Most idle games are reskinned copies of Cookie Clicker with varying complexity. They become boring in a week. Not this game. In fact, you wouldn't notice it is an idle game if it weren't for the huge numbers you eventually reach. Gameplay starts simple: You collect resources, build stuff and fight bad guys. In a couple minutes, you might beat all 100 cells that you see and wonder "what now?". Well, you have just finished zone 1 of over 600. Seriously. Somewhere around zone 25, you portal and get to start over.
But the next time, you get a bit further and wonder "Hey, what are those challenges?". And you get new mechanics. Rinse and repeat a couple times, but... there's a large degree of unpredictability. After vanilla challenges, you get various helium challenges allowing for different playing styles. At certain zones, huge gameplay changes occur and turn priorities upside down. Things scale in different ways, so there's a Disc-One Nuke for almost any stage of gameplay. That mechanic that became useless twenty zones ago? Yeah, you might depend on it after the next upgrade you find. And just when you find a way to cheat the system using it, it becomes useless again. And because the system is complex and changing, you may actually need some skill to play, something rare in the idle genre.
And to top it all, there's a story. It's more of a consequence of the game growing to the point of needing a justification (it started as a project when the developer was learning Javascript), but it is a charming Surrounded by Idiots take on black comedy. Just another detail that makes you wanna keep playing.
There are a few downsides, though:
The lack of a comprehensive manual. Some features (like Geneticistassist) are confusing and the wiki doesn't always help.
There are some "Quality of Life" improvements that make parts just after restarts less painful (as you don't have to do everything all over again), but most are placed way too late. Because of this, every restart begins with roughly 30 minutes where nothing interesting happens.
Which leads us to the last important point: There is still development. Most issues are worked out and new content appears at roughly the pace of playing (so the top players just get the stuff a bit less tested).
Yeah, give Trimps a try. It's not like pretty much anything.
A well-polished idle game that's bigger than it looks
Most idle games are reskinned copies of Cookie Clicker with varying complexity. They become boring in a week. Not this game. In fact, you wouldn't notice it is an idle game if it weren't for the huge numbers you eventually reach. Gameplay starts simple: You collect resources, build stuff and fight bad guys. In a couple minutes, you might beat all 100 cells that you see and wonder "what now?". Well, you have just finished zone 1 of over 600. Seriously. Somewhere around zone 25, you portal and get to start over.
But the next time, you get a bit further and wonder "Hey, what are those challenges?". And you get new mechanics. Rinse and repeat a couple times, but... there's a large degree of unpredictability. After vanilla challenges, you get various helium challenges allowing for different playing styles. At certain zones, huge gameplay changes occur and turn priorities upside down. Things scale in different ways, so there's a Disc-One Nuke for almost any stage of gameplay. That mechanic that became useless twenty zones ago? Yeah, you might depend on it after the next upgrade you find. And just when you find a way to cheat the system using it, it becomes useless again. And because the system is complex and changing, you may actually need some skill to play, something rare in the idle genre.
And to top it all, there's a story. It's more of a consequence of the game growing to the point of needing a justification (it started as a project when the developer was learning Javascript), but it is a charming Surrounded by Idiots take on black comedy. Just another detail that makes you wanna keep playing.
There are a few downsides, though:
The lack of a comprehensive manual. Some features (like Geneticistassist) are confusing and the wiki doesn't always help.
There are some "Quality of Life" improvements that make parts just after restarts less painful (as you don't have to do everything all over again), but most are placed way too late. Because of this, every restart begins with roughly 30 minutes where nothing interesting happens.
Which leads us to the last important point: There is still development. Most issues are worked out and new content appears at roughly the pace of playing (so the top players just get the stuff a bit less tested).
Yeah, give Trimps a try. It's not like pretty much anything.