SideM Guide

This guide is currently a work in progress.

THE iDOLM@STER SideM is a social card collecting game hosted on the platform Mobage. Among English-speaking fans, it is commonly referred to as the 'original game', 'SideMobage', 'MobaM', or simply 'the Mobage'. Not to be confused with LIVE ON ST@GE, MobaM does not require download or have a rhythm game section; however, the games are quite similar in gameplay otherwise.

This guide is a simplified version of other gameplay related pages from the Wiki, which may have more text unsuited for a new player.

Intro
Making an Account= Conveniently, SideMobage does not require download, and can be accessed in mobile web browsers here. You must make a Mobage account to play through the browser:


 * 1) Go to http://sp.mbga.jp/ on your mobile device and scroll down to the section labeled 無料会員登録 (Register for Free).
 * 2) Insert your email address into the line provided. You must use a Gmail email or a Japanese email provider.
 * 3) Hit the button labeled 送信 (Send). This will send a confirmation email to the address you put in with a link to continue the registration process. Find the email sent to you from Mobage. It may take a few minutes to send. Once you find it, click on the link contained in the email.
 * 4) Continue registration from the link provided by Mobage. Here are the things it'll ask you for:
 * 5) Your gender (性別). Your only options are Male (男性) or Female (女性).  Your birth date (生年月日). 年 is the year, 月 is the month, 日 is the day.  Note: Minors have limits on the amount of Mobacoins they can purchase in a set period. Keep this in mind when deciding whether to give your real birth date or not.
 * 6) Whether you want to have your birth date displayed publicly. する is yes, しない is no.
 * 7) Your blood type (血液型).
 * 8) Your location (地域). Only locations in Japan are listed, so just pick something at random or keep the default location.
 * 9) Press the blue button once done.

There is a standalone app for the game on the Japanese version of the App Store/Google Play. It isn't necessary to create an account if you play through the app, although it's best to as you can continue your progress across multiple devices.

It's also possible to play SideM on your desktop browser using a mobile spoofer such as User-Agent Switcher for Chrome. This allows you to view mobile-only sites even on desktop.

Tutorial= Upon entering the game, you'll go through a short story about Ken Yamamura introducing you to DRAMATIC STARS. You will be given the choice to receive the basic R card of one of the DRAMATIC STARS idols. Which idol you pick doesn't matter, as the cards can easily be obtained later on.

Producer Training Course=

The Producer Training Course is a set of beginner missions that you can complete at any time. There are three sets of these missions, and you unlock a new set once you've completed the one before it.

1st Training Sheet

 * Publish a feature in a Magazine.
 * Scout 5 idols in the Scout Mission.
 * Look at one of the idols' resume (in Idol File).
 * Set up an ichioshi unit.
 * Give your group a name.
 * Change the leader idol.
 * Edit your Producer comment.
 * Listen to music in the Sound Studio.
 * Watch a TV commercial in the Movie Theater.

2nd Training Sheet

 * Collect music sales (in Notifications).
 * Release a new song (complete a stage in Business).
 * Win in an Audition Battle.
 * Organize a Live Unit.
 * Transfer (delete) an idol.
 * Move an idol to the Boys' Dorms.
 * Set a Producer Title.
 * Play SideMini.
 * Complete the Shimokitazawa (下北沢) location in Business.

3rd Training Sheet

 * Organize your Audition Battle Unit.
 * Start your own Audition Battle.
 * Add a coworker.
 * Maximize the trust of one idol.
 * Make a P Card.
 * Join a team.
 * Raise the skill level of one idol.
 * View past event stories in the event album.
 * Complete the Shibuya (渋谷) location in Business.

Menu
My Desk= My Desk is the homepage of SideM. From here, it is possible to see: Scrolling down further displays UPC, campaign and content links, as well as news banners. Menu= In the header, there are links to different parts of the game:

Extended Menu= Most of these buttons aren’t that important, but there’s some in particular that are good to know. Please refer back to this image when looking for pages mentioned later in the guide.
 * My Desk: The homepage of SideM.
 * Business: The 'main gameplay', where you can earn Money.
 * Lessons: View your idols and level them up, or Change! them.
 * Scout Gacha: Get new cards through scouting them in either paid or free Gacha.
 * Event: The main way to get new cards for free.
 * Menu: Opens up into the extended menu when clicked.

Business
Basics= Business is the 'main' gameplay of SideM. Despite that, nothing really happens here, so you’re free to ignore it and only play the events. However, it’s a good intro to the sorts of gameplay that will be in the events. TIP: You can set business to automatically proceed without tapping. To do this, go to the Settings and select the option called 営業自動進行設定. Then press the ON button and tap the blue button to confirm. Note that this option is only avaliable once you're at player level 10.|-| Mini-Events=

Audition Battles
In the Audition Battles, 5 of your cards will go up against the cards of other players. If ⅗ of your cards are stronger, then you’ll win the battle. Audition Battles don’t use any AP, so just go ahead and press the blue button, and the game will automatically select your strongest cards (unless you’ve set your own units in the Organize Unit section).

You can also start your own audition battle by pressing on the Audition Battle button in the extended menu. These battles use 20 AP, but you can select from a random list of 5 people to play against.

Other
You might encounter these smaller events while going through business:


 * Scout a N card.
 * Gain trust points with cards.
 * Replenish Stamina (blue background) or replenish AP (orange background).

Scout Mission= In the Scout Mission, you can scout for the R cards of all the Idols once. Tap on the group that has the Idol you want to scout. Then swipe left/right until you see that Idol and press the big green button labeled 営業. As usual, you'll be taken to the Business screen, and go through two levels of Business until you scout the R card. Each Idol's R can only be scouted once, but you can easily get them again through other ways of scouting.

Events
Basics= Events are the main way of getting new cards in SideM for free. If you play wisely (and often), you’ll easily be able to obtain the two R cards and if you save up your items (or pay for them) then ranking for SRs isn’t too difficult either.

Be warned that the tiers in SideM are much more competitive than in LOS because only the top 1000 can receive the Event SR, and only the top 100 can get two copies. In the Marathon Event type, only the top 500 are guaranteed the SR. Because of this, you'll only be able to rank a few Events per year if you’re F2P, even if you save up Items everyday. Pick who you want to rank carefully, as some idols may be more difficult to rank for than others.

There are currently five different Event types in SideM: Live, Bingo, Marathon, Team, and Live Produce. Please see Events for more detailed information on the Events.

Panel Missions
Each day, there is a set of 6 missions that you can complete to get 315 Seals. The types of missions you have to complete will depend on what kind of event is currently going on. Panel Missions reset each day at midnight JST, but only if you complete the missions from the day before. If you don't, they'll carry over to the next day.

You can access the Panel Mission by tapping on the first round button under the main Event screen like so:



There, you'll be taken to a checklist of 6 different missions. Through doing these, you can get up to 20 315 Seals per day. Please see Events for a list of Panel Missions for each event type.

Exchanging Items
You can exchange 315 Seals for different items in the Panel Mission Exchange Room. Select how many of that item you want via the dropdown and press the blue button to confirm.

Live= TIP:
 * You can use 20 AP each turn and keep sending out live invites until others respond; this way, you'll get points as well

Bingo=

Once you get 12 panel points, you'll enter a Live. This works the same as a normal Live, except that sometimes you might get a Premium Live, which triggers Bonus Time if you complete it. In bonus time, your panel points gained are tripled and event points are doubled.

Throughout the event, you'll get Special Event Items (these change in every event). They multiply Voltage Points by 10 and can be stacked.

After completing a Live, you'll be taken back to the main page. If you complete three Live, you can move onto the next difficulty. There are four difficulties overall: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hyper.

TIP: Marathon=
 * Don't go to Hyper difficulty unless you're in Bonus Time; it uses up too much stamina otherwise
 * Don't use Special Event Items unless you're ranking for the SR Idol, since you can exchange them for 100% Vital Jelly once the event has ended

TIP:
 * Try to use Event Reports fast and early, at least until you get the Guaranteed Event Point R Scout Ticket, as it gives you another 20% point bonus
 * Save your Event AP bars for when you have unlocked all three Point R cards since they provide a 60% bonus in your point overall
 * Only use three Megaphones at once for the highest point bonus

Team= The goal of Team Events is to collect Charms in Business and Lives, and use them during Performances. Performances only run at certain points of the day.

Unlike other Event Types, Team Events allow players to recieve a copy of the Event SR if their Team has ranked high enough. However, this still depends on your own point total. Please see Events for the total Team ranking rewards chart. Live Produce= After the live, you'll get a message from one of the idols. You can choose to respond to it (simply clicking a button) now or save it for later. When you respond to it, you'll get 50 EXP for the Produce Level. Sometimes the idols will write something extra long and you'll get a choice between two options to reply with. It doesn't matter which one you go for, but this gives out more EXP, so be sure to answer it.

The Produce Level can be seen in the upper right corner of the main screen. EXP is gradually obtained over the event. Increasing Produce Level increases the chance of bonus time. During bonus time, the amount of tickets you gain from offers is doubled, so use this chance to gain many tickets for Live Produce.

TIP:
 * Try to aim for the same demographic in general, but if you see a Special Program, then go for that instead, even if it isn't the same demographic as what you've been building so far (unless you're aiming to get a very high rank, in which case the bonus from aiming for the same demographic may be more useful)
 * The Offers don’t expire until you restart work, so wait for AP to replenish naturally rather than using AP bars
 * Save up your tickets until you can do a 3,000 ticket Live to unlock the hard mode. Then try to save your tickets until you can do 15,000 ticket Live, as they give the most points
 * Don't use Produce Passion unless you're ranking for the SR Idol, since you can exchange them for full AP bars once the event is over. If are ranking, then only use it when you're doing a 15,000 ticket Live

Idols and Units
Affiliated Idols= SideMobage is primarily a collecting game in which the player collects Idol Cards. There are 46 Idols in 15 official Units. Idol Cards are split into three rarities: N, R, and SR. They are also split into three attributes, Physical, Intelligent, and Mental. The attributes don't affect anything other than the card's Skills. There are also EX cards, most of which are Ken Yamamura cards used for raising a card level (the others are special cards from campaigns).

The higher the rarity, the stronger the card. It's good to collect Rs until you're able to rank for a SR through events.

Deleting Cards
On the Affiliated Idols page, there is another tab that says 移籍. There, you can transfer (delete) any cards you no longer want in exchange for money. To do so, click on the idols you no longer want and press 移籍する. You'll be taken to a page to confirm the transfer, so press 移籍する again.

Lessons=

Change!=

Passion Change!
Boys' Dorms=

Units=

You can organize your units in the Organize Unit section.

Live Unit
Your Live Unit is the one that is used in Lives in Business and Events. It consists of 10 cards. You can have up to four Live Units; the first one is automatically chosen, so you can't edit it. The others, however, can be edited to add/remove any cards you want.

There's a variety of different bonuses that can boost your team's score, but maximizing your score doesn't matter much unless you're trying to rank a very popular character or ranking multiple characters per year. Generally, you can just focus on collecting the cards of idols you like and let the auto-selector choose your Live Unit for you. As well, with the addition of UPC, it's much easier to collect strong cards for beginner players.

Audition Battle Unit
Your Audition Battle Unit is used in Audition Battles, so it has 5 cards. You will have four AB units, one that consists of your strongest cards and the others for Vocal/Dance/Visual focus. The easiest way of forming units is to auto complete the Unit. Click on the drop-down box and select Vocal優先 (Vocal Preference) for Vocal units, or Dance優先 for Dance units and Visual優先 for Visual units. Then press 自動編成. This will automatically select your strongest cards of that type.

Ichioshi Unit
The cards you set in your Ichioshi Unit will appear on your main page, as well as in your profile. Cards in this Unit will increase trust quicker, as well as appear in SideMini more often. Click on a blank space to add a card to your unit.

Once a card has been added, you’ll see two buttons underneath it. はずす removes the card, while 入れ替え lets you replace it with another card.

Scout Gacha
Paid Gacha= There are multiple Scout Gacha in SideM. These allow you to gain new cards by chance. The most significant Gacha are all paid only, so essentially half of SideM's cards are unavailable to F2P players unless you trade for them. There are occasionally paid campaign and reprint Gacha not listed here. Please see Campaigns or SideM_ENG for updates on new Gacha.

Event Gacha
This is the main Gacha associated with the ongoing event. It’s paid only, so you have to buy Mobacoins to do it.

TIP:' The SR rate for the Event Gacha SR is extremely low (only 0.318% in most Event types), so it’s honestly not a good choice to do it unless you have lots of cash to spend on it.

Platinum Days Gacha
This is another paid gacha that releases two sets of cards at a regular interval. The first, which releases monthly, is The Idol of Those Days series, which focuses on the idols when they were younger. The second is 315 Audition, which features the various units in their performance outfits. Note that you can do this gacha for free using Platinum Tickets (more information under Platinum Scout).

Scout Medal
When you scout in paid Gacha, you'll gain Scout Medals. In the Scout Medal exchange area, you can exchange these medals for whatever past card is featured for the month.

There's also the opportunity to get Scout Medals from campaigns at time, but there's usually a 200 Medal cap, meaning you won't be able to get enough Medals to unlock a R card unless you do paid gacha a couple times. Point/Ticket Gacha=

Point Scout Gacha
In the point scout gacha, you can scout basic N and R cards, and there's also a very rare chance of obtaining one the basic DRAMATIC STARS or FRAME SR cards as well. You can do two free scouts per day. You can also scout with scouting points, which will accumulate very quickly when you play the game.

TIP: Since you'll get a lot of N cards from this scout that you won't need, it's recommended that you set it so that the N cards are automatically deleted in exchange for money. You can set this by scrolling down and finding the part labeled ｶﾞｼｬでの自動ﾚｯｽﾝ/自動移籍設定. Then you'll get to a page with three drop-down boxes. Here, set all of the attributes to 移籍 and press the blue button to confirm.

Social
Coworkers= SideMobage is, of course, a social game and so you can add other users as your friends.

On the Coworkers page, you'll be able to see three tabs:
 * List of Coworkers
 * Sent Requests
 * Received Requests

To add a user as your friend via ID, press the blue button labeled 同僚候補検索. Then press the tab labeled ID, and you can simply put in their ID number. You can also see your own ID number there, so you can share it if you want your friends to add you.

To add a user as your friend through their profile, click on the blue button labeled 同僚申請 underneath their Mobage picture. This will send out a friend request to them.

Gift= Gift allows you to send Items and cards to your Coworkers. You must have your phone number verified on Mobage in order to use this feature.

Because SideM does not have a proper trading function, players use Gift to trade Cards and Items with each other. Team= It's vital to join a Team in SideM as its required to participate in Team Events. As well, joining a Team means that you can gain Team rewards from normal events.

TIP: To find strong Teams that specialize in your favorite units, wait until there is a ranking event for one of the idols in your favorite unit. Check the top 100 of the Team ranking tab of the ranking page to find teams that are focused on the ranking idol and/or their unit.

My Data= In the My Data section, you can set up your profile that other users will see. Things that you can edit are:


 * P Card: See P Cards for more detailed information on editing your P Card.
 * Producer Titles: You can set up to two Producer Titles that will show on your profile. Normal P Titles can be obtained through max-trusting an Idol, or getting them many times through SideMini. You can get SR titles through scouting them in gacha or ranking high for them. Note that if you get an event SR through chance (such as with a 2% ticket or through Event Reports), you won't get the P Title. Also, you won't get the P Title if you trade for that Idol.
 * Leader Idol: You can choose one Idol to be your leader that will be displayed next to your Mobage icon.
 * Ichioshi Unit: Your ichioshi Unit can also be edited from here.
 * Wishlist: You can select up to three Idols to add to your wishlist, which is also displayed on your profile.
 * Comment: You can set a short comment to display on your profile.

Below that, there are links to your own profile to share with friends. You can even make a QR code!

Other
Items= You can collect items from your Present Box. Please see Items for a more expansive list of items; this only lists some that may be useful to know.

Office (SideMini)=

Magazines= There are two types of magazines: normal (通常号) and special event (増刊号). You can read magazines using Memory Notes, which are obtained by scouting Idols or max-trusting them.

To read magazines, tap on the magazine you want to read. There are individual chapters for each Idol. In normal magazines, you can only read the chapter if you've scouted at least one of their cards. Normal magazines have four chapters for each idol, while special event magazines only have one chapter per Idol per event (although some of the earlier events had two chapters for the SRs).

Since the magazines do consume Items and give rewards, it's best to mainly read event magazines, as they use the least amount of Items (1 Memory Note) and give out 2 AP Bars per chapter. You can read some of the translated magazines on this Wiki as well.

Unit Produce Competition= Unit Produce Competition (UPC) is now the quickest way to gain strong SR cards. Every month, a new set of UPC cards come out for each unit. These cards are 'reprints' of old SR+/R+ cards with a rainbow background. Aside from having the background and a slightly lower card strength than the original, they're the same in every other way. The UPC cards can be gained upon getting 1 million points for the unit you want (you'll get all the members of the unit you select).

You gain points in UPC simply by using AP in the game, whether its in events or lives. There are point multipliers that you can buy with UPC coins, which are gained by using AP as well. If you reach 1 million points for the unit you've selected, you can receive the SR+/R+ of the unit members at the end of the month.

Players who rank in the top 10 of their unit for the month can also receive a special voiced line from the voice actor of an idol for that unit (the voice actor will say the player's name). However, there are no rewards to be gained once you reach 1.5 million points, so it's best to switch to another unit instead of going past that point if you're not trying to get into top 10.