Idle games, also known as incremental games or clicker games, are games that continue to progress without any input from the user. At the end of this, we’ve posted a video on how to design, validate, and balance an idle game in Machinations. In this article, we’ll be breaking down exactly what an idle game is and what constitutes the basic building blocks of its game design. The idea of a game that essentially plays itself might not sound like the most entertaining thing, but since its inception in 2016, the idle game genre has grown hugely in popularity.
