Setting Up Before You Leave
Your last minute before logging off decides the next eight hours.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- Design focus
- Time · Planning · Economy
No.157Melvor Idle01The core loop
Action → feedback → next choice- 01Check every output
- 02Plan for time away
- 03Log off
- 04Return and collect
↻Feedback changes the situation — the next round starts from there.
Walk through one round
A simplified design example. Situations and numbers illustrate the mechanic, not exact rules from a reference game.
- T1
Turn 1 · The situation
You'll sleep 8 hours. Woodcutting yields 120/h with 600 space left; fishing yields 80/h with 900 left.
- T2
Turn 2 · The player chooses
You pick fishing, since wood would cap in 5 hours.
- T3
Turn 3 · The feedback
You wake to 640 fish and no overflow warning.
- T4
Turn 4 · The next decision
Only 260 fish slots left; clear space before tonight.
How it plays
Progress continues offline as set up, usually with a time cap or efficiency penalty. You pick tasks to match how long you'll be gone: short ones while online, long ones for offline. Storage or bank capacity caps what you can bring back.
What the player weighs
- The best-paying task often needs supervision and may not be best offline
- With storage near full, longer absences waste more
02Start small
Scope is an editorial estimate for the minimum prototype, not the reference game or a production schedule.
03One mechanic, different implementations
Melvor Idle
Your active skill keeps running offline up to a time cap; a full bank stops new items, so players tidy the bank before leaving.
Cookie Clicker
Offline production must be unlocked via a heavenly upgrade (Twin Gates of Transcendence), starting at a small fraction of CpS and improvable later.
The difference worth noticing
Melvor's offline planning is about which task to run; Cookie Clicker's is about unlocking how much offline time pays.
Case notes are Yoroll editorial summaries; rules may change between versions.
04What could you combine?
Make stack limits the offline puzzle: items stack differently, so long absences favor products with high stack caps.
Prototype this combo in Yoroll→Follow the next idea
Time Skip Consumables
One ticket grabs hours of future income—the question is when it's worth most.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Get a time-skip item
- 02Raise current income
- 03Use it to skip ahead
- 04Collect a big lump
Splitting Capacity Across Projects
Your capacity is one pie; only what you slice it to will grow.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Check each project
- 02Reassign capacity
- 03Let progress tick
- 04Unlock, then rebalance
Escalating Copy Prices
The first is cheap, the hundredth outrageous, so you keep rotating purchases.
- Prototype complexity
- Who plays
- Solo decisions
- 01Compare value per cost
- 02Buy the best deal
- 03Its price rises
- 04Compare again