Melvor Idle

This game has a medium learning curve, but once you get into it, it's easily the best idler out there, that I've played anyway. I've never played the original runescape, but I love this game. The game loop is excellent, and it really does feel like an idle RPG, unlike some other attempts at this that I've played.

Absolutely addictive, but the cool thing about it is that there is always stuff to do where you can just leave it running and still (safely) gather XP and resources. The amount of options seems overwhelming at first, but it adds deeply to the charm and appeal of the game once you figure it out. I would absolutely give this my top recommendation for anyone who likes idlers. This is the game other idlers will be compared to, without question. If you're on the fence, allow me to help you hop over that fence. Buy it now.

So, this is a long time coming, but I wanted to 100% the game and all DLCs before writing this review. That probably is enough to show why I'm recommending this game. I do not 100% games. I don't really find the idea of 100%ing something to be enjoyable. But Melvor Idle makes the unenjoyable enjoyable.

It does that by using it's main gameplay feature, closing the game. You have no obligation to this game besides that of opening it once a day (and even that you can mod around). You don't like fishing? Well, just start it and come back tomorrow. You LOVE combat? Well, you can sit there and be fully engaged for however long you'd like to do that.

Melvor allows you to be as active or inactive with your gameplay as you'd like. Me personally, I liked babysitting the game and min-maxing every second I could. But when I hit something I didn't want to watch? Boom close the game and come back tomorrow.

I 100%ed the game with a little over a year listed on my character. When I tell you I was locked into this game for that entire year I do not lie. I was gripped since the second it started and the game NEVER ever let me go. It's addicting. It respects your time. It's a good game.

I'll also mention that I never played Runescape or anything similar, so this was a new experience for me. Number go up in such a fantastic way that I was constantly impressed. I never felt like I was wasting my time working on a skill because each skill translated into 5 other skills.

End of the day, this game is inexpensive. You can get it for $5 during a sale and each of the DLCs offer not only new ways to play the original game, but also earn the term expansion. (Abyss is my favorite :))

Sure, there are some things in the game I flat out did not enjoy, but as I said before you can just close the game and idle any annoying content.

PLAY THIS GAME. And when Melvor Idle 2 comes out soon? PLAY THAT TOO!

Runescape if you don't want to pay for members, seriously though, games pretty satisfying.

It gives me the old classic runescape feel with the casual idle game twist.

Alot of my childhood revolved around Runescape. The golden days of runescape. Now that Im older its really cool to come back and get that feeling back. This game really scratches that nostalgic itch. If you liked runescape I highly recommend.

Yeah, I recommend it. I've never played Runescape, and NGU Idle is the greatest idle game ever made, just so you know my pedigree. It's a bit different than other games cause you're leveling skills. Like that's the whole game. I think there might be some story/lore tucked away in certain parts but I'm not sure yet. It has an impressive amount of depth (and breadth). It's well made. The first few hours I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I'm 100% enjoying it. Easy thumbs up.

At first the game's UI on android was intimidating and I set it aside, but when I gave it a second chance, I have really been enjoying this game. There's a lot to sink my teeth into with varying levels of idleness and babysitting required for when I am more active at the game and when I am busier with real life. I have been able to swap between mobile and pc for the same account due to the cloud save system, and I think this is going to be one of my favorite idle games once i get even deeper into it.

It's difficult to get started on, but once you do, it's very fun. It's the type of idle game you check in on, prioritize what you want to do next, and can either be very active with it or just let it go in the background. The content also lasts months upon months without ever feeling overly grindy, and there are no microtransactions, which I apprecitate.

Awesome game, actually my most played game. Can't wait for Melvor Idle 2 to come out.

Great game, perfect for my wrist issues where i get to play and enjoy a game with minimal interactions, still get chase items and great wins :)

tl;dr: One of the best idle games I've ever played, and this is coming from someone who has never played Runescape.

I love that you can play this game actively, or passively. If I'm bored I can tackle some more active goals, or if I'm busy I can set it and forget it for up to 24 hours. Cross platform cloud saves are a HUGE plus, as I can access my accounts from any computer or device. There's so much content here, and the extra modes (adventure and relic hunt) add so much replayability that you could easily sink 1-2 years of playtime into this thing if you're chasing full completion w/o mods. Oh btw, mod support means you can tailor the game however you'd like (although I'm happily playing Vanilla).

The dollars spent to hours enjoyed ratio is off the charts.

I think this is a good game, and certainly can recommend it.
It does come with some negatives sides, or things you have to accept before you start seriously playing it.
1. Inventory is very limited, and it will force you to micromanage it, selling stuff all the time. Even when increasing inventory to 100, you have a lot of different items and ores.
2. A lot of things are not explained in game, so you have to do research or trial and error. Example - there are some armor pieces that could be good for your character type, but it never shows stats. So you have to look up and see if it is good armor. Same with some drops as rare rings. I dropped ring A (Half of ring) without information how to find other half of it. So, back to Googling.
3. You always need more money, so minmaxing your gold/hour will become important part of your game play. Which is fine for economic simulators, nor RPG lite.
4. Some actions like combat do not work offline, so for parts of game you have to actively do things online.
5. Some things are inflated for no reason, like raiding same dungeon 50 times for access to other part of the game, or extremely slow XP gain for some skills.
6. Some design decisions are strange - like, potions improving fishing or astrology are pretty high in skill tree, so you do not get access to them for a long time. Or only specific metal/ lumber needed for upgrade, so you have to grind low level mining and smelting to upgrade your stove. You are not allowed to build it with better materials, lol.

Nevertheless, game for me personally has been enjoyable so far, and I try raising 2 characters with different attacks (ranged and other magic).

Never played runescape, but this game is great. very addictive. I foresee many hours in my future.

If you're looking through the not recommended section hoping to get more info about the game's flaws rather than only the things everyone would obviously like, you're in the right place
Times like these I really wish there was a "mixed" option for game reviews, as my personal opinion on Melvor Idle is very conflicted and generally tough to quantify objectively in some regards

The tl;dr is here if you'd rather just get a quick summary of my thoughts:
The game is good especially if you like runescape, but it doesn't respect your time and will likely leave you very frustrated in the lategame, or if you make "mistakes" in the early game

Nonetheless, even though I would personally say that Melvor has a lot more good to offer, than bad, and even though that would suggest I should be giving it a positive review I.. I can't really bring myself to do so?
I firmly believe that by giving it a positive review I would really undermine my frustration that came with the endgame and the final grind that really soured my experience to the point where ignoring it would show a very incomplete picture of the game

For context, I have 100% cleared the base game and gotten about 80% of the way through the Throne of The Herald DLC before quitting. I have not touched the other two DLCs.

First let's get through some of the positives:

• The game has a ton of content, and the various skills you may level are at the very least different enough that it doesn't feel stale all too fast. So if you're looking for a second monitor game and enjoy "number go up", then Melvor Idle may very much interest you
  
• The satisfaction of getting a rare drop or finishing an item you had to grind for for a long time is indeed very satisfying. Many of the hard to get items are useful so it is quite rare to be disappointed by them.
  
• The game features a combat system which is a lot more than I can say about a lot of idle games whose whole purpose is just being a glorified excel sheet. This system gives meaning to the grind and seeing the progression in what types of enemies you face is rather satisfying
  
• If you're a fan of runescape, this apparently scratches the exact same itch so I'd recommend it to you on principle
  
• As far as idle games go, the pacing of the game is actually really good until you reach like.. 150 days of playtime? [offline included] So considering that is more than most idle games' entire runtime it is quite nice
  

• The game feels very rough around the edges, despite it being developed for so long. Inside-jokes, placeholder "dev notes" and the like riddle the whole game which for someone who arrived to the party very late - is rather jarring. Not to mention the immense artstyle clash between enemies even in the same dungeons.
  
• The pacing for 100%ing the game can slow down to a bit of an extreme degree. This is not a major problem as it is a very extra thing, but seeing how hard the expansion DLC is without the 5% damage reduction cape for full completion I struggle to see how things such as spending over a month on grinding mastery points for largely useless gear crafting fell through the cracks. This complaint will likely not land if you're a fan of Runescape as such thoughtless levelling is a big part of that game, but even for an Idle game this is a bit.. rough. It only matters once you're a solid 200+ days into the game but it's still something that really sucked away my enjoyment.
  
• The balance of the game in terms of gear, skill and item usefulness, is very rough. About 90% of the potions you make are vastly overshadowed by only a handful of more relevant ones such as Damage Reduction or Slayer potions. Most of the craftable gear has very little purpose and outside of intentionally stunting your progression to craft every single piece, use it in combat for like 10 minutes before moving to the next, you'll likely never actually use them. Skills such as cooking have an important place in the game for about 2-3 weeks of playtime before you get vastly better sources of the only thing the skill provides. The Township skill is a relatively boring [in the long run] timesink, that once "complete" completely invalidates most skills as it provides you with resources obtainable through Smithing, Mining, Herblore [potions], Woodcutting [with minor exceptions], and general gold generation as that on its own becomes irrelevant once Township is levelled up enough. I could go on for way longer about it but.. I think this is enough to show that unless you're into doing quite a bit of redundant work for the sake of completionism, its probably something that will bother you as well.
  
• The combat, while a nice addition, is not very fun. Its about on the same level of Runescape but just boiled into a 2D set of statsheets. This is not a criticism on its own, but something to keep in mind. I didn't have much fun with it beyond just the sheer fact that it existed and it showed my progression. Combat skills are also probably the most frustrating to grind because of this.
  
• Melvor Idle straight up doesn't respect your time. This is a weird thing to say about a genre that exists for the same of killing time yeah, however I think I can prove this point with a few examples. First of all, the standard game mode makes you lose an item anytime you die. Dying unless you're very well prepared is inevitable in the early game, or when fighting super late game bosses and dungeons. The early game doesn't matter much, even though it is rather annoying how hard it is to start your combat adventure, but the late game? Losing your Ultima Godsword or 2 Million Yak summons because of the enemy's RNG-based strongest hit + a poison tick happening on the same tick, or while doing a dungeon that is designed to not be idle-able hurts a lot. It actively wastes your time and hurts your will to redo all that progress. The hardcore mode is the same albeit more.. well, hardcore. But you know what you're in for when selecting that option at least. The second point is the dungeons that cannot be idle-able, which I already touched upon in the first point. Lastly, the Mastery system is just.. odd? The numbers feel very all over the place as some skills have a colossal mastery XP pool that you can easily and freely use to level your mastery in crafting items that are very, very annoying to farm materials for. Other skills have a pool so small that in order to not lose the 95% mastery pool bonus, you would only be able to level them to about level 80 [out of 99]. It's a system that I believe wasn't very well thought-through, and if it was then its designed to make you take much more time and attention in order to not hard-block your progress while idling.
  
[*]Finally, I don't believe the game is very playable without the use of the wiki, guides and to a degree - mods. The game does have an integrated set of buttons that send you to the wiki, but I am personally rather frustrated that its most important guides and mechanical explanations are tossed into a webpage that contains a lot of outdated data, or asks you to mod the game to get the most out of it. The game actively throws a disclaimer and makes you check boxes that it's not responsible for the game breaking due to mods, but the guides it points you to actively ask for you to double-check their information with things such as the Combat Simulator mod. It is 100% personal preference, but it just feels rather rushed and not very well thought-through. Especially when it comes to certain drop stats, enemy stats etc., as otherwise you need to go in head-first, test things yourself [which is sometimes very difficult or very time consuming], and likely rub up against the previous problem of randomly dying and hoping you won't lose your best item, as the only option for preventing that also just so happens to take away your stats.

Great idle game, smooth UI, well-designed balanced gameplay.

Decent game, but I hate that additional content isn't free. I already paid 10 bucks for the base version (which is already too much for what it is) and now I will have to spend more if I want to play the updates.

It's not about the price of the updates, but that they are being charged for in the first place. The wording on the roadmap made it seem like the game would receive multiple expansions at the cost of the base game. This isn't what happened, we got paid dlc packs.

Runescape without walking, questing, social mmo elements.

add legal botting, (suprisingly) fixed / better balance, some new items.

Good stimmy. Scratches the itch. Cross-save with your phone for free.

Pretty much a nicotine patch for Runescape.

Its a decent little diversion if you have that Runescape itch but don't feel like forking it out for the subscription.

Pretty great idler, has a decent amount that can be done whilst playing it and engaging enough combat, whilst also having offline progression. The game is very much themed around runescape so expect the standard tiers of materials up until late game where they start mixing it up a bit. A fair few new skills are added to the game and some existing ones have been tweaked to match the idle gameplay a bit better

There's no sound or music and the game is incredibly UI focused, so I'd recommend a second monitor video or something

I still have plenty of strongholds to fight and plenty of challenges but have decent progression so far.

A lot of my time spent on this game has been on the phone edition, which you get for free by getting this version. The max offline progression is 24 hours so I set an action up on my way to work, then see what Ive gotten during my lunch and then set a different action during my way back from work.

If you love Classic Runescape and idle games, you'll love this. Perfect for second monitor and on the go play, cloud integration is great and PC vs mobile are both very easy to use and quick to do. The grind is just like it used to be still with difficulty and so many things to do. Let the grind continue!!

The best idle game on the planet. There's always content to do that meets YOUR availability in the moment. whatever your desire is of a playtime session, the game has something for you. Got 2s? Log in and check some stuff. Got a few minutes, but can't pay a lot of attention? Can you play focused for an hour or so? The best idle games, and the best platform-agnostic games meet the player wherever they are and this game does that for you. The downsides to this game are shared across all games of this type, you can play how you want but if you want optimal strategies you need to read the Wiki. Still, for what it is, it's great. Play Melvor Idle.

Committed a cardinal sin. Bought this on mobile first. iPadOS. Then I realized when browsing STEAM, if I had purchased on STEAM first I would have received the mobile versions free. So I'm $50 deep in this game, since I wanted to play on laptop and have STEAM achievements. Oh well, game is good and art style is aesthetically pleasing. I like how the roots of this game stem from OSRS. As I understand it, this was actually a self-published game by Developer "Games by Malcs" when it came out. Jagex Ltd. bought publishing rights and turned it into the game it is today.

For those new to this game, there are some "things" you should know.
First of all, You only need the base game to start. This will allow you to skill-up to level 99 sans 2 professions.
TotH adds an additional 21 levels to bring skills to 120 max
AoD adds two new professions to mix
Here's where you need to fully understand where the 3rd expansion comes in.
Into the Abyss expansion cannot even be started until the ENTIRE base game is completed, skill levels at all 120 (sans 2 AoD professions: Archaeology & Cartography)
Once beating the final boss of base game: Bane, can you then play the 3rd expansion. Not before then at any point.
Melvor + Throne of the Herald are essential IMO if you want to not be hindered by capping out if you're in it for long haul.

I hope this helps some people understand that you won't need the 3rd expansion right away, and up to you to decide if you want AOD expansion or not

If you've been looking for an idle game, congratulations you've found the best one. God bless the devs and you guys.

Amazing idle game. It keeps the feel of RuneScape while still being it's own game, and practically a separate genre. The game is very fun, even if you don't really like idle games, as it is so different, yet so fun. If you think the entire game is just waiting, it's not. There is lots of content for you to *actually do*. It's a cheap game. The expansions are cheap. The mods are free. Way cheaper than RuneScape. The game is just fun, so just play it.

This game is perfect for a busy schedule. I can start a task, then close the game and come back later to see the progress.

Very good idle game with various different mechanics and things to do. Only problem that like runecraft it majorly slows down when skills approach 99. DLCs give some extra extended content, but i havent got that far yet.

After getting wayyy too deep into coockie clicker (500+ hours, I know some people are beyond saving and have something like 10 000 but thats just seomthing else.) I already suspected I had a problem.
Well now this youtuber who has to be evil to the core got me to try Melvor Idle.
I did not think a game with even less gameplay then coockie clicker could be this scarily efficient at producing dopamin hits.

I began overwhelmed by all the systems of the game, progressed to being "okay but what do I do and for what", to "If I run 5 min of woodcutting, then produce ent summons, then use those to catch jewels while fishing, then use the fish to cook food, withouth forgetting to first craft pig summons from previously coocked fish that are not that good of a food source, I will have leveled summoning, fishing, woodcutting, and summoning, AND made a good of money while doing so." - And this is just after aquiring the most basic understading of the game.

So far I didnt even begin to understand runes and spells and combat as a whole, which seems to be the focus point of the game.
The Progression seems a bit shallow at first when you compare it to a clicker game like coockie clicker where you constantly use the one resource you farm to upgrade your capacity to do so. But after 73 hours I have realised the progression is _much_ more satisfying then in coockie clicker. (in my opinion of course), the upgrades all feel much more meaningful for the tradeoff of getting them less frequently.

In summary: I have a much bigger problem then I originally thought.

runescape for people who didnt get to experience runescape? idk, havent played runescape

Extremely high barrier to entry. I tried this game a while back, and dropped it because I was confused. Even with game guides and reddit, I was lost. Tried it recently, and just stuck with it. Things become clearer as I play, but it isn't really intuitive (might be the style of gameplay is new to me).

After figuring things out, I've come to enjoy it. I am a fan of idle-style games, and this one has a lot to enjoy in that space.

No microtransactions other than the DLC.

The UI/UX needs work. Quite a lot of it.

Great idle form of the good ol RS. Definitely worth the price if your an OSRS/RS3 player.

I never played Runescape but my bum of a best friend who loves it convinced me to get this and let me say - if Runesccape is basically a version of this where you CANT just leave it be then it sounds terrible. This game is amazing though. Free dopamine. Well, dopamine at the cost of a couple hundred hours of your time split between active and inactive attention. Best idle game I've ever played, though its not really like most idle games. Maybe more idle games should be like this.

best idle game and it's not close; actually just a very good rpg. base game + throne of the herald are 11/10

the other expansions are mid af, but still worth supporting the devs if you like the rest of the game enough.

also very easy to make mods for if you're into that

lost all 300 hour progress when game is not loading cloud save data. no way of getting the data back. one wrong click and everything got overwrite. you need to manually back up data as auto-save wont save you. game is fun when keep going for 100 hour more but slow progress. until you lose all the progress

Basically the best idle game I've ever played. I have a save file that's about 3 years old (mostly played the browser version at work, don't tell my employer) with all 3 DLCs, and have 100% completed the base game and am currently grinding away at the DLC.

I have nothing but good things to say for this game. For an idle game, it's got a massive amount of content. There are >3500 items to collect with DLCs (of which the majority have an actual function), 28 skills to train (each which have an actual impact on the game (besides firemaking, you can't make firemaking interesting)), >350 different monsters to defeat, and pretty good mod support on top of that.

Combat can be both active or fully idle, depending on how you want to play, and there are a massive amount of items that give you small boosts that add up to be very significant together. Skilling is mostly idle (unless you prefer to micro-manage), and it has even more items to slightly improve speed or resource usage/output which together become quite powerful.

Obviously this game is based on Runescape and its skills, but it adds a fair amount of original ideas on top and I still highly recommend to people that have played Runescape before. Both the Throne of the Herald and the Into the Abyss DLC are very good with a lot of content, The Atlas of Discovery DLC isn't bad either, it adds new mechanics *besides* the original content and skills, while the other 2 DLC extend the length of the orignal content instead.

Runescape idle game make brain go brr...

It doesn't feel like I'm zipping through it, and you get the app if you buy it on steam so that's pretty neat.
I've hit the point now (several days of playing) where I don't have to babysit it as much to feel satisfied with my progress, I plan to try and 100% the base game with some dips into the big expansion.

If this description and the other reviews don't get you excited at some level, move on because it's not for everyone. But if you like 'number go up make brain smile' gameplay, this is the game for you.

All the crack from Runescape, without the need to stay glued to your screen. It's a bit too basic (It's basically a web browser game) but it gets the itch under control.
Buy only the Throne of the Herald expansion, though, the others are god awful.

I don't even know how to play and I already have 226 hours this games takes a long ass time to complete and I still feel like I haven't gone anywhere buts its a nice progression game and I just let it sit in the background

one of the best idle games ive played so far.

great time killer at work when you have spare time to check on stuff.

bought all the expansions after 60 hours.

do not be fooled by the nice looking graphics , this is just another idle game and should be free to play

As a former Runescape I was looking forward to this. It's just text though, no sound, no flavor. It's a bit to dull for my taste.

pretty good idle game. i just leave the game running on my second monitor when im doing other things or watching videos. the mobile cloud save system is good too since i have it on my phone as well.

20 year runescape vet here... I heard about this game and thought it would be simple and stupid but for 5$ why not try it... 2 days later I'm fully ADDICTED. Have this up and running all day while I'm scaping. If you're a runescape fan you will enjoy this

The best of idle games. Finally an idle game that does not rely on astronomically stupid numbers and provides great progression over long periods of time.

it's a website, not a game. at least they need to prevent all web related issues before release it.

Its a great game, its a great idle game that I personally recommend to people as a good experience if they are new to the genre with a specific caveat that the game is weirdly bloated in places. Therefore while I will recommend it in most situations make sure that you are not easily scared off or overwhelmed by too much information. This is a game where you take things one step at a time. You're not here to complete the game as quickly as possible, you're a completionist working to slowly 100% the game. You'll slowly raise your completion until you get everything perfect and feel satisfied because of it.

It's an idle version of OSRS more or less. I'm playing the "adventure mode" now, which requires you to buy each skill. It's nice because it takes a bit more thought, but I think eventually I'll go to the next thing. Good while it lasts -- a lot of people find it very replayable, but I'm not sure I will.

Its a pretty good game. Maybe the best Idle game. worth the 5 minutes a day for some unknown reason!

Like runescape? Don't *quite* have the time to play runescape? Don't want to pay a monthly subscription? Like idle games? Play this.

it is just browser wrap, randomly get white box locked, or chrome browser error no internet, etc, so basic game, but full of bugs.. i regret spending money on it