Standing Idly By

Time for another game recommendation, because I’m sure I’m a huge influencer in this regard.

Have you heard of idle games? AKA incremental/clickers games? They’re games that you play for a bit to set things up, then leave idle to rack up points or whatever that you then spend to… earn more efficiently. Look, it’s more fun than it sounds.

A month or so ago I found a game called Idle Evolution, which is actually less about evolution and more about collecting atoms, which you can use for a variety of purposes, one of which is making compounds that somehow advance evolution on a planet. Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense scientifically. But still, I had fun with it. I haven’t played anything like it before and it appeals to the chemistry nerd in me.

There are actually two versions of the game, one on Newgrounds, which is basically a beta/scaled down version of the paid (four dollars) Steam version. The Steam one is obviously better as it has added mini-games to make the waiting less boring, and also it’s much, much faster in terms of getting through the game. It takes like fifteen hours of gameplay to get through it in Steam; I haven’t actually finished the browser version because as you progress further it gets sooooo sloooooow. Basically it’s what you want to play if you want to see if you’ll like the full version.

It has some flaws, like things taking forever sometimes and the translation—the creator doesn’t speak English and it shows in places. But it’s worth the four bucks it costs and I love that you’re unlocking a periodic table piece by piece. I hear there’s a sequel as well, but it’s not on Steam unfortunately so I can’t check it out. Oh well.

You played any fun games lately? What do you do when you want to waste time?