WorldShaper Idle

Very mellow and adorable idle game. I love the puzzley aspects. Only thing it's missing is a rotate option lol. Edit: dev added a rotate option. Life is good.

So happy that this flash classic was remade, bigger and better on steam. A very fun game, definitely worth the asking price

love the possibilities and truth to the idle name in its title. Absolutely worth it if you're looking for something to dedicate thought to for a while daily

[h1]Good for what it is.[/h1] I'm not much of an idle enjoyer, nor am i good at careful planning with "sandbox levels of freedom", but i remember somewhat-enjoying the itch.io prototype of this game (Stop the Darkness) from... 8 years ago, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time flies. I didnt even know there was a demo for this game released... 3 years ago. [i]Skill issue alert:[/i] [spoiler]i kinda half-arsed this game cuz i gave up at pre-factory/elven groves and copied other player's end-game builds they posted in discord [i](cheers, jooooooost)[/i], but, again, the start and premise was enjoyable. It just got too complex and unrewarding since i ignored the META stuff [i](ports, i didnt realise they would be one of the main money horses because i didnt want to spam buildings all around)[/i] and tried to keep it "civilized" (few builds that give a lot of income, but leaving a lot of the space empty). Clearly that wasnt the intended approach and i couldnt handle the sandbox'y nature of this game, [b]i suck at sandbox'ing [u]hard[/u].[/b][/spoiler] [hr][/hr] Early game got me hooked: discovering new buildings, trying out different builds, pushing the income. But somewhere around "unlocking second (elven) world" i was getting exhausted because of the map increasing so much. Sure, i can put more things in, but that also means that the game expects you to fill ALL of these tiles purposefully. [b]One. By. One.[/b] This process can get frustrating when you'll have a 40x40 field to fill and game expects you to improve your income to 1 000 000/minute. It's a good thing when idle game offers you some activity to wait for money to come by, but my main caviat with this system is "[u]your income = what's on the board[/u] [b][u]right now[/u][/b]". It would've been WAY BETTER to have your production equal to "[u]all-time best achieved[/u]", so you wont be as pressured experimenting around different builds/understanding game aspects. And the most effective builds involve having "1 of everything" type of planning, [b]this game is about "making multiple high-income builds and trying to cram them in onto the map"[/b], it will mostly feel like assembling a jigsaw puzzle (especially [spoiler]wizard[/spoiler] bonus), or just modularly extending the most powerful build you have. Since this game involves building/arranging a lot, [b]building tools[/b] are very important, but it kinda falls short. "Select" tool is... [b]good at options given, but bad at handling.[/b] You can highlight the tiles you want, you can move/mirror/rotate/swap them, but all of these actions are [b]click-only[/b]. Only hotkey given is to select/deselect "highlighting" mode. You can only highlight areas in a rectangle-area. [i]Rant spoiler[/i]:[spoiler][i]You can adjust the zone by adding/removing more rectangular zones/clicking every single tile, sure, but builds get b i g and have A LOT of stairs, so it kinda gets annoying clicking on every "add/remove" option when it could've been just "hold CTRL to swipe-highlight tiles" shortcut.[/i][/spoiler] You can also [b]copy[/b] highlighted zones, but [b]only for the current map[/b], you cant save JUST them for later deployment, only save maps as a whole, so if you liked some idea on your first map and wanted to combine it with second, you'll have to manually replicate one of them on the other. It didnt even utilize RMB or any hotkeys on release, the QoL patch was a VERY big improvement, better late than never i guess. One thing that i liked throughout the ""playtime"" is completing achievements, they act as "build guides" and "challenges" of sorts, helping you to see "what it takes for this building/stat bonus to perform good". Spoiler: too much for most of these. It's better to stick to META's ([spoiler]desert/ports[/spoiler]) for unlocking next new tile/feature. And a small weird quirk to note: game [b]always[/b] opens in windowed mode and not centralized, it sorta aligns to the taskbar. I've never seen that happen with any game xd [hr][/hr] Now i just know for certain that idle games are not my thing, despite this one feeling way better than "Reactor idle" i used to ""play"" back in Kongregate days and countless "filling bars" simulators, and entertaining by itself at early phase. Got a little sad and frustrated that i couldnt comprehend this game's full potential, but for [b]idle[/b] enjoyers/people who like to [b]over-engineer[/b] their SimCity or Cities Skyline arrangements/like [b]sandboxes[/b] with a goal, this game might be a good pick. Game still could use more QoL's, but with its core it can be very engrossing (if you're into such genres. Otherwise, you might give up like me mid-way, but still enjoy early bits. It has a demo, so have fun).

Cozy legit idle game where you come back to it and it builds a bit in both your subconscious and with a new tile or mechanic to keep things fresh. Supports chill messing around to explore other designs as its very easy to restore your best world.

pretty unique, fun and chill to play

Slow but entertaining.

Its a pretty chill game, I like it.

Like any incremental game, there will at some point come a time where this abruptly stops being fun. But I got 70+ hours of entertainment for 8 bucks, I call that a win.

This is a game that I have been following ever since one of its beta tests were releaced on Poki. I would highly recommend this game it is unique, calming, interesting, and the dopamine rush I get when I unlock a new option is peak. One minor problem that I do have is that the cost of unlocking new options get pretty steep as you progress (to the point that you have to leave the game running for multiple real world days to get the unlocks). I think this is probably due to the fact that humans have a difficult time comprehending exponential scailing, but it also could be a skill issue on my end idk. Either way this is an awsome game with a ton of future potential if it still gets updates. <3