Exponential Idle

This game at first appears to be just a smarter, but more simple design. No cookies to click. Just a mathematical equation. As you continuously progress in the game you get to experience the complex equations that start to happen. Adding more variables using “Stars” which unlike most idle games is able to get while having fun. Just as I started thinking wow, this game really isn’t that fun. I got to the prestige part, I had clicked the first equation about 8,000 times. I reached a point where my f(t) wasn’t going up that much anymore and then I became able to prestige. This changed everything I was then getting higher and higher until I reached around ee100 then I got introduced to Supremacy. Eventually getting auto buyers, then an auto prestiger. I could then AFK for around 4-8 hours come back and supremacy. I am currently sitting at ee730 and waiting to get the achievement for reaching ee777.

So far I’ve gone through 2 iterations of “prestige” and reached the fourth variable. Compared to other idle games, the growth equation of Exponential Idle seems too basic, which makes the game kinda boring for me. It’s kinda ironic that the equation is so simple, given that the theme of the game is exponential math. Maybe it gets more complex later? But I have little interest in playing to get to that point. To explain what I mean - in the game you build up your independent variable X (thereby improving your f(x) function), and you also level up other sub-variables to do it. The function is just X = 0.8*Xlv + 2*(Ylv+Zlv+Slv). Basically the contribution of Y, Z, and S (per level) are exactly the same, so you end just level up whichever one is cheaper... kinda boring. Also the contribution of leveling X is just 40% as much as leveling the others, and it’s free to do so but you can only give it 1 level at a time. It feels like the game rewards you for mindless clicking with little to no strategy involved. On the other hand, other idle games (like AdVenture Capitalist and all its follow-up games) present you with multiple different resources and challenge you to manage them all to optimize your growth... which is overall much more interesting and fun. Exponential Idle just falls short.

I really enjoyed this game. You can enjoy it on a couple different (intellectual) levels. First, it’s just a very fun idle game that is quite well balanced. Upgrades come and take a bit of time and then the things that become bothersome to manage become automatic. Second, it’s a game about math. For most of the equations you don’t need to understand them to progress. At the very end of the game there are some that you will need to understand, but that’s a very small part of the game and some web searching or a helpful soul on discord will get you sorted out. I’m an electrical engineer and thought the equations were well thought out and straightforward, although there was one that still confuses me to this day, but that wasn’t one I needed to know. There is no pay wall, just watch and ad to get a few hours of boosted progress. Or pay a small one time transaction to always be boosted. Also, it has an end. I personally like that because I don’t feel like I’m playing just to play and finally delete it one day when I’m tired of the same old routine. It’ll take you several weeks to get to the end, maybe longer. I highly recommend it if you like idle games and/or like math.