I don't know if it counts as an idle game anymore since you actually play it and all of these other idle games have evolved to be something you now play for days or weeks or months at a time. But the original is a browser game called Universal Paperclips and I still argue that it is one of the very very best of them, primarily because it has a very obvious political message about capitalism.
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
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That's definitely not the original idle game. Progress Quest was released in 2002, Cookie Clicker I think was the first game to explode the browser based formula in 2013. Universal Paperclips was just one of the first to make the incremental mechanic work to tell a story, instead of telling a story alongside the idle game.
I gotta read the comments before posting lol, you recommended the same game I did
It's fine I do the same thing all the time
Love it
If you can dig up an ancient copy of Cliche Quest, you'll be set.
Cookie Clicker is the idle game everyone knows about for a reason.
I like antimatter dimensions. Number go up => Neuron activation
I too like number go up
It helps me cope with the fact that none of my lines go up IRL.
Personally, I have been hooked on Kittens Game. Now, fair warning, it does contain a modicum of anticommunism, in the way you can research the cultural tech 'socialism' with the description "does nothing". That's it.
Now as for the game, you develop a civilization of kittens, keep them fed and they gather resources. You spend resources to gather and store more resources to reinvest into science and culture production. Then you start getting workshops, steam engines to auto-craft advanced materials, synergizing buildings, power management, foreign relations, trading, discovering new civilizations, extracting oil and uranium, happiness management, pollution levels, space exploration, praising the sun, sacrificing unicorns, and more that I have to reach after many many hours of clicking buttons.
Realm Grinder I think is the best idle game of all time (and I've played through all the major ones like Cookie Clicker, Antimatter Dimensions, Clicker Heroes, A Dark Room, and probably some others I'm forgetting) but it is a multi-month long game and I don't recommend it without an autoclicker to speed up the buying buildings process.
Idle Slayer has held my attention for a few years now. It’s cross-save and free on steam. It’s got interesting progression and non-predatory micro transactions. Although, I would say it might be a bit too active for what you’re looking for. Might be worth a try though.
Melvor Idle seems cool but I haven’t put much time into it. It’s made by jaggex and it’s essentially idle runescape except it’s all done in numbers and progress bars. I.e. you set ur guy to train fishing and they just fish, gathering materials and xp until you come back and set it to some other task.
If Melvor is “idle runescape,” then ‘Idle MMO’ is “idle maplestory.” I played idle mmo for a bit but it’s definitely a lot more attention demanding than anything else I’ve mentioned here so it’s probably not what you’re looking for.
Of course you can’t go wrong with any of the basic cookie clicker-types like AdVenture Capitalist, Egg inc, etc. Although if you’re looking to only play on pc I would suggest you just go for the OG cookie clicker.
I wouldn't super recommend AdVenture Capitalist because it does reach a point where the progress slows down tremendously if you don't go for the P2W mechanics.
good point I haven’t played that one since it was on miniclip
Melvor base game is pretty good, and the first two expansions are okay but start requiring active intervention in combat. The third expansion drags the pacing to a crawl to make it last longer and made me quit.
Trimps is a pretty long game that gets increasingly complex minigames as you go on. It's also very idle for the most part once you get going until you need to reconfigure your newest idle minigame. Took me months to hit endgame.
I've also heard good things about Evolve Idle but I never really got too far into it as it felt that it frontloaded too much complexity once you got to your first prestige.
Universal Paperclips was a wild idle clicker game. You play as an AI whose job it is to make paperclips. This game takes this premise to a very interesting extreme. Graphically, the game looks like a spreadsheet, but it was weirdly engaging.
So there's, I wanna say there's like 6, major categories?
- Games where you run a civilisationa that slowly develops. Kittens game is stand out here.
- Games where you repeatedly "prestige" and play the game in various ways to progress. Antimatter dimensions stands out here.
- Games where you have to fight through various levels to get something. Trimps and swarm sim are both great here. Swarm Sim has a unique breeding mechanic.
- Narrative driven games. A dark room and universal paperclips are great examples.
- puzzle placement games like idle reactor.
- clickers, cookie clicker being the original. R realm grinder being the best.
Kittens Game held my attention for a few months, can recommend
I "played" Melvor Idle for a loooooong time, it satisfied the number go up impulse very well
My current one is Unnamed Space Idle, it is my favorite so far
FarmRPG
Warning: will steal your life if you're not careful
shoutout (the) Gnorp Apologue
one of, it not the only, idle-roguelike out there
also the longer it goes the more colours are on screen the prettier it gets which is 
It really isn't part of the idle game genre, but it's perfect to turn your brain off to and can be played completely with a mouse: The Sims. It's not great, obviously, has a shitton of issues, and I get if it doesn't meet your criteria. But it does not require you to get extremely involved, has a lot of customization options (the older versions especially), and you can pretty much let it run by itself. To me, at least, it's perfect for when you listen to podcasts or audiobooks and need to keep the hands & eyes busy. Maybe that'll do for your purposes.
Cell to singularity is fun