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Did you know idle games have been stirring up the gaming community recently? With easy gameplay and the ability to grow while you’re away, it’s the game for everyone! If you enjoy idle games (or upgrade/incremental games), let’s take a look at our 22 best idle games!
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What is an Idle Game?
As its name, an idle game is a game where you can sit there and do nothing other than watch the game plays itself. If the game involves numbers, the numbers will constantly grow over time. Or if the game requires you to combat and farm certain items, it can complete that task too!
In general, you rarely do anything! But how does that make idle games interesting? Most idle games come up with a great system called “The Progression”. It’s where you can purchase upgrades using the game currency to progress faster. And the loop continues!
There are also challenges, achievements, goals, levels, luckiness, and a lot of other criteria to decide if a game is a good idle game or not. Without further ado, let’s look at our list of the best idle games in 2024.
Top 22 Best Idle Games in 2024
#22 Learn to Fly Idle
Learn to Fly idle is a game based on the main franchise of the Learn to Fly game series, where things happen around a penguin trying to fly.
In this game, you will play as a baby penguin who tries to shoot his cannon to destroy several objects. By doing so, you will earn money and use it to buy 4 main upgrades which are Launching Power, Base Damage, Max Shots, and Auto-Fire.
Besides the upgrade, you can obtain the achievements to get more money or do research to make your life easier. The graphic of this game is not too fancy but really easy for the eyes.
#21 Absorber
Released in 2022 by DirkF17, Absorber is a unique idle game about the fantasy world, where you have to slay magical creatures and absorb them to steal their attributes.
Starting with only 10 health points, 1 damage, 1 regeneration, and 2500 attack speed, you will make your way through monsters like bats, slimes, evil spirits, snakes, vampires, boars, and even hydras.
The fun thing about this game is you can pick your own path. Which attribute do you want to absorb first? Or in another hand, which monster do you want to slay first?
Absorber has a fast pace and cool prestige system so it will take you quite a while to complete the game. Pick your own gameplay and let’s get started!
#20 Idle Skilling
Idle Skilling is a brand new idle game released in late 2022. With a lot of potentials, it’s a great idea to start playing this as soon as possible!
The game starts slowly at first where you need to train your attack, strength, and health by doing several activities. You can then use your power to combat for golds and cards.
With enough training, you can level up and unlock more skills like mining, fishing, crafting, and more!
The game is getting updated frequently so for now, you will never reach the end. Unless you play 24 hours a day!
#19 Idle Slayer
Developed and published by Pablo Leban, Idle Slayer brings you to a medieval world where you need to collect coins and constantly increase your CPS (coin per second). From here, you travel through different dimensions, slay all types of monsters, buy weapons, and ascend to get more powerful upgrades to defeat the darkness!
Idle Slayer is an idle game that combines both idle and active gameplay. The game possesses a pixel art style with 8-bit sound and music. It also has over 580+ achievements and 28 supported languages, making it accessible to players worldwide.
#18 Grindcraft
Grindcraft is an idle clicker game inspired by Minecraft. Starting with nothing but a barehand, you have to punch wood, craft tools, build houses, and create a whole civilization in order to unlock new dimensions and defeat the dragon boss.
The game’s simple mechanics combine with pixelated graphics and music, creating a great experience for gamers who love both Minecraft and idle games. Later in the game, you can even hire workers to automate certain tasks for you. So, let’s mine, grind, and craft!
#17 Cell to Singularity: Evolution Never Ends
Do you love science? Or do you love to learn about the evolution of the Earth, including the human being and all other animals on this planet? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
Cell to Singularity is a simulation game where you play as a god and create entropy as your first step. Then you work on the very first cell on the Earth, then the coral, the fish, dinosaurs, animals, and so on!
Later on, you can get your hand on the technical stuff and go through several ages in human evolutionary history. Prehistoric, Stone, Medieval, Copper, Industrial age, and more are waiting for you!
Play Cell to Singularity: Evolution Never Ends
#16 Cookie Clicker
The first-ever and also one the most popular idle games in history, Cookie Clicker! Being released in late 2013, this is the game that put the first step in the gaming industry as an idle/clicker game.
The game rule is really simple! You click the cookie for cookies (well, that’s how it works), then you use the cookies to buy more stuff to generate even more cookies for you such as grandma, farm, mine, factory, bank, temple, wizard tower, and more!
This game has a great upgrade and achievement system so you can’t get bored soon. Let’s try some cookies, will you?
#15 AdVenture Capitalist
Fast, simple, and satisfying are the words for this game! Unlike most idle games, the beginning in AdVenture Capitalist is really simple.
You have a starting money, you use that to buy a start-up lemonade stand to produce money. Repeat this process and you will get rich! Later on, you can buy newspapers, sell pizzas, and donuts, and even have your own oil company!
What we like about this game are the numbers and the optimization. Everything looks super clean and fast! Besides the great upgrade and investors (prestige) feature, you can travel to different planets to make profits there!
#14 Crush Crush
Do you love dating games? What if we told you that there is a game that can combine both dating and idle aspects in it? Let’s see Crush Crush!
In Crush Crush, you can date up to 48 different girls with unique personalities and appearances. But before doing that, you have to learn skills and work hard to earn the money to get the gifts for the ladies.
Crush Crush has a unique system called “Time Block”. This is like your availability bar in real life, where you can only do certain actions at a time so plan your girls well before leaving your computer for a real date!
#13 Slurpy Derpy
Have you ever heard about a creature called “Derp”? Well, they exist on another planet though! And that’s what Slurpy Derpy is all about.
In this game, you breed the derps, have them researching, making cookies, and even fightings with other alien races.
Each derp has unique attributes including strength, agility, health points, and intelligence. And each action in the game completely depends on each attribute. For example, research requires intelligence while fighting requires strength and health points.
You will love the achievement and the offline time speed-up mechanic in Slurpy Derpy. So let’s breed you derps, nerds!
#12 Clicker Heroes
Another top-tier idle game with a strong history! Being developed in 2015, Clicker Heroes is a great game about the endless journey into the monster world.
Starting off with some money, you start slaying the monster by clicking on them to earn more money. Then buy heroes and their upgrades to increase your DPC and DPS (stand for Damage Per Click and Damage Per Second).
With enough hero levels, you can ascend and later on, transcend, which will unlock a lot of new features that can help you progress further into the game. Skills, relics, and mercenaries are the features you will want to pay attention to!
#11 Incremental Adventures
If you don’t like an idle game with fancy graphics, IA may be the game for you! With no custom graphics at all, you just simply play a text-based game.
In Incremental Adventures, you play as a manager of an adventure group made from the warrior, cleric, ranger, and paladin. Each class has a unique ability and attribute so choosing the right class will make your group stronger than ever!
After you’ve created your party, you just simply head for the dungeon to fight the monster. This will give you gold and experience to level up your party to make them more powerful. Gold is used to improve your troops as well as purchase quality-of-life features.
#10 Idle Wizard
Welcome to the medieval age, where wizards and spells are still a thing! In Idle Wizard, you can choose to play as many classes as the druid, demon, alchemist, arcanist, necromancer, prodigy, and a lot more!
Among the wizard classes, you can choose your pet. This can vary from a small pixie to a large pit lord. Each pet has its own appearance and ability which can boost your income a lot!
The gameplay of Idle Wizard is really simple! You click the orb for mana and use that to purchase upgrades and spells. Moreover, you can compete in challenges to get more powerful perks.
Achievements and Collectibles also help you a lot with your progression so keep an eye out for them. Let’s make some magic happen!
#9 The Perfect Tower 2
We have a fantasy, we have dating, and now, we have a tower defense game with an idle aspect in it. In this game, you upgrade your tower and survival as long as you can, easy as that!
After each defeat, you can use the currency you get from the enemies to purchase a lot of upgrades such as damage, speed, damage type, health points, regeneration, critical damage, and a lot more!
You can also choose the difficulty for each time you play. But remember the easier the game is, the fewer resources you will get. So no pain no gain!
#8 Firestone Idle RPG
With cartoonist graphics and easy gameplay, Firestone Idle RPG is a great idle game to play! Recruit heroes, fight monsters, and continue the journey to meet new heroes and upgrade them along the way.
You have the prestige system like other idle games, the pet where you can evolve it for more benefits, and a lot of research and achievement stuff for you to invest in. Which in the end, makes your party a lot stronger!
#7 Soda Dungeon 2
Following the success of Soda Dungeon 1, the new version of Soda Dungeon is coming out with new graphics, items, heroes, and even features!
The core gameplay still remains the same! You recruit a party of 6 members with different classes to your team, equip them with your best gear, and send them to the dungeon.
Over time, you can get more powerful equipment and gold to upgrade your people. Some items have special abilities to help you pass certain areas easier. Finally, the stage is randomized so don’t expect you will encounter the same monster every time!
Another great point about Soda Dungeon 2 is its music. All the soundtracks in the game are super ear-catching, especially in the later dungeons.
#6 Crusaders of the Lost Idols
Crusaders of The Lost Idols is a unique idle game where you can set up your party and send them on a dangerous adventure to complete the objective.
Each member can have several skills, which can boost their own damage or the others but with special requirements. For example, Sasha can boost the DPS of all members in the column behind her. So feel free to arrange your battle formation to create the best DPS party!
You can choose the mission and reach its objective for gold, special items, heroes, and even achievements. If any stage is too hard, you can always go back to the previous stage or mission to grind for more items. And that’s the fun part of the game, freely choose your path!
Play Crusaders of the Lost Idols
#5 Mr. Mine Idle
If you’re a fan of idle mining games, then Mr. Mine Idle is definitely the perfect game on the list you should try. Developed and published by Playsaurus, you will be managing a team of miners with the mission to dig deep into the Earth to get through various minerals, gems, and hidden secrets.
With a score of 92% from over 14,000+ different reviews, Mr. Mine was played 10+ million times by idle mining lovers across the world. The game also has 90+ achievements and quests for you to explore. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get into the mining journey, upgrade the drill, and dig deep!
#4 Anti-Idle: The Game
Wait, you’re supposed to look for an idle game, not an anti-idle game, right? But wait, that’s how this idle game is unique, just from its name!
To be honest, Anti-Idle: The Game is a partially idle game, where you gain most of your process by active actions such as clicking. By doing so, you gain EXP, level up, unlock a lot of awesome features, and climb to the top with 600+ achievements.
Some of the popular features in this game are the Button, the Garden, the Printer, the Stadium, Awesome Adventures, Your House, Rebirth, and more! If you want to look for an active idle game, try this one!
#3 Antimatter Dimensions
By far this is the most unique idle game on the list! Antimatter Dimensions brings you to the quantum world, where you produce the tiniest particle and make your way through tons of upgrades and transformations.
To start things off, you have some antimatters (which is the main currency in this game) to buy the dimensions. The first dimension produces antimatters whereas the second dimension produces the first dimension. And so on until you reach the 8th dimension for the Dimension Boost (soft-prestige) and Antimatter Galaxies (hard-prestige).
With each achievement unlocked, you gain a huge boost in your antimatters production. There are also challenges for you to complete to get more rewards.
Moreover, this is an idle game that has mods, which means you can expand the gameplay furthermore or even modify the speed of the game to make it easier or harder based on your choice. Cool enough? Let’s try it!
#2 NGU Idle
What a weird name for an idle game, right? NGU in NGU Idle stands for Number goes up, and that’s the core gameplay in this game! You make decisions, sit, and watch your numbers go up!
In NGU Idle, you have 3 main resources to work with, Energy, Magic, and the third resource which you can name whatever you like! To progress further into the game, you have to fight bosses and go on several adventures.
In order to do so, you have to invest your resources into different features of the game to gain more power. They’re Basic Training, Money Pit, Inventory, Augmentation, Advanced Training, Blood Magic, Time Machine, Wandoos, NGU, Yggdrasil, Gold Diggers, Bears of Power, Questing, Hack, and Wishes.
There are also achievements and challenges in this game, which will help you unlock a lot of features and quality-of-life upgrades. So what are you waiting for? Let’s make your numbers go up!
#1 Realm Grinder
Do you like to play as fantasy races like Elves, Fairy, Angel, Goblins, Demons, or Undead and conquer the world? Within Realm Grinder, you will grind for your own realm!
The main point of Realm Grinder is to go as far as you can, calculated by the amount of currency you have and the reincarnation (hard-prestige) count you made. To be specific, your goal is to get enough currency to abdicate (soft prestige). With enough abdication, you can reincarnate!
Each race in Realm Grinder has its own strengths and weaknesses. Later on, you can unlock even more races, upgrades, and research to make your progress faster! Achievements and challenges are indispensable since they play a huge role in RG.
Let’s start your realm! We’d recommend trying the Elven faction first to get faction coins faster!
That’s the top 20+ best idle games in, we hope you can find the game that suits your playstyle the most and start immersing yourself in it.
