# The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 — 80s strategy magazine sim.

> Strategic 80s idle zine simulation game with retro aesthetics and narrative quests. (iPhone/iPad app by Frosty Pop.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-completionist-1980-1989/id6759388583 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Frosty Pop](https://appshunter.io/developer/930758677)
- Category: Games, Simulation, Strategy
- Price: $0.99 with in-app purchases (on sale, was $1.99)
- Rating: 4.60/5 from 5 App Store ratings · 13 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 17.0 · 20 MB
- Languages: American English, French (France), Brazilian Portuguese, Mexican Spanish
- Released: 2026-05-19
- Data updated: 2026-08-25
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-completionist-1980-1989/id6759388583/reviews.md

## What is The Completionist?

Run a scrappy pop culture magazine through the golden age of print.

Hire writers, editors, and researchers. Commission stories about the movies, music, games, and news that defined the 1980s. Move work across a Kanban board from idea to published think piece. Try not to go broke.

It's 1980. MTV hasn't launched. Keyboards click and coffee brews and nobody's heard the word "Internet." You just have tight deadlines, a small team, and a whole decade of pop culture to write about.

Part strategy game. Part idle. Part workflow sim. Part love letter to the 1980s.

 WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT

* Your Choices Matter — Build a team of specialists or balanced generalists. Rush stories to hit deadlines for the bonus, or slow down and chase 5-star quality for the milestone payout. Hire aggressively and spend yourself thin, or run lean and invest in equipment. Prestige early with a handful of legacy points, or grind deeper for a bigger haul. Every run surfaces a new question.

* Old School Aesthetic — Commodore 64 color palette, pixel art sprites, and sounds. It looks like it crawled out of a floppy disk. In a good way.

* Thousands of 1980s Headlines — Empire Strikes Back opening weekend. The NES launch. Live Aid. The Challenger disaster. The stuff that shaped a generation.

* Kanban Workflow — Research, draft, create, edit, publish. Manage stories across the board like a project manager who's really into Depeche Mode.

* Build Your Team — Creators write. Editors catch typos. Researchers break down leads. Project Managers keep the whole operation from falling apart. Hire smart, level up skills, and equip your crew with keyboards, desks, and headphones.

* Prestige System — Hit $300K and complete a Volume. Start your next run with permanent legacy upgrades that pull your strategy in different directions. Revenue Boost or Inflation Shield. Quality Boost or Fast Learners. There's no correct order. There's your order. Each Volume is faster, deeper, and harder to put down.

* Speed Boosts — Coffee, pizza, donuts. The fuel of journalism. Buy consumables for a temporary push. Buy an office dog for permanent motivation.

* Narrative Quests — Story-driven progression through your magazine's rise across the decade. Not just numbers going up — a real arc.

* NO ADS. NO ENERGY GATES. One optional speed boost. That's it.

The first Volume teaches you the mechanics. Volumes 2 through 10 are where you discover what kind of editor you actually are.

## Key features

- Run a 1980s pop culture magazine
- Hire writers, editors, and researchers
- Kanban workflow for story management
- Retro pixel art and sound design
- Thousands of 1980s headlines
- Prestige system for permanent upgrades
- Narrative quests and story progression

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: $0.99.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Monday Motivation | $1.99 | one-time |


## Recent user reviews (10 of 13)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-completionist-1980-1989/id6759388583/reviews.md

### 5/5 — A perfect game

*2026-07-05*

Game is a solid 5 stars all day long, as soon as I get that last achievement I’ll be starting on the second game.. will there be a third? Maybe a vintage macOS or early Linux UI? I don’t even care, just keep pumping these vintage aesthetic games out and I’m going to keep buying them.

**Developer response:** Sorry that’s a bug! Should be fixed now!

### 3/5 — Has potential

*2026-06-30*

It looks like it would be great.  And if you can get over the layout then maybe you’ll love it.  But I couldn’t. 

The game is vertical but has a horizontal layout… I have to keep scrolling left and right and can never see the full board.  It’s like the game was made horizontal, but then they just give you a vertical window of it. 

There were some annoyances too.   Like me having to pick a worker and then a task every time when there’s a choice.   Made me want to sell my starter unit and just have one of each type because why can’t it just send best or whichever so I don’t have to tap twice each time?

But yeah.  Couldn’t get over the layout.

**Developer response:** Will look to see if we can support horizontal layout. Challenge is it’s possible you’d have to scroll down then on an iPhone.

As for the double tap can you email us more detail? The manager once unlocked or using the auto-delegate should do what you’re expecting.

Apologies!

### 3/5 — Hidden achievements

*2026-06-24*

Game is a 10/10 but the use of hidden achievements is stupid. You’re just blindly supposed to figure it out with no direction. Hidden achievements only exist to avoid spoilers, which this game doesn’t have any so there absolutely no reason they need to be hidden and it’s purely there to just be annoying and ruins the experience. Could have been a 5 star game but the hidden achievements really ruined it for me.

### 5/5 — Simple and fun

*2026-06-16*

So I've been trying a lot of idle clicker games recently, and most of them look and feel the same. This one is something different. The mechanics are unique, fun and addictive. I love how you could choose your own pacing, go slow and enjoy every little detail, or go fast if you more enjoy seeing your numbers going up. Picking your strategy changes how your run goes, which is great. The UI looks very nice on the iPhone, but I think it could be improved to make use of the big screen on the iPad, for instance, the whole board could easily fit the screen horizontally.

There are sometimes issues with saving my progress locally. Also please add cloud saves.

**Developer response:** Thanks for the honest review! Will look into better iPad support. Cloud saves SHOULD work but will check again! We pushed a bug fix and a change to assignments yesterday we hope helps with overall game feel. Thanks again!

### 5/5 — progressão

*2026-06-13*

opção de salvar progresso no icloud ou exportar para não perder os dados.

**Developer response:** Will look into better iCloud support. Sorry!

### 2/5 — Need Optimization

*2026-06-07*

Premise is fun but the frame rate is really bad. I paid extra for the 3x and it’s so boggy.

**Developer response:** Oh no! What device and iOS are you using? Sorry!

### 5/5 — A découvrir est addictif

*2026-06-04*

Très bon jeu mériterait une traduction en français pour toucher un plus grand public. Le créateur a été très rapide pour améliorer le jeux et intégrer plusieurs langue vraiment au top.

**Developer response:** Thank you! Will look into seeing what that would take!

### 4/5 — A découvrir

*2026-05-31*

Très bon jeu mériterait une traduction en français pour toucher un plus grand public. Le créateur a été très rapide pour essayer ce que j’ai proposé mais le jeux n’est toujours pas traduit.

**Developer response:** Thank you! Will look into seeing what that would take!

### 5/5 — playin with my balls rn

*2026-05-29*

master chief, you mind telling me why youre a smurf?

sir, we live, we love, we liiiiiiiiie

[the spectre (slowed remix) - alan walker plays]

### 4/5 — A découvrir

*2026-05-25*

Très bon jeu mériterait une traduction en français pour toucher un plus grand public.

## Frequently asked questions about The Completionist

### What is The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 about?

The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 is a strategic idle simulation game where you run a pop culture magazine throughout the 1980s. You'll hire staff, commission stories, and manage your finances with a retro aesthetic.

### Does The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 have ads?

No, The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 is ad-free. The developer explicitly states 'NO ADS. NO ENERGY GATES.'

### What is the price of The Completionist: 1980 – 1989?

The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 costs $1.99. There are no in-app purchases or subscriptions mentioned.

### What devices can I play The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 on?

The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 is available on iPhone and iPad.

### What is the age rating for The Completionist: 1980 – 1989?

The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 has an age rating of 12+. This suggests it contains content suitable for teenagers and above.

### How often is The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 updated?

The latest version, 1.1.2, was released on June 21, 2026, indicating recent updates. The game was initially released on May 19, 2026.

### What kind of gameplay mechanics does The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 feature?

The game combines strategy, idle simulation, and workflow management. Players make choices about hiring, story commissions, and resource allocation to achieve magazine success.

### Does The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 have a prestige system?

Yes, The Completionist: 1980 – 1989 features a prestige system. Completing a Volume allows you to start a new run with permanent legacy upgrades that influence your strategy.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.1.2 — 2026-06-21

• New employee balancing
• Clearer issue tracker badges
• Better balancing of assignments from Manager Editors
• Team screen now highlights each employee's core skill

### 1.1.1 — 2026-06-06

• Added English back to the list of supported languages

### 1.1 — 2026-06-04

• Toggle for font size in settings
• Added language support for French, Spanish, and Portuguese (be gentle)

### 1.0.8 — 2026-05-30

• Back Issues now show full story titles at a larger font size, translated into every supported language.

### 1.0.7 — 2026-05-22

• Rebalanced managers to be more effective.

## More apps by Frosty Pop

- [Ten Large](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ten-large/id959811502)
- [High Dive](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/high-dive/id968907076)
- [Kitty Pops](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kitty-pops/id984239224)
- [Puff.](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/puff/id984268262)
- [The Get Out Kids](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/the-get-out-kids/id984665065)
- [Walls & Balls](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/walls-and-balls/id1083708143)

All apps by Frosty Pop: https://appshunter.io/developer/930758677

## Related topics

[completionist](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/completionist) · [the completionist](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/the-completionist) · [1989](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/1989)

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*