Tag: idle
Grow a whole world from your spit, tears, and piss in this weird idle clicker game
I entered a sterile biodome with nothing but myself present and nothing to do but cry, spit, and piss. This is what science looks like. From these scant three verbs, you can create a whole world in The Barnacle Goose Experiment, combining substances to spontaneously generate whole other forms of matter, life, landscapes, and oddities. Made by Everest Pipkin, it’s part idle game, part clicker, and wholly fascinating. Best of all, you can play for free in your browser.
Garden Galaxy is a relaxing idle sandbox filled with pots and plants
In Garden Galaxy, you arrange randomly delivered pots, plants, furniture and ornaments into your own happy little scene. I spent a contented evening with it a few weeks ago, fussing over the shape of my water feature and the angle of my gnome.
If you like tinkering and tidying, I think you’d like it too, and this week it has received a major new update with lots more items to play with.
Why real-time idle adventure games have “radical potential”
“At some point,” says Joel Jordan, “Animal Crossing poses the question to you with alarming force: how do you want to spend your time?”
Allow me to open with the scoundrel’s refuge that is a seemingly weighty dichotomy: I reckon there’s two really special types of indie games. Those that work wonderfully despite their smaller scope, and those that work wonderfully because of it. It’s that second kind – the particular and peculiar voyages into the miniature and mundane – that really spin wonders. Games like Unpacking, PowerWash Simulator, and Dinkum. Games humble enough in scope, and curious enough in outlook, to be uniquely capable of framing everyday experiences so that their inner oddness and strange magic – unfairly dulled by familiarity – shines.
So, when Jordon – solo dev on the upcoming Time Bandit – brings up the question: how do you want to spend your time? I’m left pondering it for far longer than I think I otherwise would, thinking about it in context. The obvious answer here is: playing an videogame, please. But Time Bandit’s free demo doesn’t take long to make me almost uncomfortably aware that there’s more than one way to play something. I don’t even need to be anywhere near the PC. I might actually be playing it more when I’m not [X-Files music, but also I’m going somewhere with this].
The best clicker games and idle games on PC in 2022
What are the best clicker games and idle games in 2022? There are some interesting connotations that come along with clicker games. Also known as ‘incremental’ or ‘idle’ games, the name betrays certain expectations: click your mouse, get a tiny reward, and repeat until you can make the process more efficient and lucrative like a lab rat pulling away at levers until it gets a tasty food pellet.
In most cases, there’s a snowball effect that accompanies your progress that makes your clicks more productive, hence the “incremental” moniker. There are also many games that operate automatically even when you’re not playing, which justifies the “idle” nickname. Clicker games manage to distil high-complexity concepts down into a series of single clicks and automation. It’s an interesting concept that is ripe for study, and really makes you think about what makes a game, a game.
RELATED LINKS: Best browser games, Best clicker games, Best management games