IdleOn

For months and through numerous requests by the developer after every update, I have considered how I was ultimately going to post my review for this game. For the first 9 months of playing this game, it was one of the best games I have played, and certainly the best idle game. The progression system is outstanding, the different areas in this game to progress in are many, and it feels like you are still making progress towards something or other no matter what you are doing. I was ultimately planning on this being a positive review. Unfortunately after the most recent update, I can no longer recommend this game, and it's not just for the content in the update, but primarily because of how the developer has handled the situation since the update has been released. While the update itself was a travesty (adding a very obvious pay to win system introducing some incredibly powerful pet follower bonuses, the average person will need to spend hundreds of dollars (or wait on average several years) for a good chance at getting incredibly [i]game altering[/i] bonuses), I was confident that the developer would quickly identify the criticisms laid out by the community and address them with a plan on how to fix the new system. Instead, he's banned numerous people making complaints, deleted criticism from posts made on the subreddit which he moderates, and hasn't issued a single statement since the update was released, which at this point has been more than 10 days ago. That silence speaks louder than words. The developer and his mod team ban people and delete criticisms constantly. I say this as an outsider who has never been punished in any way. I can no longer stay silent on their behalf. The dev, unfortunately, has what appears to be a long history of making bad decisions when it comes to punishing people in his game, on discord, and on the subreddit. It's shameful, and ultimately the people they end up banning or punishing (just look at how he handled those who used the sailing exploit) are usually the game's biggest supporters and i'm sure many people who have spent money on the game. The developer constantly touts "solo dev" as if that were a positive. From what I have seen, that also means he's never held accountable to anyone but himself. When he comes up with a terrible pay to win system, there's nobody in his corner to tell him it's a bad idea and to rethink the system. When he issues bans to numerous members of the community, there's nobody there to review the legitimacy of the ban, or to tell him that kneejerk bans are harmful to the game and community. I think what's more pressing than fixing the most recent update is fixing the authoritarian system of control that's been the norm in this community. Lava should take some of the money he earned from this update and hire a community manager who should be the one handling all bans, and review all retroactive bans. They need a panel of three members of the community (NOT selected by Lava) for this to review them - I am guessing the VAST majority of bans and mutes on discord, reddit, and in game are complete and utter nonsense that no panel of three would uphold. If I am wrong, great, prove it by having a panel go through them all and release a statement on the number of bans and mutes they reversed. If the developer continues his heavy handedness, there will be nothing but sycophants left to sing his praises, which ultimately hurts the game and the community rather than being able to accept hard truths and work to improve the game based on those truths. I think there's still a chance for this game to be saved. I'm willing to change this to a positive review, in the end, if instead of a knee jerk reaction that I'm expecting from all the negative reviews he instead reacts with a thoughtful response that both fixes the issues with the update, in game, but also fixes some of the grave concerns I've raised about the heavy handed moderation resulting in numerous unjust bans. I don't know why the developer has been silent for so long. I am going to guess that, when he ultimately makes a statement, it's going to be something about spending all his efforts on fixing the issues that iOS has had resulting in the update being rejected there. That's ultimately not a good excuse for being silent so long. Most of us want the game to succeed, and with such a backlash, there should have been a statement made the very day of the update, let alone by now 10 days later. I had been holding off on this review to give the dev a chance to make this statement, but it's been too long at this point, and with no promised changes, again, I cannot recommend this game as-is.

Dev is a nutcase and essentially buys sponsors/shills to cover for his terrible PR/game decisions, buttttt it's still a really fun game as long as you go full f2p or understand that your money spent is enabling the dev to release more anti-f2p systems. Edit: editing my review because it has some visibility and because I wanted to be explicit in that Steam reviews are the ONLY public forum where you'll get an accurate representation of the game. The dev has a complete stranglehold over almost every other public forum where he'll personally mute/ban/remove users/posts from the official discord and subreddit that mention anything meta about the game or the latest update. What's happening right now and what has been happening since this game's inception is that the dev makes a controversial p2w/p2p updates to the game and proceeds to silence critics all the while using the extra money from that update to buy sponsors in order to bring in new players who are oblivious because of censorship.

So i will first say what i am "not recommending" here, is spending even a single cent on this game. Play it all you want, its got a decent amount of content...but the dev does not deserve any of your money. Only place you can leave feedback the Dev isn't able to silence, is here. He is both the main mod of the sub reddit, and the admin on the discord. And he gives bans to people who even *breathe* a negative thing about the game. So this is first and foremost one of the main reasons you will see so many negative reviews from people with a bunch of play time. I myself still play actively, i just feel the need to state my displeasure on a platform that the dev cannot silence. And recently the dev is adding more and more monetization to the game, in ways that are more and more predatory, and is silencing anyone who says anything about it. This isn't the first time, and its worse than before.