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The original title was Designing an idle game that isn't ****. I go forth It seems that there are some well-known rules that must be duly noted

The rules are apparently the following.
Next, the pressure point in the rules that draws my attention is the following. Jay Stelly long ago described how in Half-Life 2, safe gameplay facilitates learning new main skills, and also listening to the story being told. Teaching the player something new through new tools being provided or chosen by the player, and the player being forced to use them while in the safe area, before leaving, in order to leave.

Well, there are plenty of safe areas in this genre.

What if focus moves to players slowly learning kitchen-sink combos of tools. Little things like pushing boulders around, dropping fences, putting arrows on fire, fire arrows set oil puddles on fire, the usual things. Would that be a genre improvement? Considering the game mostly will play itself? "Slow Imm Sim"? "Low Competence Imm Sim"? "Relaxing Imm Sim"? "No Effort Imm Sim?"
Tentative Main Theme: https://f.rpghq.org/zKffMYoxK3v8.mp3?n= ... 3-2025.mp3 (For this genre, this theme might still not be mellow enough?)

i. Particular thoughts?

ii. Is there anything wrong with any of the above "accepted genre rules"? In what sense might they not really be "rules"?

iii. Should there be stealth?

It would make sense if there was an optional thinking component to it.

Want to just check in once a day and progress anyway? That's fine, you can do it. But you can also progress much faster if you study the obstacles ahead of you and build a strategy for overcoming them. This would go beyond splitting active vs passive players, since the focus is not as much on having your eyes on the screen at all times and be fast with your mouse, but more on putting your brain at work rather than not think about it. If you are really patient, you can eventually brute force the whole thing. But you are not going to qualify for any speedrunner record.

One thing that I would consider to avoid at all costs would be over reliance on dice mechanics, so that most of the game's factors are decided by a PRNG. It would mitigate or outright cancel out the feeling of accomplishment for successfully solving a game problem, and create frustration when expectations are not met, not due to the player's fault. I know some would be even willing to pay to win on such a singleplayer game, but I hope you won't go that route, since it's degenerate and sad.

So what about stealth? If it's a stealth level that is compared against some enemy's awareness check, to give the MC more time to do actions before being discovered and having to fight, that looks interesting. And if your stealth is OP enough, you can complete the challenge without ever getting discovered/fighting. But if it's PRNG based, that'd be tricky.

Some random thoughts.

I think this genre has room to grow.

I'd rather see "+2 peanut butter cookies" than "+2,000,000 cookies".

Time steps don't need to be tied to a real world clock.

Idle games can be a good choice for a minigame (success = door unlocked and molt for some permanent advancement) or kingdom management inside another game.

These ideas can be combined such that the increment of the idle game advances at a rate determined by other play. Such as killing an enemy, completing a quest, or one step per XP gained.

Even more gamist: character advancement in an RPG is an idle game where you buy character upgrades with your XP cookies. Buying one makes you stronger but resets idler progress. Better upgrades cost more.

There's also the consideration of adding something other than "patience" or "efficiency" to the idler gameplay. Finding another axis of challenge other than "reach 1,000,000 cookies in 10 minutes". If you look at something like Axes & Acres, there is an immediate concern of generating enough (but not too much) food when the actual goal is earning enough victory points by a certain turn. Still optimization with input randomness, but more interesting than just one resource. Whoever solves this should have a hit on their hands.

J1M wrote: ↑ May 3rd, 2025, 17:38

I'd rather see "+2 peanut butter cookies" than "+2,000,000 cookies".

Why? 2 cookies understandable. Whereas 200000000000000...00000 cookies is incomprehensible. Hence powerful, is it not?

Comment. I remember that Panzer Dragoon Zwei introduced basically trying to get a high score in previous stage to change the model (it evolves...before Pokemon) and powers of your dragon for next missions. Something about seeking near perfect or high score to replace models might be done by including AI to generate, from standard parts, the protagonist and enemies.

J1M wrote: ↑ May 3rd, 2025, 17:38

There's also the consideration of adding something other than "patience" or "efficiency" to the idler gameplay. Finding another axis of challenge other than "reach 1,000,000 cookies in 10 minutes". If you look at something like Axes & Acres, there is an immediate concern of generating enough (but not too much) food when the actual goal is earning enough victory points by a certain turn. Still optimization with input randomness, but more interesting than just one resource. Whoever solves this should have a hit on their hands.

There is a version that might be of interest. The second axis of optimization might be randomly selected from a list. This would lead to a different character or city development for starting the next stage, where again, the second axis is randomly selected. Path dependence? More replayable?

NotAI wrote: ↑ May 5th, 2025, 14:34

J1M wrote: ↑ May 3rd, 2025, 17:38

I'd rather see "+2 peanut butter cookies" than "+2,000,000 cookies".

Why? 2 cookies understandable. Whereas 200000000000000...00000 cookies is incomprehensible. Hence powerful, is it not?

Comment. I remember that Panzer Dragoon Zwei introduced basically trying to get a high score in previous stage to change the model (it evolves...before Pokemon) and powers of your dragon for next missions. Something about seeking near perfect or high score to replace models might be done by including AI to generate, from standard parts, the protagonist and enemies.

J1M wrote: ↑ May 3rd, 2025, 17:38

There's also the consideration of adding something other than "patience" or "efficiency" to the idler gameplay. Finding another axis of challenge other than "reach 1,000,000 cookies in 10 minutes". If you look at something like Axes & Acres, there is an immediate concern of generating enough (but not too much) food when the actual goal is earning enough victory points by a certain turn. Still optimization with input randomness, but more interesting than just one resource. Whoever solves this should have a hit on their hands.

There is a version that might be of interest. The second axis of optimization might be randomly selected from a list. This would lead to a different character or city development for starting the next stage, where again, the second axis is randomly selected. Path dependence? More replayable?

I was voicing support for the idea of progress being represented by different currencies, not just a single currency that inflates to numbers that require scientific notation.

J1M wrote: ↑ May 5th, 2025, 15:03

NotAI wrote: ↑ May 5th, 2025, 14:34

...

I was voicing support for the idea of progress being represented by different currencies, not just a single currency that inflates to numbers that require scientific notation.

I was thinking both originally might be needed. So growth in A, B, C, D, units, not just a single axis E, but still growth to astronomical scales.

Some people really do have an infatuation with those large numbers, though I don't.

Comment. I need to test both cases, in the end. It's a different genre with some existing conventions.

When many different axes and all of them possibly going very large, there is room for them to drop off in growth as a function of current value differently, without it being sudden, and quests can then be ways not just to grow an axis, but also to convert between at least two.

Instead of directly, or through trainers, you build your character by quests that convert at some rate some A into some B but different quests you find do so at different rates, however, some have different prerequisites.

The axes along which you have had high progress however are random over time and the average over the whole game comes out the same.

Like being a mage is harder at first but easier at the end, but being a warrior easier at first but later harder.

Doing the quest of type X when A is higher than B but both high enough, converts most of A at rate 0.85 to B, while if B and D sufficiently high, but D is higher, doing quest of type Y, converts much of D at rate 0.65 to B.

Eventually strategy appears like going in a different loop gives a flux, like in usual physics. Some loops are better overall, and must be found.

If you get high enough B, you can do quest of type Z, if you find it, to convert at 0.75 back to A. Then quest Z of type Z no longer accessible for while. But there is a rapid drop-off in being able to grow A directly.

This might be for a mage playthrough. Different order of things for a warrior. Likewise for an archer.

This encourages RPG elements to come to the forefront?

Different quests might also be in different biomes, so different type characters have incentives to visit them at different times.

In some sense, a potential balancing nightmare, but I may try automated testing with graphics in retro.

How to make an idle game replayable? In other words, was it ever 'fun' or was it just 'novel'?

NotAI wrote: ↑ May 8th, 2025, 08:39

I'll make a clicker game with Barbie Dressing progression.

Your PC gains power by wearing multiple layers of items.

But you have to click on each item a lot otherwise it disappears.

Equip ancient helmet of war, gloves of power, cuirass of the kraken, leggings of el salvador, boots of swift speed, greaves of the dragon.
Then brilliant dress shirt and magical kilt.
Then camelhair +5 charisma fur coat.
Then paper bag on head. (No eye slits, -10 awareness.)
Each requires 500,5000,50000 clicks per hour, except the greaves, which requite 1000000. Otherwise it goes poof in the listed number of hours and you have to find another. No, you fool, you can't repair.

Game of the year?

After the latest upgrade WoW received, this is meant to be.

Moving this here. Will ruminate on this too: it can be made procedural in a few days, after I'm free next week, and just focus on handcrafted jokes only to shove inside.

Steam Page:

A game about a world where people's pants disappear. if you, the Holy One, don't constantly click on their gear.
This applies equally to everyone, including NPCs, because the Laws of Nature are fair.

By the end of the game, if you don't click on NPCs also, they all end up with nothing on, and effectively lvl 1, even though they might start at lvl 500 courtesy of their armor.