Idle Hacking: An Inaction RPG

The community is heavily dominated by toxic players who actively try to ruin the experience for others. If you try to call them out or defend yourself, they will abuse the report system to get your account flagged or banned. On top of that, it's a pay-to-win grind that requires leaving the game running constantly just to progress. Not worth the install or the system resources. You're better off playing Progress Quest.

It scratches that cookie clicker exponential itch, it's detail-rich, and it's free.

It's honestly a terrible game simply because of the community. They ♥♥♥♥♥ constantly in their IRC after providing bare minimum information for when people ask for help. The reason this game has no following is because it lacks literally everything that is required for a social PSBG to be good. You have whale overlords that command more attention based simply on how much money they've consistently wasted on this free game. Trash honestly.

Idle Hacking in an idle/incremental game. The crafting is somewhat in the style of Path of Exile, lots of RNG with some ability to target. Activity is rewarded in that upgrading your gear is the way to continue your exponential progress. Free players can enjoy 12hr of offline activity, while 'premium' time allows offline progress to the end of your premium time, and some other minor benefits. in-game chat with a great community, helpful folks to help you get past your plateaus and for fun banter. "Guilds" exist (Syndicates) as another power aspect in the game to grow, with focus on hacking or gathering with gear sharing, additional boosts, and sub-communities. Dev is very active with updates, bug fixes, and in-game chat; any issues are rapidly resolved. BL: Fun idle game, active dev, fantastic community.

This is a great game for those who like the idle/incremental genre. Even though it has a very healthy and active userbase, it deserves many more. I can only think the lack of exposure perhaps is the reason why but that won't be for long is my guess (there are games with 20x the user base that I also play and this is better). If you are into the genre/type of game (and even if you aren't or want to give something new a try) this is worth a play at the very least. Some of the positives for me include - the ui (variety of themes and settings) - community (communications and participation in global event) - the dev and roadmap/futre updates (there was a minor bug that I stumbled upon and it was quickly rectified + future updates are to my liking) - the theme (hacking) - the upgrade mechanics and time/resource sinks Some other things - If you take your time at the start, read the help sections and try understand it all... then it's easy enough to understand and get a grip of it. On the rare chance you have a question that isn't covered in the help sections available.. there is a chat that will answer your questions. I feel like a lot of people login and don't pay attention to the tutorial or read the help sections at all and deem it too 'complex' or 'hard to grasp what is going on' (especially if not too familar with some of the terminology or played similar mechanics before) but that is purely out of not actually being attentive or reading the available help. - It does operate on an optional subscription. Like what is common with most games in the genre/similar.. it provides benefits that I would not consider p2w. These include things like offline time, auto enrollment to events and extra settings. You can purchase this premium status (subscription) with in game currency so you can play without payment.

Another game that requires VPN, lol

It has a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, it is extremely addicting. It’s a gameplay loop where you try to see how far you can get against increasingly tough enemies (corrupted network entities, security protocols, and rogue system processes), until you finally get stuck. Once you hit that wall, you use the rewards you gathered along the way to permanently upgrade your stats and gear, making you strong enough to smash through that wall and push even further the next time. It has resource gathering, equipment crafting, and an online player driven market with trading that makes the game feel alive 24/7. The many different display options and themes is a great touch also. Give it a try if it sounds remotely close to something your interested in.

Could the game use a bit more documentation? Sure. Is the 'number go up' tickle a little slow? Sure. Adding arpg-like crafting is an interesting decision. Still uncertain on if I like the amount of rng that creates.