Silverstring Media wants to reclaim the "idle game" genre to reward truly idle gameplay.
Glitchhikers developer Silverstring Media is back with another boundary-pushing game. This week the studio announced Greenheart Necromancer, an "idle game" where players tend to a small balcony garden using the dark arts. Like many idle games, it's meant to be played over long periods of time, with players taking time away from their game and making an effort to come back and tend to their plant after time has passed.
But unlike most idle games think AdVenture Capitalist, AFK Arena, and Idle Heroes, the devs at Silverstring want to avoid the "predatory microtransactions and stress" built into the genre. As studio director Lucas J.W. Johnson and creative director Claris Cyarron explained to Game Developer in a recent chat, the game is meant to relax players and possibly help them manage their attention, rather than urging them and harvest resources as soon as their in-game timers are up.
How? Through two primary means: giving players reason to let timers run for ages without checking them, and creating a relaxing environment that takes the sting out of "failure." Or in words players would understand: it's to capture the experience of being a mediocre gardener, but having the power of botanical necromancy to back them up.
Cyarron explained to Game Developer that development on Greenheart Necromancer started after an internal game jam, where the small team settled quickly on wanting to make a game about a "balcony garden," the same kinds they'd made in their own apartments during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. She nodded to the plant looming over Johnson during our call, a lemon tree named "Linus" that unfortunately has bug infestation issues.
She said the idea of turning the idle game genre on its head was an early part of the project—"flipping the script" on what they feel are "pernicious and problematic" game mechanics is part of the team's ethos.
But how exactly are idle games "pernicious and problematic?" Your mileage may vary on "problematic" (they're certainly not as compulsive as gambling, and don't risk players burning away their life savings), but the most successful ones do lure players' attention by juggling carrots and sticks that make them stare at timers ticking down the way a soufflé chef carefully watches their creation.
Image via Silverstring Media.
The pleasant feeling that comes with precisely managing those timers is usually drawn further and further out, encouraging players to either watch advertisements or purchase microtransactions to speed up timers. Combine that with the satisfying sound design, vibrations, and visual effects that have been A/B tested into oblivion, and you have a genre designed to extract as much time, attention, and money from players as possible.
"It very quickly preys on the dopamine loop of wanting to see the next thing happen, so you keep your eyes on [the game] longer than you probably should," said Cyarron.
It's up for debate how "problematic" that is for the general public, but players who struggle with compulsive behaviors (particularly neurodivergent ones who struggle to focus or otherwise might hyperfixate on games) can see what should be a fun simulation game slowly turn into something that feels like an obligation or a chore (this writer has experienced this on multiple occasions and has now largely sworn off free-to-play mobile games).
And when games become chores, the fun fades away.
The hope, Cyarron and Johnson said, is that Greenheart Necromancer never feels like a chore. At best, they want it to be a "coworking app," something players can have running on another monitor or device, pumping out "chill beats" and showing their plants swaying in the wind.
In the real world, gardening is a chore because if you don't keep up with your plants, they die. And most people don't get into gardening to kill plants. In Greenheart Necromancer, death is fine, because the player character is...well, a Necromancer. She's a "socially anxious" witch who, like many pandemic gardeners, doesn't know much about taking care of plants and struggles to keep them alive.
Luckily when you can bring life back from the dead, the sting of failure falls away.
But it's more than just about rolling back the clock. Johnson said that the team has been experimenting with creating progression paths that only open up when players let plants die, so walking away from the game for a few days while you're on a trip opens doors instead of resetting them.
"Rather than thinking of the 'down state' as a failure state, the down state is just another moment where the game is waiting for the player to input something without any sort of punishment," added Cyarron.
You can also see in the announcement trailer how the team is using slower—though still pleasant—animations to draw out each interaction with the plant, a contrast from the animations and visual effects in traditional idle games.
The result is a game loop meant to sit alongside other parts of the player's life, rather than take time away from it—though that sense of "sitting alongside" will be different for different players. Cyarron explained she has Attention-Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and her ability to focus on tasks manifests differently than that of her coworkers (some who might struggle more, others who struggle less).
Being able to accommodate the many ways players manage their time and attention will be a key test for whether Greenheart Necromancer can truly break ground in the idle game format.
There's definitely something in the air when it comes to conversations about "the attention economy." You've probably heard the line "everything competes with TikTok," a reference to how the short-form video app has been so finely tuned to keep users scrolling from video to video, eating up time they could be spending on anything else. As Allison Stanger noted in a piece at The Atlantic, "platforms such as TikTok and its American-founded counterparts Facebook, Instagram, and X aren’t mere communication channels; they’re sophisticated artificial-intelligence systems that shape, amplify, and suppress human expression based on proprietary algorithms optimized for engagement and data collection,"
"Attention is the substance of life," TV host Chris Hayes writes in his new book The Siren's Call, a deep dive into how modern technology and the economics of the internet have shaped our behaviors and politics. "Increasingly it feels as if our experience is something we don't fully agree to, and the ubiquity of that sensation represents a kind of rupture. Our dominion over our own minds has been punctured. Our inner lives have been transformed in utterly unprecedented fashion. That's true in just about every country and culture on earth."
So while attention-grabbing idle games are the most useful reference point for the design sensibilities of Greenheart Necromancer, its makers acknowledge they aren't working in a vacuum, and that there's renewed focus on how games of all types eat up the time and money of players. "Think of Stardew Valley, Johnson said, noting he loves using as an example because it's game he loves. In theory, Stardew Valley is a cozy game about getting out of busy city life and starting a calmer life out on the farm. "But the game design has this intrinsic need [for the player] to be as efficient as possible."
That's because when players start out, they're tasked with pleasing the spirit of their dead grandfather at the start of the third in-game year. To make sure the ghost is happy, players have to quickly learn the efficiencies of running their farm, incentivizing the creation of Rube-Goldberg machines that pump out milk, eggs, and produce at lightning speed.
It's a tough line to walk critiquing that feature—after all, that standard (and other milestones throughout the game) is the challenge moving players forward and helping them learn the systems. Without it, millions of players wouldn't have fallen in love with Stardew Valley.
The conversation goes broader though. Cyarron pointed out that players are expressing exhaustion with huge open world RPGs—they may want to spend time in that game world or otherwise enjoy the experience, but the idea of hours and hours of devoted attention to see all the great work the developers put into the game is losing its shine for some folks.
"I'm glad the player base is starting to have conversations about how many hours becomes 'disrespectful,'" Cyarron said. "We've all had experiences of going into a game world and then bringing something out from it with us that we carry for the rest of our lives."
"That's one of the promises of games, that's why I love this shit. You can definitely have that in those [open world games], but that's not the only way games can have that impact...there's got to be ways that just aren't about dumping all of these hours and also your attention."
Whether you agree or disagree with the Silverstring team's thinking about attention-grabbing gameplay mechanics, their work on Greenheart Necromancer shows one thing: there's plenty of room to explore in genres ruled by free-to-play giants. Maybe your next great game will "flip the script" on a game genre or mechanic you don't enjoy.
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