Where are modern idle-games headed? (The era of the minigame-based idler)

I assume you’ve heard of the recent massive hits “Nodebuster” and “Digseum.”
These games have performed fantastically, despite seemingly being debut releases.

I think the success of these games (along with their reviews) tell a clear story about what people want from idle games. We’re quickly moving towards emphasis on polish, conciseness, and novelty.

The new era of the “minigame-based” idler is here
(Or at least that’s what I call them)

The main motif that ties these games together is the minigame formula. The jist of it is quite simple; you come up with a cool idea for a minigame/activity that has nuance in itself (more than just clicking a cookie :P). Then you turn that minigame or activity into a way to get resources, and then you (ideally) build your meta progression around introducing new mechanics into the minigame and progression system.
This way the main loop is ‘Start activity → Experience satisfying stimuli from the activity → Complete activity → Upgradeeeeee, choose what skills you want to move towards → Minigame gets even more satisfying and interesting → Repeat.
This loop happens so frequently, that you just get kind of sucked into the world of the ever-improving minigame.

The key here is choosing the perfect satisfying idea for the minigame, which will be doing most of the lifting. Add some interesting upgrades and mechanics into a skill tree, and boom, you have a hit. Well not quite, creating something like this still takes a lot of work and skill, plus the right idea to make it worth all the effort.

The other important elements of these games are:
1. Polish
2. Not overstaying their welcome!

Something I’ve learned the hard way is that people want novelty and variety within your game, which can be hard to provide. It gets way easier to do though, if you don’t drag on the game past the point of variety though!
My next game will focus on having new unlocks and content all throughout the concise playtime!
As people get busier and busier, their time is by far the more valuable resource they give up than their money! So I’m focusing on bringing a packed experience within a short(ish) time.

What can be improved about this template?

By far the most common request in the reviews for the 2 mentioned games is…. “MORE!!!”
So I am obliging, and instead of making my game span 2-3 hours, I’ll be expanding that by at least another 4 hours! People like their games having a ton of playtime, so it makes sense that even for these bite-sized games, people do want juuust a bit more playtime.

I won’t spill the beans on what my minigame is just yet, but I believe it’s fantastic and I’m so excited to share it with you soon!
Also let me know what you want me to write about here! You can reply to this email (if you’re on the mailing list) or just shoot me a DM on discord.

I’ll be sharing more content about my next project in just a bit ^-^