Feel free to list your favorite below if its not one of these four, but I've been on an idle game kick and have been replaying a bunch of older ones that I would play on and off at work.
What I always liked about them is how they gradually open up to something bigger and more interesting, but the systems still work with the baseline structure, where its making paperclips or building a village.
First you have Cookie Clicker, which goes from baking cookies, to rounding up grandmas, to collecting cookies from the past, to creating cookies out of thin air. But the grandmas are always there, and the grandmas are always watching.
Then Universal Paperclips, where you take your paperclip factory from the bottom to the top, eventually playing the stock market, studying business strategies with Yomi, launching probes to gather more materials for paperclips, to all-out probe warfare.
Where there's war, there's honor, and battles worthy of song:
(The song that plays when you first invest in these laments)
Candy Box has you slowly collecting candies (and lollipops) and eating them, which raises an HP meter. Which you're gonna need when you take up arms and go on an epic quest to save a kingdom from a Dragon. Along the way you brew potions, start up a lollipop farm, and defeat many monsters.
Finally, A Dark Room has you alone and cold in the dark. You start a fire to heat up, and eventually someone joins you to warm up by the fire. While you keep the fire going by harvesting wood, slowly more and more people arrive, and you slowly start to build a community, trade materials with a caravan, and craft various items you'll need to explore an open world full of mysteries.
What I always liked about them is how they gradually open up to something bigger and more interesting, but the systems still work with the baseline structure, where its making paperclips or building a village.
First you have Cookie Clicker, which goes from baking cookies, to rounding up grandmas, to collecting cookies from the past, to creating cookies out of thin air. But the grandmas are always there, and the grandmas are always watching.
Then Universal Paperclips, where you take your paperclip factory from the bottom to the top, eventually playing the stock market, studying business strategies with Yomi, launching probes to gather more materials for paperclips, to all-out probe warfare.
Where there's war, there's honor, and battles worthy of song:
(The song that plays when you first invest in these laments)
Candy Box has you slowly collecting candies (and lollipops) and eating them, which raises an HP meter. Which you're gonna need when you take up arms and go on an epic quest to save a kingdom from a Dragon. Along the way you brew potions, start up a lollipop farm, and defeat many monsters.
Finally, A Dark Room has you alone and cold in the dark. You start a fire to heat up, and eventually someone joins you to warm up by the fire. While you keep the fire going by harvesting wood, slowly more and more people arrive, and you slowly start to build a community, trade materials with a caravan, and craft various items you'll need to explore an open world full of mysteries.
