Idle Economy
The Idle Economy app icon: a cottage on green ground.

iPhone · Free · No ads, no purchases

A cosy little town
that runs itself.

Place farms, mills and bakeries, keep everyone fed, and watch a hamlet grow into a city.

You don't manage it minute to minute. You check in, notice that something has stopped, fix it, add a bit more, and leave. It keeps working while you're gone.

See how it works Coming soon to the App Store

The whole game is one idea

Buildings need things from other buildings.

FarmgrowsWheat→ MillmakesFlour→ BakerybakesBread

If the flour runs out, the bakery goes quiet — the wheel stops turning, the smoke stops rising — and a little bubble appears over it saying what it's waiting for.

That's it. Everything else is decoration on top of noticing that something has stopped and giving it what it needs.

You can't brute-force it. Ten more bakeries won't help if there's no flour. You have to build backwards down the chain, which is a more interesting decision than buying the biggest number.

What you do

  • Grow wheat, mill it into flour, bake it into bread — then ale, cloth, brick, iron and tools as the town learns how.
  • Place every building yourself, on real ground. The river, the woodland and the hills are where they are and won't move for you — a well has to stand by water and a woodcutter next to trees.
  • Keep your people fed and housed, and give them what they want. A town that has its ale and its cloth grows faster than one that hasn't, so your own townspeople end up being your best customers.
  • Grow through the ages, from a settlement of huts to a city of brick and slate. Every building you already own changes with it, and it costs you nothing.

It respects five minutes

The town works while the app is closed, and tells you what happened when you come back. Nothing expires, nothing wilts, and nothing punishes you for going to sleep.

There's no way to lose. No timer to beat, no leaderboard, no enemy. When something goes wrong the game tells you what and how to fix it — and if you ever want to, you can start the town over and keep what you learned.

What it doesn't do

No adsNot banners, not rewarded video, not any.
No purchasesNothing is sold inside the game.
No accountNothing to sign up for or sign in to.
No trackingNo analytics, no crash reporting, no third-party code.
Works offlineThe app never uses the network at all.
Playable unsightedEvery screen works with VoiceOver, and the whole town can be played as a list.

If any of that ever changes, the privacy page will say exactly what, in the release that changes it — not the one after.