Look after and manage young pop stars in Idol Manager, with a Beta available now

Here's one we completely missed from Kickstarter that was fully funded back in 2018 and has a Beta available now. Idol Manager is all about developing your agency and looking after the stars of tomorrow.

Not exactly a game I personally would have jumped at the chance to play, however, the more I think on it - why the heck not? We manage all kinds of ridiculous things like prisons, space ships, colonies, airports, train stations and all sorts in between so why not people who want to become pop stars? Idol Manager actually has quite a great look to it.

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"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."

Features:

• 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.
• Grow your fanbase by varying your tactics and appealing to a wide variety of demographics.
• Produce singles, hold concerts, organize huge TV events and overseas tours to capitalize on your group's popularity and bring in revenue.
• 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 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.

Since it was fully funded on Kickstarter and we missed it, we've added it to our dedicated Crowdfunding Page. They managed to raise a good $55,332 so they clearly had plenty of interest in it. It's actually been in Beta now for multiple years with the Linux build arriving all the way back in March 2019.

It's currently more costly on itch at $25 versus the $15 planned release price, to match what Kickstarter backers paid for earlier access to it.

You can pick up the Beta now on itch.io or wait for the cheaper Steam release.