CompactO - Idle Game

Dull, linear idle game. Dev pushed an update that basically kills the first part of the game and brings in a broken achievement. He tried to fix this but failed and then went awol. I'll avoid all of his games in the future.

It's an idle game with neither depth nor breadth. There's no choices at any point. Just "acquire the next multiplier until they run out". The entire first half of the game has progress that just dissappears after a "prestige" and then you're left with a tedious game loop with no variety to it. Come back in a year, I'll likely revisit my review.

I'm among the early ones to buy the game, and so far, I'm enjoying it. It is still a little buggy, and some features/UIs confused me at the beginning. The developer responds rather quickly though, just tends to stack bug fix for too long sometimes. The Shrinkenator layer is not yet balanced, but it is said that this will improve in the next update, so I'll keep this game in my library until the update is released. Overall, it is worth a try, and if you are not sure about that, you're free to check the demo, which only differs in max playtime of an hour.

I can't really recommend this game - because it's not a game. You play for about 5 minutes, and then your interaction with the game ends. You instantly unlock "autos" which play the game for you. Rather than gradually automating lower parts of the incremental game as you unlock higher parts, it sadly automates the entire game instantly. It just fails to scratch the itch most incremental games scratch.

The game is WAY too short for an incremental. Don't waste your money. Maybe the developer will invest more time in continued development; but since the game itself tries to market other games from the dev, I wouldn't be surprised if the game will stay as-is (read: not worth the money). I would be more forgiving for a short incremental if there was some artistic value (e.g. like Space Plan). But it's really just a generic incremental with no interesting mechanics, systems, or story. A skilled Unity dev could make this during a weekend game jam.

Dull game design: no meaningful choices, no strategy: after the first 5 minutes when I've bought auto upgrades I just stared at the game's window without anything to do. The UI is not great either: big wiggling main counter label (no monospace font), acidic colors with either hard to distinguish new squares - your main progress indicator, or just a black square (with anti-epileptic setting) with that damn wiggling counter label... They could've made shades of grey for this mode. Refunded.

It's a fun and simple game that apparently is short, but new content is coming. The dev is very nice and there is a Discord community. Your goal is to create squares, then layers of squares, which give you money to buy upgrades. Later on, the game expands but I don't want to give spoilers. I'm not done with the game yet, of course, but when I reach the "end" (whatever that means), I have high hopes for tons of new content. For the price, it's totally worth it. I even decided to make a YT series on it.

Well that got boring quick.

It's alright, but is not worth it's price.

There is no real game here. Its just watching boxes change colour. Not even in a real Idle game fashion either, there are barely any upgrades and very little real progression, at least within the first 7 odd hours of playing and leaving it offline and such. Idle games tend to have 3 states of play : Online, AFK and Offline. This one only manages the second 2 and forgets that the player needs something to do as well, something to click or activate, otherwise its just dull.