#walderp

obvs the biggest one when you think about idle games is cookie clicker, probbably the widest known idle game around, you click the cookie. i dont have much to say to summarize the game besides that. but where cookie clicker and other idle games fail is that there really isnt anything but that one mechanism for making the number go up, some have two or three; universal paperclips has like ten over the course of the game i think

and i realize how dumb of a complaint this is for idle games “oh they dont have enough gameplay” but there are definitely ways to push a game past doing the one thing forever

the game that this is all leading up to is called NGU Idle, it stands for number go up idle, it deconstructs idle games to the very core, basic menus, ms paint art, no sounds at all, just a bunch of numbers, and a bunch of ways to make them go up. its filled with jokes, often making fun of the game itself, it does not take itself seriously at all

but because of that, its without a doubt the best idle game ive ever played

i have tried to quit a few times, but i cannot find another mind numbing game that lives up to the expansive gameplay of NGU. as silly as it is, it triumphs in variety and simplicity

if you visit it’s kongregate page, you can find people in the chat window who have been playing it for years and haven’t finished the game yet, thats fuckin ridiculous. you make progress while offline, so they literally have years of progress towards it

the entire game was only made by two people i think, and one dude was just doing the art, the other person named somethingggg or 4g for short, made up like 25ish features that you unlock while playing, all of which are completely unique in how you improve them, the amount of creativity it takes for something like that is amazing

while its hard to call an ms paint idle game artsy, i think that this massive, genre deconstructing, time consuming, endlessly creative game still deserves that moniker

this game tears idle games down to the absolute basics, remixing its single mechanic, numbers going up, for literal years of content

its very existence is almost an insult to the finely crafted, detailed graphics of other idle games like spaceplan and cookie clicker, 

like look at the art for spaceplan, thats beautiful, simple red soil, font expertly chosen, mountains decorate the background, slightly blued by the atmosphere

then you have this

this is the boss art for ‘walderp’

like obviously this took effort, but its just in the complete opposite direction of the minimalist, soothing style that so many other games in the genre strive for