues or have questions, feel free to ask here.

You can tell the game to ignore certain original files. Create ignore.json file in the root folder of your mod.
The game checks if file path contains one of the ignored words. For example, if you want to tell the game not to not load default portraits and variables.json file, you can do this by creating an ignore.json file with:

[
     "IdolPortraits",
     "variables"
]

We can't promise an exact date at this point, but we're committed to releasing before the end of 2019.

We've now released preliminary mod support for Idol Manager!  You can download the editor here. The editor can be used to create new events and substories, and you can also add new idol portraits.

For a basic explanation of how to use the editor, refer to this document.

To re-iterate what we've said previously during the Kickstarter campaign, support for mods ranks behind working on the core game on our list of priorities: we believe that working on core gameplay features and content is our highest priority. Certain modding features will be released after we've finished working on the game. This editor is a tool we originally created for internal use, and we wanted to give players a chance to tinker with the development tools we've already created while the game is still in beta.  As such, feature requests for modding tools may not be addressed until after the game is released. (You're still welcome to share feedback, however!)

Questions?  Feel free to ask here!

I'm a developer, so I'll leave it to others to answer more subjective questions, but hopefully the following info is helpful:

If people encounter major bugs when we release a new patch, we'll usually roll out a hotfix within several days to fix them, other smaller stuff will get fixed in the next major monthly patch.  You can check the patch notes and read the "bug fixes" part of any of the updates posts for an example of the kind of issues you might expect to encounter. https://sadambober.itch.io/idol-manager/devlog  

1. In the current beta version of the game, there are no "game over" screens.  If you would go bankrupt (having a negative cash balance for too long), you'll get a message telling you that you've essentially lost the game, but the game will allow you to keep playing.  (Though, when you have a negative cash balance, you're locked out of performing certain actions, so you may want to restart the game and try again if you run out of money.)

Our plan is to add multiple "endings," some of which are tied to gameplay (e.g. if you run out of money and the agency goes bankrupt, you get a story event with the investor who originally helped start the group) and some of which are tied to story bits (there is a "main story" that will have an eventual end point).  We'll have a feature similar to the "one more turn..." button in Civilization games, where after the game "ends," you can choose to keep playing in what is essentially a sandbox mode.  

2. There are "cheats" if you want to do things like give yourself money, unlock research stuff without having to spend research points, etc.  See this thread, which also has a post from sadambober (co-developer) which also explains how you can manually edit your save files if you want to do things like edit an idol's stats: https://itch.io/t/339009/keyboard-shortcuts-and-cheats

3. In the next month or two we're planning to release the story editor, other modding tools will be released down the line but they're not our top development priority right now.  Since mod tools were originally a Kickstarter stretch goal, we're prioritizing finishing the "base game" and some modding tools might come out post-release.  (The reason we're releasing the story editor earlier is that it's something we're using as an internal development tool, so it doesn't require a ton of effort for us to package it and release it for players to experiment with.)

5. There is a "main story" that has events that are triggered when you hit certain milestones. There are also "side stories" that trigger when you hit specific criteria, which you may or may not encounter during a typical playthrough.  (For example, there's a story event that triggers if you are spending a lot of time with a particular idol in a conspicuous way.)  Some substories are "one shot" single scene events, while others might consist of several scenes that trigger across several days.  (Also, during story segments you get to make dialog choices, and sometimes how long it takes for a substory to play out will depend on your choices.)

6. In the current version of the game, you have a "relationship" stat with each idol, which you can improve by socializing with them, or fulfilling requests for them (for example, maybe an idol wants to center at a concert). Dialog choices in substories also affect your relationship with idols. How good your "relationship" is with an idol affects things like how willing they are to share gossip with you (share information about who is secretly dating, who is getting bullied, etc).

With the next update, we're planning to expand the relationship system a bit, and instead of having a single "relationship" stat, split it into two separate stats: affection (how much the idol likes you) and influence (sort of a measure of how much they respect you).  These stats are tracked separately, so it's possible to have influence with an idol even if she doesn't like you.  If you have high enough influence you can force them to do things like stop bullying another idol, stop being friends with another idol, dump their current boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. 

Right now idols can get into relationships with random people outside the agency or other idols (which can result in dating scandals), idols will be able to romance the player in future updates.

[/img]

Idols do graduate, every idol has a "natural" graduation date which you can learn by asking her about graduation when socializing with her, and you can also force them to graduate early (as a way of "firing" them without causing a public fuss).  When they graduate, you can have the idol go out and recruit a successor (who will have similar stats), or have her become a staffer at the agency (e.g. dance coach, stylist, etc).  After idols have graduated they'll show up on a list of graduated idols if you want to keep tabs on what they've been up to after leaving the group as a sort of mini-epilogue or "where are they now:"

7. Idols have two stats, physical stamina (drained by doing standard activities) and mental stamina (which can drain from things like bullying, being involved in a scandal, etc).  Idols with low stamina can become injured (for low phys stamina) or depressed (low mental stamina) which results in a large penalty to all of their stats until they recover.  Depression and low mental stamina can also be a trigger for specific substories (this is something that we'll continue to expand in future updates to add more variety).  Suicide is a topic we'd like to explore in the finished game, but it's not yet part of the current beta.

Idols have their own interpersonal drama going on (they'll form cliques and may get into fights, which can cause their mental stamina to drain, and it's up to you to meet with the idols individually to find out who's bullying who, and so on; idols may not be willing to share gossip with you if you don't have a good relationship, and the bullying will happen and continue even if you choose to "ignore" it.

8. Idols' appearances are randomly generated with a random body, face, and hair style.  There are 11 body types, 33 hair styles, and around 60 different faces.  Whenever you hold an audition the game allows you to recruit up to 5 idols, and the game makes sure that every girl in the audition group has a different body/hair/face, though you might randomly similar-looking girls from different auditions.  This part of the Kickstarter video might help give you an idea of the kind of visual variety you can expect, if you skip to around the 5-minute mark:  (that being said, since creating the Kickstarter video we've added 2 new body types, 6 hair styles, and 12 faces, so the game in its current state actually offers a bit more variety than what is shown in the video.  Also, certain things shown in the Kickstarter video have been reworked, like the concerts system).

9. If you download the itch.io client, you can use it as a launcher and the itch app will automatically download updates when they are released, sort of similar to how Steam works.  You can download the itch.io app here: https://itch.io/app  If you'd prefer not to download a separate app, you can also just download the game directly, but you'll have to download future updates manually.

10. The Kickstarter ended in April of 2018 (about a year ago), in July 2018 we launched an alpha that was exclusive to Kickstarter backers, before eventually transitioning into beta to allow people who weren't part of the Kickstarter campaign to participate and give feedback.  Full game release date TBD but it will be some time later this year.  

11. If you buy the beta on itch.io, you'll get a Steam key when the full game releases.  When this happens, everyone will get a Steam key issued to their itch.io account, instructions for claiming your Steam key can be found here: https://itch.io/t/67604/how-to-get-a-steam-key-from-your-itchio-purchase (note that if you follow these instructions now, you won't find that button, because Steam keys haven't been issued yet).

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.

A gameplay demo is definitely something we'd consider doing in the future, but it would have to wait until after the game is done and we're ready to move out of beta.

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.

Did you give your show a name?  The game won't let you launch a show without a name.  (You can type a custom name into the "title" field at the top of the screen, or press the dice icon to let the game choose a random name.)

As for things to do, f you're just starting out: Under "activities," you can see that you have the options to do a "performance" (spend stamina to gain money), "promotion" (spend stamina to gain fans), or "spa treatment" (spend money to regain stamina for several idols).  "Performance" and "promotion" can be leveled up, and at higher levels they provide exponentially higher rewards.  (Doing a level 1 promotion will gain 7 fans, while doing a level 4 promotion will gain 350 fans.)  Leveling up your "performance" and "promotion" activities can be done after meeting certain requirements, and these level-up requirements can provide you with an idea for a direction or a list of goals you might want to be pursuing.  Check the activities tab and try mousing over the "performance" and "promotion" to see your progress for these milestones:

To elaborate on something that's brought up during an intro sequence, there are 4 types of business proposals:

• Photoshoots: 1-time job that generates high money, low exposure
• Variety shows: 1-time job that generates high exposure, low money
• Advertisements:  3-month job that generates high money, low exposure
• TV dramas: 3-month job that generates high exposure, low money

If you are looking to get money as quickly as possible, photoshoots are probably the best way to do that! You can also try advertisements if you want more long-term revenue. 

In order to unlock different types of business proposals, check the research tab and look under the managers section.  (It's the same place you go to unlock or upgrade different marketing strategies for singles.)  If you want to focus on a specific type of proposal, you can do that over in the policies tab.

To generate a business proposal, place a business manager to a room and use their context menu to select "business proposal."  You can also check the box for "auto-proposals" in the context menu if you want your business manager to generate business proposals when they're not working on something else.  (Note that by default, staffers generate research points whenever they're not working on anything else.  If you assign a business manager to "auto-proposals," this means that she will generate business proposals when she's not working on anything else, which will prevent her from performing research, so be sure to turn off auto-proposals if you want her to generate research points instead.)

The most recent Kickstarter update gives a bit of a status report the project, and explains what features can be expected over the coming months: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kuiper/idol-manager/posts/2372733