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I've played a lot of idle games, and I think there's a spectrum from dumb to managerial. For example, Factorio (especially in peaceful mode) almost certainly q

I've played a lot of idle games, and I think there's a spectrum from dumb to managerial. 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). But no one here will ever say Factorio is a "Bad" game. -------------- On the other end, I'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. Ultimately, a good clicker-game / 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's "Rocket-per-minute" bases, or doing 500 quadrillion damage-per-second in Clicker Heroes. Its all just numbers going up. -------- That being said: Universal Paperclips is probably the best clicker-game I've ever played and I highly recommend that one. https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/ 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've never played it before / are going guideless.

thomastjeffery 5y ago
Factorio absolutely isn't an idle game. What defines an idle game is that progression is achieved from time passing instead of from player action. For example, cookie clicker is an idle game because you progress by waiting for your count to reach a certain number before you can progress. You can make that happen sooner by buying more buildings, which makes your production increase exponentially, but growth is given a hard limit by exponentially increasing building prices. Because growth and cost of growth over time follow the same order, we can simplify the equation to "progress = time". Factorio, on the other hand, bases progression on growth instead of time. Each step along the tech tree requires a certain amount of production growth, which can be increased exponentially against linear time. Because of this, time can be minimized by putting more player action into growth. The easiest way to see this difference is to note that Factorio can be speedrun in ~1:30, requiring players to be constantly acting to grow their factory. Cookie clicker can essentially be run at it's minimum amount of time by sitting idle and picking the correct upgrades at the right time.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > What defines an idle game is that progression is achieved from time passing instead of from player action. Universal Paperclips makes it impossible to progress beyond any stage without player action, because the rules change so dramatically between stages. Universal Paperclips is widely considered to be one of the "Best" idle games ever made, and for good reason IMO. Its a free Javascript game and I think you should try it. I estimate ~10 hours to 15 hours for a new player, but an advanced player can finish probably under 2-hours. In any case, cookie-clicker is very mundane compared to the (better) idle-games / more critically-renowned idle games that are out there. > The easiest way to see this difference is to note that Factorio can be speedrun in ~1:30, requiring players to be constantly acting to grow their factory. Indeed, and I can speed-run Universal Paperclips too. ----- In any case, watch those speedruns at the tail-end, once the mines are set up and maximized, there's nothing to do but wait ~8-minutes for the rocket to get launched. You'll see the speed runners start building dumb inventions (circular belts and running in circles), or playing with cars / tanks at this point, rather than working. That's the idle-component of Factorio. Much like Universal Paperclips, Factorio has both elements of "waiting" for your factory to finish doing things, as well as a management-element where you need to manually perform a tedious task (ie: click on the "make paperclip" button in Universal Paperclips, or right click-and-hold to chop down a tree in Factorio before you can make an electric pole).
  - thomastjeffery 5y ago
    You can't progress without user interaction, sure, but you also can't progress without idling. Factorio, on the other hand, is always a little user interaction away from progress, and waiting both doesn't progress you and isn't necessary. Sure, idling is an option, but it doesn't get you progress.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      Once you've built all the belts to carry iron to your furnaces, the plates to your circuit assemblies, the circuits to your Adv. Circuits, your Adv. Circuits to processing units, and processing units into speed-modules, and speed modules into Rocket Control Units... There's nothing to do but wait for your machination to launch the rocket. ------- Now its a game to set all of that up. But its also a game to reach space exploration in Universal Paperclips to build your universe-wide paperclip factory. There's a lot of intricate steps you need to do to go from a humble "click this button to make paperclip" into conquering the universe. Have you tried speed-running Universal Paperclips? EDIT: The core loop is IMO, surprisingly close to Factorio. In Factorio, you mine iron to make plates, you use plates to make assembly machines. Assembly machines can then make new miners, and then you can place the miners to make more iron and accelerate yourself. In universal paperclips, you click the "buy wire" button to get wires. You click the paperclip button to make a paperclip. You sell the paperclip to get money. The money can be used to buy more wires, and auto-cutters. The auto-cutters make more paperclips allowing you to buy more wire / auto-cutters / sell more paperclips. In both cases, the game "closes the loop", your inputs become outputs, and the outputs feed back in to accelerate the speed at which you consume inputs. --------- In theory, you can launch the rocket in Factorio by right-clicking on the mine and doing nearly everything manually. (There's a few exceptions: engines and oil can only be done by machines... but the point remains that you can do a significant portion of the game "dumbly") Similarly, you can theoretically conquer the universe by clicking on enough wires in Universal paperclips. (Not really because the numbers are so big that you'd never get there. But it could happen). But any decent "speedrunner" will optimize for the best route: which items to buy in which order to maximize the rate of return and accelerate towards the endgame.
DizzyDoo 5y ago
I guess Factorio is an idle game as much as Age of Empires, Sim City or Roller Coaster Tycoon is? That is to say, not really very much at all. Sure, when I go and make a cup of tea the simulation keeps on churning, and some numbers continue to go up. But I'm not playing for those numbers, I'm playing to make my city/civ/themepark/automated factory. I'd never describe that as me 'playing' those games, I'd describe that is 'downtime'.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > I'm playing to make my city/civ/themepark/automated factory. And I'm just playing to improve my team composition in Clicker Heroes. They're all management games from my perspective. Some are better than others. I've personally have played a lot of older, text-based management games as well, and the idle game-loop has similarities to the text-based games IMO, where things are a bit more abstract. -------- Like, we all had Tamagotchi / Digimon / Pokemon Pikachu growing up, right? Those were idle games for sure, with some clicker-elements even.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > They're all management games from my perspective That's too broad a perspective in my opinion. From a far enough distance, CounterStrike is also a management game, as is StarCraft and even Street Fighter II. Are they idle games?
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      "A Dark Room", "Universal Paperclips", and "Clicker Heroes" are all clicker/idle games. But you'd be hard pressed to find any shared mechanic if you've actually tried all three. I guess you move your mouse to click on a button sometimes, but all three games obsolete actual physical clicking pretty quickly. ------- The biggest thing about idle games is that the "state" of the game changes while you're not playing. But so does Animal Crossing and MMORPGs. And "Universal Paperclips" is actually only going while you're sitting at the computer, no "away" element in that game at all. So even that rule isn't perfect.
the_af 5y ago
I think calling Factorio an idle game is really stretching the definition. There are some gray areas, of course, and no definition of videogames -- or anything, really -- has a clear-cut demarcation, but really... Factorio is an RTS/programming game. You could call it an automation/programming game disguised as an RTS. It requires thinking and adjusting, designing layouts, refactoring. It's really not what you think of when you think idle games. Really, that's the best way of thinking about it: if someone says "hey, recommend me an idle game, I've finished Cow Clicker and I'm ready for the next step", would you feel comfortable recommending Factorio?

thomastjeffery 5y ago

Factorio absolutely isn't an idle game. What defines an idle game is that progression is achieved from time passing instead of from player action. For example, cookie clicker is an idle game because you progress by waiting for your count to reach a certain number before you can progress. You can make that happen sooner by buying more buildings, which makes your production increase exponentially, but growth is given a hard limit by exponentially increasing building prices. Because growth and cost of growth over time follow the same order, we can simplify the equation to "progress = time". Factorio, on the other hand, bases progression on growth instead of time. Each step along the tech tree requires a certain amount of production growth, which can be increased exponentially against linear time. Because of this, time can be minimized by putting more player action into growth. The easiest way to see this difference is to note that Factorio can be speedrun in ~1:30, requiring players to be constantly acting to grow their factory. Cookie clicker can essentially be run at it's minimum amount of time by sitting idle and picking the correct upgrades at the right time.

dragontamer 5y ago
> What defines an idle game is that progression is achieved from time passing instead of from player action. Universal Paperclips makes it impossible to progress beyond any stage without player action, because the rules change so dramatically between stages. Universal Paperclips is widely considered to be one of the "Best" idle games ever made, and for good reason IMO. Its a free Javascript game and I think you should try it. I estimate ~10 hours to 15 hours for a new player, but an advanced player can finish probably under 2-hours. In any case, cookie-clicker is very mundane compared to the (better) idle-games / more critically-renowned idle games that are out there. > The easiest way to see this difference is to note that Factorio can be speedrun in ~1:30, requiring players to be constantly acting to grow their factory. Indeed, and I can speed-run Universal Paperclips too. ----- In any case, watch those speedruns at the tail-end, once the mines are set up and maximized, there's nothing to do but wait ~8-minutes for the rocket to get launched. You'll see the speed runners start building dumb inventions (circular belts and running in circles), or playing with cars / tanks at this point, rather than working. That's the idle-component of Factorio. Much like Universal Paperclips, Factorio has both elements of "waiting" for your factory to finish doing things, as well as a management-element where you need to manually perform a tedious task (ie: click on the "make paperclip" button in Universal Paperclips, or right click-and-hold to chop down a tree in Factorio before you can make an electric pole).
- thomastjeffery 5y ago
  You can't progress without user interaction, sure, but you also can't progress without idling. Factorio, on the other hand, is always a little user interaction away from progress, and waiting both doesn't progress you and isn't necessary. Sure, idling is an option, but it doesn't get you progress.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Once you've built all the belts to carry iron to your furnaces, the plates to your circuit assemblies, the circuits to your Adv. Circuits, your Adv. Circuits to processing units, and processing units into speed-modules, and speed modules into Rocket Control Units... There's nothing to do but wait for your machination to launch the rocket. ------- Now its a game to set all of that up. But its also a game to reach space exploration in Universal Paperclips to build your universe-wide paperclip factory. There's a lot of intricate steps you need to do to go from a humble "click this button to make paperclip" into conquering the universe. Have you tried speed-running Universal Paperclips? EDIT: The core loop is IMO, surprisingly close to Factorio. In Factorio, you mine iron to make plates, you use plates to make assembly machines. Assembly machines can then make new miners, and then you can place the miners to make more iron and accelerate yourself. In universal paperclips, you click the "buy wire" button to get wires. You click the paperclip button to make a paperclip. You sell the paperclip to get money. The money can be used to buy more wires, and auto-cutters. The auto-cutters make more paperclips allowing you to buy more wire / auto-cutters / sell more paperclips. In both cases, the game "closes the loop", your inputs become outputs, and the outputs feed back in to accelerate the speed at which you consume inputs. --------- In theory, you can launch the rocket in Factorio by right-clicking on the mine and doing nearly everything manually. (There's a few exceptions: engines and oil can only be done by machines... but the point remains that you can do a significant portion of the game "dumbly") Similarly, you can theoretically conquer the universe by clicking on enough wires in Universal paperclips. (Not really because the numbers are so big that you'd never get there. But it could happen). But any decent "speedrunner" will optimize for the best route: which items to buy in which order to maximize the rate of return and accelerate towards the endgame.

DizzyDoo 5y ago

I guess Factorio is an idle game as much as Age of Empires, Sim City or Roller Coaster Tycoon is? That is to say, not really very much at all. Sure, when I go and make a cup of tea the simulation keeps on churning, and some numbers continue to go up. But I'm not playing for those numbers, I'm playing to make my city/civ/themepark/automated factory. I'd never describe that as me 'playing' those games, I'd describe that is 'downtime'.

dragontamer 5y ago
> I'm playing to make my city/civ/themepark/automated factory. And I'm just playing to improve my team composition in Clicker Heroes. They're all management games from my perspective. Some are better than others. I've personally have played a lot of older, text-based management games as well, and the idle game-loop has similarities to the text-based games IMO, where things are a bit more abstract. -------- Like, we all had Tamagotchi / Digimon / Pokemon Pikachu growing up, right? Those were idle games for sure, with some clicker-elements even.
- the_af 5y ago
  > They're all management games from my perspective That's too broad a perspective in my opinion. From a far enough distance, CounterStrike is also a management game, as is StarCraft and even Street Fighter II. Are they idle games?
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    "A Dark Room", "Universal Paperclips", and "Clicker Heroes" are all clicker/idle games. But you'd be hard pressed to find any shared mechanic if you've actually tried all three. I guess you move your mouse to click on a button sometimes, but all three games obsolete actual physical clicking pretty quickly. ------- The biggest thing about idle games is that the "state" of the game changes while you're not playing. But so does Animal Crossing and MMORPGs. And "Universal Paperclips" is actually only going while you're sitting at the computer, no "away" element in that game at all. So even that rule isn't perfect.

the_af 5y ago

I think calling Factorio an idle game is really stretching the definition. There are some gray areas, of course, and no definition of videogames -- or anything, really -- has a clear-cut demarcation, but really... Factorio is an RTS/programming game. You could call it an automation/programming game disguised as an RTS. It requires thinking and adjusting, designing layouts, refactoring. It's really not what you think of when you think idle games. Really, that's the best way of thinking about it: if someone says "hey, recommend me an idle game, I've finished Cow Clicker and I'm ready for the next step", would you feel comfortable recommending Factorio?