Kittens Game

Kittens Game is a deep idle game about building a village of cats, in which the player gradually gathers wood and resources, builds structures, establishes crafts, and unlocks increasingly complex production chains, before eventually reaching science, trade, and finally even travel among the stars. It was created in 2014 by a developer going by the name bloodrizer, and unlike simpler clicker idle games such as Cookie Clicker, Kittens Game places far greater emphasis on planning and managing resources that affect each other and can easily run out without careful thought.

The controls run through a clear, purely text-based interface with buttons for construction, crafts, and research, so there is no graphics at all, and all the depth is concentrated in the system of numbers and their mutual dependencies between resources, buildings, and the mood of the villagers. The game also plays in the background while the player doesn't have to sit at the screen, which is a typical trait of the idle genre, but Kittens Game also requires regular decisions about where to direct limited resources and workforce, which brings it closer to an economic strategy game than pure idle clicking. The later stages of the game only open up once the complex dependencies between trade, science, and the residents' mood are mastered.

Thanks to this combination of stark presentation and unexpectedly deep economic simulation, Kittens Game has built its own devoted community within the idle game genre, one that shares tips on optimal progression and discusses the most efficient strategies for developing the village.

Why play it: For fans of idle and incremental games who want more than just clicking and will appreciate carefully designed resource chains and long-term planning.