comments for IDLE: Intergalactic Defense League Exterminators
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butzie • 2026/05/30 May 30, 2026 +7comment score: 7
its a decent start but the more i played the more annoyed i got that the rounds were so short also missing a timer.
This is an odd one to review. There's a lot of good stuff, and a lot of... weird stuff. Even after playing for about an hour, I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Pros
+ Great pixel art and animations.
+ Expansive skill tree with interesting upgrades.
+ The general's harrumphs.
Cons
- The nodelike circle isn't very useful, I'd much prefer a guide for the laser's path so I can see how far along the path it'll get.
- The increase in time upgrade (rotation rockets) takes a long time to get, and by the end, only adds ~60%.
- The scenery in later stages hides bugs, which is frustrating.
- The scaling for some upgrades is laughable, especially early on. The first damage upgrade doesn't even let you one-shot the bugs in the first stage and laser duration seems completely pointless.
- Not being able to stop converting resources is a bummer, and I'd prefer some kind of X/s control, rather than just +/- 100/1000.
Weirds
~ "Waiter, why is there idle in my active-form incremental?" It's definitely novel, but I can't say if I definitively liked or disliked it. Early on I started to wonder if I should just leave it running and come back to buy the upgrades. But then later on, with the active resource gain, it was much better to keep playing the game? Normally games that are "active and idle" are active at the start, tending to idle towards the end, this is the opposite.
~ The main reason why the game segments feel so short (when they're actually quite long for a nodelike), is because the first few seconds of every run are very dull as you slowly wait for the bugs to amble onto the screen. If each run at least started with some bugs 1/4 of the way across, it would keep the player engaged a bit better.
~ Losing upgrades with prestiges is really rough. The enemies get tougher with each prestige anyway, so I'm not sure why you lose them? I'd just crank up the enemy health scaling, because having to re-buy automated collecting etc. is just annoying.
Bugs (the software kind)
- About every 5th-10th shot, the laser will randomly fire (and not towards the cursor) and not play a sound effect.
- The Biomass Prestige upgrade keeps telling me it'll add 1.0, but each level only adds 0.5.
- The Basic Mineral Economy is bugged the other way around, it adds way more than it says it does. So I guess the dev needs to check them all.
Overall
I've given this a high rating because I appreciate what it's trying to do, and the stuff that's done well has been done really well. I think this is a really decent "idler with active segments" that's been malformed to fit the nodelike structure, when actually if the active bit was something you chose to start/stop at any time (or there was some more obvious structure you were defending and you go back to the upgrade screen when its health had been depleted), it would work a hell of a lot better.
Pros
+ Great pixel art and animations.
+ Expansive skill tree with interesting upgrades.
+ The general's harrumphs.
Cons
- The nodelike circle isn't very useful, I'd much prefer a guide for the laser's path so I can see how far along the path it'll get.
- The increase in time upgrade (rotation rockets) takes a long time to get, and by the end, only adds ~60%.
- The scenery in later stages hides bugs, which is frustrating.
- The scaling for some upgrades is laughable, especially early on. The first damage upgrade doesn't even let you one-shot the bugs in the first stage and laser duration seems completely pointless.
- Not being able to stop converting resources is a bummer, and I'd prefer some kind of X/s control, rather than just +/- 100/1000.
Weirds
~ "Waiter, why is there idle in my active-form incremental?" It's definitely novel, but I can't say if I definitively liked or disliked it. Early on I started to wonder if I should just leave it running and come back to buy the upgrades. But then later on, with the active resource gain, it was much better to keep playing the game? Normally games that are "active and idle" are active at the start, tending to idle towards the end, this is the opposite.
~ The main reason why the game segments feel so short (when they're actually quite long for a nodelike), is because the first few seconds of every run are very dull as you slowly wait for the bugs to amble onto the screen. If each run at least started with some bugs 1/4 of the way across, it would keep the player engaged a bit better.
~ Losing upgrades with prestiges is really rough. The enemies get tougher with each prestige anyway, so I'm not sure why you lose them? I'd just crank up the enemy health scaling, because having to re-buy automated collecting etc. is just annoying.
Bugs (the software kind)
- About every 5th-10th shot, the laser will randomly fire (and not towards the cursor) and not play a sound effect.
- The Biomass Prestige upgrade keeps telling me it'll add 1.0, but each level only adds 0.5.
- The Basic Mineral Economy is bugged the other way around, it adds way more than it says it does. So I guess the dev needs to check them all.
Overall
I've given this a high rating because I appreciate what it's trying to do, and the stuff that's done well has been done really well. I think this is a really decent "idler with active segments" that's been malformed to fit the nodelike structure, when actually if the active bit was something you chose to start/stop at any time (or there was some more obvious structure you were defending and you go back to the upgrade screen when its health had been depleted), it would work a hell of a lot better.
There's not a lot here that's different from any other nodelikes. It's certainly not an idle game either. Naming it otherwise suggests contempt for the intelligence of your players.
The "money" upgrades look weird to me. The first level in the first ore upgrade grants 10, and subsequent levels grand 0.1? And a similar thing goes for the biomass upgrade. It seems like an atrocious return on investment, I actively don't want to spend resources on something that's going to take a year to pay it back.
The demo upgrades could also be a bit clearer on that you can't purchase them. I finally scrounged up enough ore to buy the "laser autofires without player aiming" upgrade, only to find out that DEMO bit isn't a "don't have an icon for it yet" placeholder, and that I simply can't buy it.
The demo upgrades could also be a bit clearer on that you can't purchase them. I finally scrounged up enough ore to buy the "laser autofires without player aiming" upgrade, only to find out that DEMO bit isn't a "don't have an icon for it yet" placeholder, and that I simply can't buy it.
i like the art and sound effects.
there are several upgrades that i have no idea what they do or what the point of them is.
full screening makes the cursor invisible.
prestige.... just.. did nothing but play a long and annoying (uninteresting. no new assets. just your dome flying around in a blank sky) animation. but nothing.. changed. no prestige tree to spend.. points from prestige..
just overall very weird.
there are several upgrades that i have no idea what they do or what the point of them is.
full screening makes the cursor invisible.
prestige.... just.. did nothing but play a long and annoying (uninteresting. no new assets. just your dome flying around in a blank sky) animation. but nothing.. changed. no prestige tree to spend.. points from prestige..
just overall very weird.
All of the upgrades stemming from 'mineral biomass conversion' feel like they should be visible from the start, and definitely kept on prestige. Every single upgrade there is something i would have loved to know existed before prestige 2, let alone prestige 2. The main laser feels like a complete waste of time after you get a single autonomous weapon as youll spend so much time gathering resources on the floor, and waiting for the tiddlywinks of minerals you get from the base x/s upgrade feels like a huge waste of time, then you get workers and mining rigs and those problems feel lessened. Its just kin of bizarre that these super important, almost vital, systems could reasonably take a player 3 prestiges to even know exist.
Additionally, there seems to be a number of bugs/oversights with automated weaponry. Ive noticed that the automatic turrets try to predict enemy movement, but they actually overcorrect and fire too far ahead of enemy they are tracking, so they miss way more than intended. The vents seem to have a bug in their first upgrade, when you get the first upgrade for 2 up to 3 vents, it does nothing, but 3 to 4 works as intended. The main laser seems to have a bug where it will occasionally target the last place it shot to, instead of where you are trying to shoot, missing entirely. In a previous version I said missiles dont appear to actually function, but they actually do, but they only fire at grounded enemies, and because of foreground elements blocking visibility on the ground they were completely obscured. The random bits of decoration blocking visibility are kind of a nuisance.
I have no clue how targeting works, but the longer I play the more I notice that everything I completely focused on grounded bugs ~90% of the time, and that this somehow doesnt even matter because explosive bugs will to 80% of the damage in a round for you anyways. Its kind of bizarre how this game is balanced so far, but that likely because of how limited most upgrades are in the demo.