This is a pay to win game, with FOMO promotional bundles (artificial scarcity, designed to incentivize you to make a purchase without giving you ample time to consider your decision), daily incentives to make you log in (and develop a habit, thus, making you hooked), a lot of variable rewards and roll the dice kinda stuff (which is also designed to make you addicted), and other tactics identified by experts as dark patterns (for more info, see https://www.darkpattern.games/)

Some of the players of this game are so full of copium that they will insist this is not pay to win because of two illogical reasons, stupid reason number one being that the game has no pvp mechanics, thus, no advantage over other players is gained by purchasing stuff with irl money, which I think is stupid, because winning doesn't necessarily mean winning against another player; and stupid reason number two is that there's nothing to win in the game, which is the dumbest statement I've heard from a gaming community (and, let's be honest, that isn't a high standard to begin with).

Let me explain why. By definition, every game has a goal, that's one of the defining features of this form, be it electronic or analog games, a goal is always present no matter if it is a definite win condition, given by the rules of the game, or a self imposed goal (think The Sims or creative mode Minecraft) or even just some abstract direction the game incentivizes the player to follow (MMOs in general). Even though we don't say we won Runescape after getting the quest cape (as an example of a self imposed goal), formally, the structure is the same as rolling the credits in Dark Souls, the only difference is that the game doesn't end when you reach a self imposed goal, letting you decide whether to stop or pursue another one. The same is true in MMOs, generally, there's always some way to get more powerful, or there's always something new to accomplish.

As an idle game, Idleon is rich in possibilities of self imposed goals, think reaching certain milestones in damage, completing several different types of collections offered by the game, reaching certain scores in different activities or mechanics, and so on. Not to say of the abstract incentives. Most of those are infinite scaling, there isn't a known ceiling to the amount of "number go up" you can acquire and multiply. That makes another question arise: Can f2p players reach the same numbers as a p2w player?

No. There's controversy around this but the simple and correct answer is no. Some of the benefits given to p2w players are straight separate multipliers on things like damage, drop rate, and others. There's no way to achieve the same result without paying up, no matter how much the copium addled crowd claims otherwise.

"Ok, if the game's so bad, how come you have sunk so many hours in it?". Its simple, I got addicted real bad, it's a fun little game in the beginning, with some genuinely good ideas and art, but it quickly becomes a compulsion, so I can't recommend it.

Another reason why I don't recommend is the dev and his choice for monetization practices. He makes a point of being a solo dev, kinda bragging about it, and even though he's been making a lot of money with the game, he insists on going solo. That wouldn't be a problem at all in a different context, but as the game became more complex numerically speaking, a sudden drop in quality is noticeable, the first worlds have much more soul in them, much more personality, while the later ones feel rushed, empty sometimes, something that could easily be fixed by hiring some people and shifting his own focus solely to the creative part, delivering a better product. But the truth is that he is more worried about posing as a "great dev" than actually developing a great game.

So, yeah, it's pretty obvious this is a review coupled with a rant, a way to vent off, because honestly I wish I could recover most of the hours I sunk into this, but I'm fine leaving now before I waste more. I don't regret the first few days, though, the game has great qualities that are unfortunately overshadowed by a creator's ego and greed.

Game has come a long way in terms of accessibility for early game players. Great fun to sink time into with both active and afk play.

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