I seem to have slowly developed a love of #idlegaming. You do have to cherry pick games in this genre, to avoid the cash grab mobile games, but there are some nice gems out there. Those that I play are generally found on either Steam or a web browser. While they do often have microtransactions, they are genuinely optional in the better games, and not required in order to make progress in a reasonable time-frame. Most are also games you pay for, rather than the freemium model (which I do my best to avoid).
For me, it started with Melvor Idle. Billed as Runescape but as an idle game, it was the first one I really fell in love with, and is still the bar against which I judge all others. It's surprisingly indepth, and kept me amused for a very long time.
My latest discovery is Unnamed Space. It's not quite as indepth as Melvor Idle, but certainly has enough going for it to keep me amused in short bursts. And that's what I love about idle games - even during times when I'm too busy to play a "proper" game, it gives me something to dip in and out of.
I guess one thing all idle games have in common is that they basically boil down to "numbers go up". I appreciate that's not for everyone, but some hidden gems have just the right amount of complexity to keep me interested.
And thus concludes my first tiny blog post using #littlefedi, which has a static blog feature that I've been very excited to try out!