Midnight Idle
A minimalist incremental game with a captivating backstory, offering rich layers of experience for you to explore on your adventure. I created this game out of my passion for the genre, inspired by titles like Armory & Machine, Antimatter Dimensions, A Dark Room, Universal Paperclips, and many others.
Development log
- Bug fixes (0.3.8)45 days ago
- Bug fixes + QoL (0.3.7)46 days ago
- Bug fixes + Cloud Save/Load (0.3.5)49 days ago
- Bug fixes + QoL Updates (0.3.3)52 days ago
- Bug fixes (0.3.2)53 days ago
- Chapter 2 Release (v0.3.0)54 days ago
- Bug fixes (0.2.9)98 days ago
- Updates for Speed running QoLDec 18, 2024
Comments
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I FINALLY GOT THE HANG OF IT AND WAS DOING SO GOOD AND THEN MY GAME FROZE SO I REFRESHED THE PAGE AND NOW I LOST IT ALL!!! PLEASE TELL ME THERE IS A WAY TO GET IT BACK
Not unless you have done any previous backup. Try to follow the Reddit thread or Discord. You can mention at what stage you are stuck at, some players can share save codes of similar progress.
is chapter 3 coming soon ? :)
It is in progress, but not soon. I aim to deliver content with play time more than a couple of hours/days.
Maybe you could add a flashback/rerun upgrade that lets you do your run again the exact way you did last to help with grinding
Or even just an interest system that makes it where you earn more during your run if you save up just something to help with grinding up those points, the game is so fun but I am struggling
Where are you stuck with?
Have you reached chapter 2? There is an upgrade that lets you redo your run the exact way as the previous run.
I have not made it there yet just lots of grinding chapter 1 but knowing that I retract my statement, very very nice.
What is it called and how do i find it i made it to chapter 2 but i dont see that upgrade
Ancestral Dreams. When you unlock the Werewolf class, it will be one of the first few upgrades that you would want to go for.
Got it, and love it but I cant seem to find any of the other class's aside from werewolf any hints at least because the werewolf is amazing but it's upgrades alone aren't cutting it
Alright I said that then i managed to find the vampire but i only got it the once and now i cant manage to get it again without dying if there are more classes id love to know and a hint how to get them but i am struggling again
Ok, I am going to say that it is weird that in *Second chapter Spirit drains when no action is being performed (basically asking the player to always be ready to press Pause to actually think about what to do next) and especially so while doing stuff that states that it will consume Spirit
(+1 DS for 5 Spirit sound great until you realise that it really is 5+14 Spirit even with all Ooze time upgrades...)
Also a bug - "Carapace dagger" gets damage bonus from "Rupture" but not "Dagger Master" for some reason (and is slower than "Magic Dagger" even after being described as 'unnervingly light')
Yes, juggling with Spirit drain is one of the game mechanic that player will have to overcome, until they are able to unlock new upgrade/mechanic to bypass this hurdle.
If you are referring to soul wells, upgrades will help to increase the draw faster. You will be able to finish 10 draws under 1 second later.
With the speed upgrades later, all daggers will eventually be the same 0.5s speed.
Okok, and it not counting as a dagger for "Dagger Master" is also intentional?
Yes, that Goblin upgrade is for chapter 1 daggers. There are at least 5 daggers in total in the game.
Hi AccurateCat,
great game I love these idle RPGs, focused on story and player autonomy/choices. Yours in particular feels nice in the way, that it offers a multitude of paths as well as a prestige mechanic that not is not just a path of strength but also one that eases the grind.
Did note a softlock though. In the dungeon with the table and the chest, should you fight rats and click the one to fight the skeleton before the fight you'll receive the info about the timed fight, but will fight the rat. Afterwards the other fight didn't commence and I could not reselect the option to fight, essentialy softlocking me.
Anyway thanks for the game, as this is just my second run I am sure to do some more, as except for this mishap, I'm having a blast with it. Tapping in and out of the game whenever something else bores me.
Yes, that is a known bug. Try not to start multiple combat at the same time.
Hey there,
I played the game when only the Legion chapter was available and it got me instantly hooked. It probably took me a couple of hours to reach the end and it was a lot of fun.
Even though I'm not a fan of grinding too much, I didn't feel annoyed or bored by it, when the time came to collect SP. Can't say what it is, but you've done a great job.
Then I came back to see there is a 2nd chapter. Too bad my progress got deleted. The cloud code didn't work for me, so I started over, it was no big deal for me. Good thing I did this, because I would have missed a certain upgrade for sure.
Now that I've spent multiple hours in the past few days alone to reach the current end, I can safely say that I have an addiction problem when it comes to good incremental games :D
I'd also like to report one bug that I've noticed and give some suggestions.
The "last cycle" text for any action hasn't appeared since the last update and neither did the AD upgrade work, making retracing more tedious.
As for my suggestions, when opening the settings and/or combat skills menu the game should be paused IMO, similar to when checking out the story. When manually pausing, you can't interact with the UI. I say this because I've tried to export the game at a specific point in the 2nd chapter and it cost me a bunch of Spirit because I was just so slow :D
The other suggestion is to create some kind of map, so you can see which paths you've already taken.
All in all I can say that this is one of my favorite games on this site and I wish you all the best while also looking forward to more content!
Thanks for reading :)
Hi, thanks for playing and for the feedback.
Regarding the AD/retracing issue, I had a small bug few days ago when I was attempting to fix another fix with it for another case. It should be resolved by now. Do let me know if AD is still not working on your end.
I know some players might not last the initial grind in chapter one to discover the contents in chapter 2, and I feel it might be the same when I release chapter 3 later. Thus, I will be adding achievements feature that will allow faster player progress across all chapters as they play/unlock various milestones in the game.
At the moment, story pop-ups, combat logs, story, dev logs, settings, etc - all pauses the game. The only mechanic that still drains spirit in the background is combat engagement.
There are some efforts by the reddit community to come out with a map of some sort, but at the moment it is still a draft.
Hey there,
Thanks for the reply.
At this moment AD does not work properly, maybe it's just on my part, though I've activated both upgrades and I'm not sure what else I can do.
I've also checked again if Spirit is drained when the settings menu is open and you were right - the game is paused at this time. However, pressing the space bar unpauses it so I guess this was my issue :D
Typical layer 8 problem I guess.
I'd love to help with a map, is there a link to this community you can share?
I've just created a discord, and added some map links there (work in progress). You can access by clicking on discord icon in the game.
Awesome, I've just joined :)
Btw. AD seems to be working again, thanks for the quick fix
Dude i just lost all my data, ive been playing on browser (opera gx) on an android phone (, logging in each time i played; my data was being saved. Yet this morning for some reason its all gone?
other than that this game was incredibly fun. The amount of secret or class exclusive options when playing was so fun.
Not familiar with Opera GX, but did you update your browser recently? Do you recall what/where is the last action/encounter you performed?
You can restore from this cloud code (G3WN96NF). It's not much, but a save from almost maxed chapter 1.
My last action was a mortal wound (I died) i believe, i then closed the window like i normally do, when i came back next morning it was gone. thanks for the save ill make sure to keep a cloud save available next time, opera gx might have updated (as it does often, automatically) personally I think closing the window may have been what did it but that's just a hunch.
Do you recall which enemy you fought that resulted in the Mortal Wound?
Encountered a bug where I died to the Spirit Dragon and I can't respawn -https://pastebin.com/zC1xWSfz
Your link says: This page is no longer available. It has either expired, been removed by its creator, or removed by one of the Pastebin staff.
Perhaps you can click on the cloud backup button and use that code instead?
Woot! Finally took down Big J. Didn't end up using the grate or scuffling with Snappy, and never found the tinkerer, but managed to just barely pull it off anyway.
This game deserves all the accolades it has been getting. Very well done. I like how chapters 1 and 2 play off each other, with 2 initially leaching the gains of 1 until the player cycles and learns enough to turn the new post altar situation to their benefit.
Congrats and thanks for playing! There are more than 1 build to beat the game, some are easier/harder, but most are viable as you are nearing to max everything.
Tinkerer can be found if you choose to remain as Ooze after Snappy, and go to the same place you encounter the angry Treant.
Huh! Looks like I missed more than one thing then, since I didn't see a treant either!
Play as evil, burn the tree in Body, you can find Treant in Soul.
Remain the ooze? You can be the ooze in the second branch? Is there a way to become the ooze after the portal that I just haven't made it to yet? Because if I become the ooze in the main story line I no longer have the option to go to the altar.
Yes, inside the portal, there is a way to return back to Ooze (but not Ooze Behemoth).
Under stand Well that it's not a Snap to do, but you'll feel pretty grate once you figure it out.
Once I figure out what all of that means, I'm going to really hate you, aren't I? 😂
This is a masterpiece. Convenient upgrades, an enjoyable gameplay loop that rides that fine balance between consuming time and respecting it, numerous paths to take, and a surprisingly engaging storyline & worldbuilding fleshing it out. Thank you for this gift.
Thanks for taking your time to play this game!
Is there a discord server for this game?
Not yet. But there's an active Reddit post here
For me, the game halts almost immediately with an exception:
May I know what browser and version you are using?
This is happening on Firefox 134.0.2 (64-bit) for Linux Mint (mint-001 - 1.0). I'm getting the same error now as I did before--in case that helps.
All right, I was able to fix the issue by clearing all cached data for itch.io. (There was about 787 MB in the cache for me.) Since the quota was reached, there was no space left for Midnight Idle, and that was making the save-game code fail almost immediately.
If anyone else is having the same issue, you can clear your itch.io cache by going to: Settings > Privacy & Security > Cookies and Site Data > Manage Data.
Hope that helps!
Wow ... not sure what types of game you play here on itch, but 787MB of offline data is huge. The running auto-save data for this game is currently around 100kb.
Absolutely loved the game, very addictive, has that "just one more turn..." element :) In fact, it was so good, I wanted to ask you what engine you used to create this game? I really want to know more about it.
Only HTML, CSS and basic JavaScript. Doesn't have an engine. Everything pieced together by 2 infinite loops. A faster one to calculate and process game variables, and a slower one to update the HTML/CSS for visual output.
Thank you very much for answering! :DI found the interface to be quite modular. If you ever want to explore the idea, I think that making a model of what you did here for incremental IDLE games would be quite innovative. I had the impression the whole time that it was an engine, that's why I asked.Thank you very much for the experience, I'm following along to play the next updates! +I deleted the previous comment because there was a bug and a legion of symbols appeared out of nowhere, sorry!
Had to pull myself away to do something else. Great Job!
If you're going to use AI at least tell your audiance
I'm on my first run and chose to defy Legion and lost but now there's no menu options to click. No way to continue :(
Same.
You can try to refresh to get 0.3.8 version
Sorry. I was fixing some combat updates yesterday night and forgot about the Legion defeat. Now it will properly end the cycle after a Defiance fight.
Thanks for the quick response! I refreshed and got v0.3.8 but I my save still has me just sitting at the main screen with no options available.
Have you completed a cycle yet? If you have, there's a [Reset Cycle] button under settings. If not and this is your first cycle, I can pm you a save for first cycle, just before the final door.
It's my first cycle so I don't have that option unfortunately :( A save would be great!
Here, use this save, nearing the end of first cycle: UGD9KJ0T
Hello, I've been enjoying this game on PC, but on mobile (android) ever time you tap it seems to make the screen keyboard pop up.
Confirming for Firefox browser on Android. This is a new bug, and it's assertive enough to make the game nigh unplayable on this platform.
EDIT : Issue resolved for Firefox on Android.
I've temporary disabled keyboard input, until a mobile-friendly alternative is discovered.
Rapid turnaround on that! Firefox on Android is now a viable platform again.
New key input now support both desktop keyboard and compatible with mobile.
I've temporary disabled keyboard input, until a mobile-friendly alternative is discovered.
Hooray, thank you! Now I can play on my phone :)
The music of the orc shaman is exceptional. Touching. It transmits the sense of sadness, stoicism and undeserved punishment of the protagonist.
Thanks for feedback and thank you forplaying.
Can't see the trinket UI on mobile, it blinks in and out immediately. Also can't export save on mobile because the encoded string is too long.
Can you attach screenshot for the trinket screen? It too long (horizontally), buttons should auto wrap to 2nd line.
Have you tried exporting to text box option?
It doesn't show up long enough to get a screenshot of it. It's only visible for a few frames.
Edit: Upon further inspection, what I'm actually seeing is the icons at the very bottom of the screen pop into view right above the trinket button.
Edit 2: I have severely misunderstood what the trinket button was. Having progressed further, I now understand. Please ignore this.
Thanks for clarification.
Doing the export to text box was the only way I could get anything text to save to clipboard. Trying without that didn't actually copy anything
Yes, some devices or browser have issues with clipboard, thus the text box was added for these cases.
when i toggle off auto explore i cant retoggle it till next cycle
Yes, most of the scripted automation are done at the beginning of the cycle. Thus it will not take effect until next cycle. However later in the game there's another skill that let you to custom tweak your run paths, and you can stop/pause at anytime.
reached 100th try and still got no clue. what is that pendant 10/10 on screenshot? where is triangle key, and pass to check point? and no matter how my alignment is, soul door's heretics keep fus ro dah on me. I noticed hammer which black smith would be interested, but there was no option to try lift that thing. quite complicated, this chapter..
Someone finally beat the game. You can find tips here.
thanks a bunch. by the way, was there something change in version? it suddenly start from scratch, and I don't have save file..
Sorry for the loss. I'm not sure at what stage your game progress is currently in but hope this helps:
https://pastebin.com/0kh0mtLL
bug 1. when you turn music off while you are at legion chapter and then turn music back on at zezebel chapter, music stays legion chapter's.
bug 2. when you go mind door route and kill fish - rest - agree on trade, wrong pop up shows on. effect seems applied, though.
Thanks for feedback.
#1 - Yea, this audio issue needs to be fixed, but low priority at the moment.
#2 - Have updated the story text to the correct one for Vampire trade.
I tried to export my save, it doesn't works. I reset a cycle, it reset my full save. I quit.
I'll be adding some sort of cloud save in next update.
Cloud save is now available.
cant pause auto explore.
I will make it able to toggle in next update
New version of the game released. Enjoy and have fun!
Let's go yooooooooo
I can't even start the game. I hear music and am on intro screen
Which browser are you playing on? If you are on Chrome or Edge, you should be able to bring up the developer console. See if there are any JavaScript errors reported there. If there is, see if you can copy/paste it here.
For some reason DarkReader addon interacts badly with it.
disabling it works but it surprised me seeing, as other games on this site have no issues, I have darkreader permanently on.
Very fun! I finally beat the final boss on run 40 (would have been 39 but i misclicked and failed to get my last attack at the last second) Wolf superiority!
i enjoyed but was frustrated you always had to move forward and could not go back to areas you already been to. also only being able to take one item or search a chest or a desk and being unable to search the other was annoying
Well, that's how you explore options and optimize your run. keep going, man
The dev is active on reddit but not so much here. IIRC he said the next update would be out near the end of January.
the dev also posted here 12 days ago.
… also it’s a month old game, some people have no patience.
Really loving this incremental game! Almost to the end of what's here so far for the first time. Wondering if there's a sort of NG+, but heck will love it when full release is out!
To any who were wondering the answer is yes there is NG+
Thanks for playing. New chapter (next layer) of the game is coming soon. Stay tuned.
So an issue I've been running into is losing the disableable upgrades if they were disabled at the time I restart the game. So for instance after switching from my android to desktop I lost all my points in Demoralize (it costs points again), I am Bat/Goblin, and Straight-Forward (but I kept Popup Blocker and I am Wolf because I was using those at the time of the save).
I've also occasionally ran into a bug where (because of auto-leave options?) I will enter a battle, but the enemy health icon will disappear.
Noted on the upgrades "re-purchase". Currently the free (zero cost discount) is temporarily stored in session, and a browser refresh will make you lose this discount. I'll make this permanent in the 0.3.x release.
New version will also auto start animal planets for rat/bat, making a situation where 2 combat start simultaneously rarer (I suspect this is the case for most of the players who got stuck).
Great to hear! Yeah, I just ran into that bug again, it probably is from starting two combats at once.
SP upgrades that force us to do something is not really nesessary & good. time to time, I want to test different option. last time I tried bat form, squeeze through gate(that contains chest and study desk) was impossible thanks to unstoppable perk.
Oh, and skeleton warrior fight was somewhat buggy. every time, I have to fight them 2 times.
Most of the auto perks can be disabled. You can click on the ENABLED word to disable it. Yes you need to fight skeleton twice.
Having a blast with this one, and looking forward to the next update. My only complaint is that in the late game I keep accidentally misclicking path options because a battle ended while I was clicking on my daggers.
Dont worry, new version to be released will have automated class combat attacks like dagger, claw, spit.
quite interesting. it gives motivation to explore different options.
Fantastic game so far, only problem I seem to be constantly under is that the timer seems to not tick properly so sometimes it takes second for a single second to pass in game. Perhaps it's a browser problem? (I use Chrome)
Not sure. Could be browser related. I'm using the game loop to do the tick count, rather that real world time. Perhaps if PC is busy processing somewhere else, it will affect that speed the game runs.
I have confirmed by trying it out on Edge, it's a browser issue
I just realised hours have passed since I first started playing this game. The art is breathtaking and the game play lovely, truely enjoyed my time and will be keeping an eye on this gem!
Lovely work!
I just completed my second play-through. Over all, well done and very playable. Thank you.
There are a few minor issues as of v0.2.9 that could be addressed to polish things up. This forum doesn't seem to support [spoiler] tags, so I apologize in advance for the incoming wall of text.
Animal Planet remains active after rats/bats/imps are removed when Cross Bridge is selected and when Open Door appears. This appears to be a bug.
The menu order isn't stable. The Exploration option moves when switching tabs or when hunting rats or bats. Read some Books in the Training Room moves down if the other options are selected, which can lead to accidentally clicking 'Leave' if Read some Books isn't automated yet.
Bat: Navigate Airducts has "0/1" in the top right corner. This should either be blank or say "UNLIMITED".
Bat: Navigate Airducts and Wolf: Sprint labels don't update when upgraded.
Soul Points: Traits that can be turned off after purchase should be identifiable as such before purchase.
Depending on Skill speed, Wolf: Blood Banking requires between 1h41m16s and 1h49m35s to reach the 50 point cap. The limit should probably be reduced to 20 points, which can be reached in 15 to 20 minutes depending on Skill speed. An upgrade to reduce the 5s time increment might be in order as well.
Thanks for your feedback. Some of these issues will be addressed in the v0.3.x release, while some are still underway.
i had a lot of fun with this! i think this has the potential to be put on a shelf with the games you've drawn inspiration from. excellent work!
Thanks, wait till the next layer of the game comes out, there will loops within loops (or cycles within cycles).
i can't wait!
Enjoying this a lot so far! Found a bug that breaks a cycle though. When fighting a goblin horde, I misclicked and queued up a goblin fight and a random rat fight at around the same time.
When the fight with the rat ended, I was back on the menu with no option to fight goblins, and no way to advance. Thankfully with that reset cycle button I can still start over, but just figured I'd make sure you were aware!
Thanks for the report. I think between the 2 goblin encounters they should be fine, just that random rat issue is causing it to break. I'll add a check for the rat later none to initiate is another battle is already underway.
Please note firstly that I have not yet beaten Legion, so whatever I say can be taken with a grain of salt.
I would love if the forms could be upgraded: Like Wolf to Werewolf, Bat to Vampire, Goblin to Orc, and Ooze to Doppelganger. Basically an overall boost to abilities. I read in the comments that the content post Legion isn't done yet, so maybe its in the works? I also hope that the cutscene skipping buyable only skips previously seen scenes or is restricted to just the Legion chapter. I'd hate to buy the skill and then miss any new cutscenes... not that I plan to buy it at all, considering the artwork is too damn pretty to skip.
This is a great game that fills the moments between my other current idle obsessions. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. 5/5 stars.
Thanks for your feedback. I like the idea of moving forward into the next version of each class.
Regarding the upgrade Popup Blocker, it will not apply to new content of the game to be released later.
If you enjoy the game so far, please consider nominating/voting for me for the Reddit 2024 competition:
https://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_games/comments/1hinspw/best_of_2024_awards/