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Why an Idle Game?
At its most basic level, an idle game provides a sense of continued accomplishment. The player does not need to interact with the game in order to make progress, which means they never feel like time away from the game is wasted. In a well-designed idle game, the use of trophies, badges, and achievements creates a clear sense of achievement, which is a common reward across nearly all video games.
This sense of accomplishment and skill can be enhanced by systems that allow the player to optimize the game before putting it into idle mode, making even downtime seem like a specific form of strategic play.
Game balance, difficulty, complexity, rewards, good idle vs. active mechanics, meaningful choices, and storylines will be deciding factors for the success, along with some of the key ones:
- suffIciently sophisticated game economy design
- easy and low barrier-to-entry, fun and simple game mechanics
- purchasable items to allow the player to accrue more in game tokens
- complex loop system that allows different ways to earn
- prioritizing retention over monetization
The player will be invested in the future of their own world. Idle games have the relaxed feel that nothing negative will happen to your creation if you're not there to tend to it constantly. Hence the ‘casual gaming’ effect. This genre seems perfectly tuned to provide a never-ending sense of escalation. Items that used to seem impossibly expensive or out of reach eventually become achievable and, before you know it, there is a new set of upgrades to aim for.
These were the key reasons motivating us to introduce the Metabarn and build out our roadmap.
Last modified 11mo ago