The best idle games

Key recommendations

• The best idle games offer unique mechanics for engaging gameplay.
• The genre offers varied settings such as fantasy kingdoms, communist dictatorships, and D&D adventures.
• Creative titles like SPACEPLAN and Universal Paperclips offer unique narratives and challenges.

Starting on mobile, the idle game genre has exploded, with plenty of worthwhile additions to the formula. Although simplistic, the best games out there bring something new to the table, with reset perks, unique mechanics, and satisfying “numbers grow” gameplay. Idle games aren't for everyone, but for fans of the genre, any new classic is a great find, while most can be predictable and samey. Whether the setting is a tyrannical rule, a fantasy adventure, a futuristic satire, or a surreal bakery, there's an idle game for everyone.

These examples are some of the best idle games of all time for fans to sink their teeth into while they wait for the next classic to come out.

1 The grind of the land

Management of the Kingdom

• Release: June 15, 2017
• platform: PC, Browser, Mobile
• Developer: Divine Games

Starting with a plot of land and a farm, The grind of the land offers players the chance to become the rulers of their own kingdoms. Fans will build infrastructure and buy upgrades until they have a chance to claim faction coins that will allow them to align with different fantasy races.

With choices that will determine whether the player is good or bad, trophies that will each grant slow bonuses, and a multitude of artifacts that must be excavated to be discovered, The grind of the land hides a lot of content behind its initially small facade. Building a kingdom that matches the special abilities granted by the player's loyalty and trying to complete a collection of fossils and antiquities, there's plenty here for players to get lost in.

2 Communist adventure

Satirical dictatorship

• Release: August 10, 2016
• platform: PC, iOS, Android
• Developer: Hyper Hippo Games

Starting again in a wide open field with a farm, but in a very different setting, Communist adventure tasks fans of the idle game genre with ruling a struggling country in the grip of a laughable communist dictatorship. First using potatoes as currency, the player will then begin to claim land, build a military force, develop medicine, and build their country.

However, each step forward requires sacrificing some of the previous upgrades, which makes for a satirical counterpoint The venture capitalist this also makes it a very unique idle game. To build an army, players will have to forgo land and medicine, managing each resource carefully to progress in a sustainable way.

3 Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

Dungeons & Dragons Clickathon

• Release: March 25, 2020
• platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, Android
• Developer: Codename Entertainment Inc.

Bringing the idle game loop into his world D&D, Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms sees players choose a team of fighters with a wide range of races, classes and backgrounds and face them against waves of classic enemies. Each adventure has additional challenges that can be added, and as players progress, they can collect better gear for each champion and even unlock others from the popular online. D&D games like Size 20 and Critical role.

Unlike many other idle games, Idle champions it gives fans a story to progress through dialogue and can be challenging with boss fights and extra complications. Definitely one of the most inventive idle games out there and a must play for TTRPG fans.

4 Universal staples

Web-based work robots

• Release: October 9, 2017
• platform: PC, iOS, Android
• Developer: Frank Lantz

Universal staples is perhaps the most creative version of idle game social commentary and has been wildly successful, remaining accessible to as many players as want to take part in the paperclip adventure. By starting a paperclip factory, cutting wire into paperclips, and deciding on the price, players can quickly automate the process and begin trading paperclips to people on Earth.

The game came from a thought experiment and tries to put players in the position of a learning AI and can be completed by converting all matter in the universe into paper clips. At that point, players can travel to a neighboring universe or create a simulation in their own universe to start over to make more clips. Although endless, the ideas the game presents and the narrative spiral are clear.

5 Cookie Clicker

Classic bakery

• Release: August 8, 2013
• platform: PC, Android
• Developer: DashNet

A humble bakery that starts with a click of a giant cake with a few grandparents hard at work at their ovens becomes a demonic cult obsessed with sweets and milk. Cookie Clicker it is most players' first interaction with the idle game genre where they will be spoiled by the huge amount of content.

Floating golden cookies can be clicked for bonuses, and plenty of upgrades are available with each run, as well as a divine tree of shiny upgrades after each universe reset. Cookie Clicker it's the gold standard for every clicker to aspire to: almost every upgradable cookie source has a minigame to increase production, and the game has infinite replayability.

6 Kittens game

The management of civilization

• Release: 2014
• platform: PC
• Developer: bloody

Kittens game is a text-based idle that can be a bit more involved than some of the other idles on this list. Players must lead a society of kittens through the seasons, making sure they have enough catnip to keep from dying. The cats start building fields to harvest, then huts to live in, and start working the land as farmers, miners, lumberjacks, and scientists.

Establishing ideological principles and progressing toward miraculous leaps in science are part of the joy of discovery that comes with Kittens game. While players will have to keep the gameplay in mind, it still works as a nice idle clicker with enough bells and whistles to set it apart from the herd.

7 SPACE PLAN

Potato-fueled sci-fi

• Release: May 3, 2017
• platform: Android, iOS, PC
• Developer: Jake Hollands

By far the most interesting, curious and impressive idle game, SPACE PLAN drops the player into a vast and lonely solar system, where they float in orbit around a deserted planet, where their only source of energy is small bursts of solar energy through damaged solar panels and small potato batteries that fans will install while harvesting energy and data from the planet below.

The simulated view given by the ship to the player makes the scale of the adventure apparent. By the end of the story, the planet will be covered in probes made of potatoes, with the sky full of orbiting stations that will beam power to the hapless explorer. With a sense of humor, constant subversion of expectations and a story that begs for a sequel, SPACE PLAN well worth any fan's time.