Sorry Cookie Clicker, Melvor Idle is Now My Gold Standard for Idle Games
Can I take a moment to convince you that this RuneScape inspired Idle game is worth your time?
I’ve taken nearly a five month break on my writing because I’ve been playing games with long run-times. In that time, my existing articles here on Medium have continued to circulate and I’ve got my first few email subscribers. I need to take this brief first paragraph to thank you all for your support! I’m hoping to write more soon, and I thank you all for your claps, reads, and email subscriptions. Seriously!
Anyway, my hiatus (due to playing longer games) has been unfortunate for my creative output and I’ve got a little rant about that for a few paragraphs, but if you just want the review, skip down to the Steam link embed block and read from there.
I have this mindset that I “can’t” or “shouldn’t” recommend a game until after I’ve rolled credits. A friend of mine calls it “game journalism brain rot”, which I think is pretty funny and a valid way to describe it. For me, I find that the minutia of what happens near the end of the game almost always impacts my overall opinion of gameplay systems and how they flow one into another.
Now I don’t always make it to the end of games I play, and because of my (possibly flawed) way of thinking there are some reviews I may never end up writing. Even in cases where I drop a game because it stops being interesting to me for one reason or another, I have a difficult time compelling myself to write why, and share that with the world. Which is odd because I myself think that kind of information can be turned into an important and informative review. Nevertheless, It’s a difficult to grasp concept for me.
I have similar issues with a related conundrum — how do I review a game in active development or as a live service? Or games that do not have an ending, or typical end credits? For example, I’ve been playing Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion for more than a year. Over the course of 4 (technically 5) seasons, that change the game every few months. Or the recently successful Helldivers 2, which I played and enjoyed oodles of at launch, but haven’t quite had the time for its myriad of premium battle passes since the last I spread a little democracy (not to mention the recent controversy). It seems in this mode of thought, there’s never a good time to review games, so my crippling executive dysfunction takes hold and I more have more often than not chose to be paralyzed and do nothing at all.
Tough being me I suppose… but I’d like to work on that, start to change how I think about my games writing. So, I’ll start that with this recommendation here, for Melvor Idle.
Melvor Idle on Steam
Inspired by RuneScape, Melvor Idle takes the core of what makes an adventure game so addictive and strips it down to…store.steampowered.com
So, I don’t typically give a game a review before I’m done with it. But, I am compelled to give my glowing recommendation for Melvor Idle. My account for this game has been active for 260+ days and I’ve opened the game to “play” it over 150 different days in that timeframe. This is mostly possible because in the game, my character is able to do tasks while I’m away for up to 24 hours. So, in a sense, one could argue I’ve played (or managed) this game for over 3000 hours. If you’re seeing this review on Steam, you’ll notice my playtime absolutely does not match that, and that’s because the cross-save between mobile, browser, and its mobile app are divine. 99% of the time I’ve got it open just in a browser while I’m doing other stuff.
Three-thousand hours. Haven’t beaten it yet (and may never at this rate, completion log says I’m at about 35%)… but I think all my time puts me in a pretty informed position to give my opinion, yeah?
So what is Melvor Idle? As you may have guessed from its title, it’s an idler type game. This one has a coat of paint to make it feel very adjacent to the vibes of something like RuneScape… Plenty of trees to chop, monsters to kill, ore to mine, loot to sell, etc. Yet it’s all done through a very minimalistic, clean, menu-like interface.
Now, I’ve played (if you can call it that) a couple idler type games. Cookie Clicker has been my go-to and is fantastically fun, but with each new time I pick it up, I get to a point where I reach a standstill. In the late game of Cookie Clicker, the only thing left to do for fun is game the stock market best I can, pull a few rare combos for huge numbers, and add a couple more buildings every ascension. That’s about as interesting as the end game gets; the boredom setting in at about 500–1500ish hours of the game running. Comparatively, I haven’t reached a point in Melvor Idle where a similar exhaustion has occurred despite “playing” for at least double the time, and honestly, I’m not sure if it will ever happen. I revere Cookie Clicker, and love what it gets right but Melvor Idle… has done this whole idling thing in a totally different way that just works better for me. I’m calling it my new gold standard for these types of games, honestly.
Melvor Idle starts you off as a lowly, practically incapable person. Which leaves you with a lot of options to start doing whatever you want. Will you mine for ore? Fight monsters? Cook food? Practice Magic? It’s all up to you. A lot of activities you “set and forget.” Let your character work on something, then come back 24 hours (or less) later and manage the resources obtained in that timeframe. Getting started is a little tricky because of limited inventory space but that quickly goes away with a few upgrades.
With so many activities, it may be overwhelming in the beginning, but trust me, just pick what you think is interesting, and you’ll learn how it all works along the way. Some things unlock other things. Some “quests” I’ve given myself have led me down a rabbit hole through the games wiki (shortcuts to it are abundant in-game) and that leads to several smaller mini adventures. Melvor Idle is not super complex, and definitely not difficult by traditional game means, but the interconnectedness of all its items and systems with that touch of creativity is just enough to stir my imagination to keep me coming back just about every day to play more.
Some would argue that there is a lot of “Grinding” to do, and to them I say what? Did you expect? Are you watching the game the whole time? Recently my character completed a quest after fighting 69,420 Goblins for a real-life week straight and I’m feeling incredible. Sometimes it really is like that. Just pick the next thing to do and let it be. Check on it here and there and let it keep going. Occasionally you’ll accomplish a little thing here or there, and to a degree it really is up to you to decide how long you’ll be committed to doing something. If the lengthiness of the wait concerns you, you can play the Goblin Raid mini game while you wait, which is just a relatively fun, bare bones roguelite mode filled with endless combat that needs to be managed much more frequently than anything else (in the early stages).
If I had to have one critique: I would love to see a little more variety in the activities. I think the “Atlas of Discovery” Expansion nudged the game in that direction, as archaeology and cartography are very fun skills and feel distinct as you master them—even though technically in the end, it really is more clicking, and waiting. But they FEEL distinct in with how you manage them, and it makes them some of the most fun skills in the game. But to reiterate, the base game, that is much less complex, is something I still love and enjoyed before I bought this expansion. But because of this expansion, I’d love to see the devs continue to make that “feeling” of variety in future expansions. I’d even love some more “do this while you wait” type activities like the Goblin Raid to help with this.
Ultimately, I can’t help but recommend Melvor Idle. I think it’s extremely successful in every aspect it’s shooting for and then some, all making for a game that I think is great to have always going on in the background. There’s a massive wealth of content in the base game, and if that’s not enough there are expansions and mods to keep you interested enough to check in daily for weeks on end, even if all you’re really doing, is clicking and waiting in a really fun and engaging way.
You can actually play a short demo of the game if you visit its website or download the mobile version (melvoridle.com). But, if you enjoyed this review enough to be moved to purchase the game, consider supporting my reviewing efforts by purchasing Melvor Idle’s Steam Key through my Green Man Gaming affiliate link below. Thank you for reading!
Melvor Idle | PC - Steam | Game Keys
Pick up your Melvor Idle PC copy from Green Man Gaming today and remember to sign in for our best pricegreenmangaming.sjv.io
