A phone tap that’s a win-win

Some things should just be easy. In your downtime, you shouldn’t have to find a hidden sword to unlock a new level while soul-crushing zombies are coming at you; that’s what the workplace is for.

Yet, even virtual games that are meant to be idyllic, such as Farmville and Animal Crossing, can become mildly stressful, with their lists of tasks and targets — cows to be fed, coconuts gathered, and friends to host and impress.

This is where the idle-tap game comes in. These are games so simple that the player just taps, and the game plays with them (and sometimes in the background after the app is shut too). Bitcoin Billionaire and AdVenture Capitalist are among the most popular. Taps generate “bitcoin” to take a player from humble beginnings to a financial empire. The “bitcoin” can be used to buy things, hire people, gain abilities, and the more of those a player has, the faster their wealth accrues.

The rise of the idle-tap game can be traced back to Cookie Clicker, which was launched in 2013. The user clicks on cookies to earn more cookies, which can be used to buy farms, banks, even grandmas to help make more cookies.

The game started out as a joke, its French creator Julien Thiennot has said. He described it as one “no one in their right mind would play for more than 10 minutes”. To his surprise, and the surprise of the gaming industry, it became the second-mostsearched-for video game of 2013. (The mostsearched-for was Grand Theft Auto V, which cost millions to create and had a complex world of cars, plots and weaponry.)

Thiennot realised then, he has said, that his game had the same simple, addictive appeal of the evergreen Tetris, with fewer challenges and better rewards.

Following its success, other developers launched similar games. Bitcoin Billionaire came along in 2014, Dogeminer 2 in 2017. An apocalyptic version, Final Fortress – Idle Survival, launched in 2016, has an in-game currency called Gas, which can be used to expand the fortress one starts out with.

As with the majority of online games, a large part of the allure comes from the false sense of accomplishment. But with idle-tap games, the player never loses, or has to compete. They can let their minds wander; some users say they even play while watching TV. This can also become a compulsion.

“The rewards in these games are in much greater proportion to other genres,” says clinical psychologist Dr Prerna Kohli.

The simplicity remains their big draw. “Such games are perfect for a fast-paced life,” says Rahul Agnihotri, 32, a software developer and fan of Dogeminer 2. “Even though you’re only tapping the screen, the goal is to make things better in-game. Like colouring and journaling, idle-tap games help you destress by giving you something simple to focus on.”