“It Started as a Joke”: On the Design of Idle Games (2019)
I&#x27;ve played a lot of idle games, and I think there&#x27;s a spectrum from dumb to managerial.<p>For example, Factorio (especially in peaceful mode) almost certainly qualifies as an Idle Game. Your factory continues to produce even when you leave the computer on for hours. With a good enough setup, you can leave even when Biters are active (as long as you have enough bots to auto-regenerate your walls and rebuild your base as it is attacked).<p>But no one here will ever say Factorio is a &quot;Bad&quot; game.<p>--------------<p>On the other end, I&#x27;ve played Clicker Heroes, which is about as idle-game as you can get. Pay-real-money for minor benefits? Check. Reset based system? Check. Guilds + chat to encourage collaboration? Check. Etc. etc.<p>Ultimately, a good clicker-game &#x2F; idle-game is a text-based management sim. People like it when numbers go up, and people like it even more when numbers go up dramatically. Ex: Factorio&#x27;s &quot;Rocket-per-minute&quot; bases, or doing 500 quadrillion damage-per-second in Clicker Heroes. Its all just numbers going up.<p>--------<p>That being said: Universal Paperclips is probably the best clicker-game I&#x27;ve ever played and I highly recommend that one. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.decisionproblem.com&#x2F;paperclips&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.decisionproblem.com&#x2F;paperclips&#x2F;</a><p>Minor spoilers: Universal Paperclips has an ending. I can speed run it in about 3 hours these days, expect maybe 10 to 15 hours if you&#x27;ve never played it before &#x2F; are going guideless.