Zero IDLE

About

Zero IDLE is a single player action game. It was developed by ZeroWorldwide and was released on October 20, 2020. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Zero IDLE is an incremental (IDLE) game in which you can decide whether to make all of your way to the biggest number EVER by clicking, or by increasing your incremental production...or you can make the game to click for you...

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

67%

Audience ScoreBased on 257 reviews

humor10 positive mentions

grinding13 negative mentions

Zero IDLE features a simple and engaging gameplay loop that is easy to understand, making it accessible for newcomers to the idle genre.
The game has a charming pixel art style and is relatively free from intrusive ads and microtransactions, allowing for a more enjoyable experience.
It offers a decent amount of progression and humor, making it a fun time-killer for casual gaming sessions.

The game suffers from a lack of content variety, leading to repetitive gameplay after a few hours.
Performance issues arise in the late game, with significant lag and crashes when clicking too fast or reaching high numbers.
Despite being labeled as an idle game, it requires constant attention and clicking, which can detract from the traditional idle experience.

gameplay
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
19%
62%
19%
The gameplay is criticized for being overly simplistic and grindy, with a repetitive "click to progress" mechanic that lacks innovation and meaningful progression. Players experience a tedious cycle of clicking and waiting, with minimal impact from prestige or evolving mechanics, leading to a frustrating and low-quality gaming experience. Overall, the game feels like a poorly executed idle clicker that fails to engage players beyond the initial stages.
- “Zero Idle has a lot of what idle fans expect: clicking, prestige systems, evolving mechanics, unlocking things over time, and watching numbers get huge.”
- “That's a good thing for incremental games, where some devs will attempt to stretch gameplay time to infinity just by making milestones go up by multiple factors of ten.”
- “It has an idle vs active mechanic where it counts the clicks you do and this count vanishes after 60 seconds of idle time.”
- “The brainless gameplay is, unsurprisingly, accompanied with an equally low quality technical implementation and poor presentation, resulting in yet another horribly low quality shovelware game that might as well have been done in a web browser.”
- “The 'evolve' mechanic is tediously grindy.”
- “You start off with a pretty standard idle game, but quickly realize that unlike most idle games, when you prestige (evolve), you replay at roughly the same speed as the first time, so you prestige and prestige over and over again with hardly a noticeable impact on the actual gameplay, so you keep clicking and clicking, upgrading and upgrading, repeating the same things over and over again until bam, you hit this solid wall where progress just stops and you idle for 8 hours just to gain 1.1x production, maybe.”
grinding
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
93%
Players generally find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessively tedious and repetitive, particularly in the early stages and during later evolutions. While some appreciate the grind as a necessary part of the clicker genre, many express frustration with the slow progression and the feeling of being stuck, especially after achieving significant milestones. Overall, the grind can detract from the enjoyment, leading to a mixed reception regarding its necessity and execution.
- “This game wants you glued to your screen, constantly clicking and grinding through the same repetitive stuff for hours.”
- “The 'evolve' mechanic is tediously grindy.”
- “After reaching 100% of the Steam achievements, I see little point to continue though as it all becomes very grindy at that point. When you reach 6th life, the penalty to CPS becomes so big that even buying all ruby upgrades doesn't help you progress past around evolution 108/112 before getting hard stuck to the point that it'll take hours/days of idling just to get up one coin level.”
humor
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
91%
27%
The humor in the game is a standout feature, with players appreciating its witty upgrade names, meme references, and quirky item descriptions that add a unique charm. While some find the humor enjoyable and a key reason for their engagement, others feel it can be hit or miss, with a few critics dismissing it as unfunny. Overall, the game's comedic elements contribute positively to the experience, making it more entertaining than typical idle games.
- “The funny memes and weird balance makes this game very interesting and a bit unique from the rest.”
- “The progression is steady, rewarding and quite hilarious.”
- “It is very unique, and even funny at times with some of the items you can buy.”
- “Just sucks, the beginning of every evolution is super slow and then the rest is way too fast. It's just not made well, to be honest, and not funny either.”
- “The humor falls flat and feels forced, making it hard to enjoy the game.”
- “I expected some clever jokes, but instead, it was just cringeworthy and unoriginal.”
graphics
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
33%
50%
The graphics of the game have been criticized for their outdated and lackluster 2D visuals, with many players expressing disappointment that the developer has not embraced modern 3D graphics, which have been standard since the mid-1990s. While some appreciate the unique art style and humor, the overall visual presentation is seen as a significant drawback.
- “Zero Idle is a free game with a cool concept and art style, along with some enjoyable meme humor.”
- “The game features really lackluster 2D visuals (does the developer not know 3D graphics became mainstream in the mid-1990s?).”
- “Gamers don't spend thousands of dollars on gaming rigs and the latest 3D graphics cards to play 2D games.”
- “Even mobile phones and game consoles can do 3D graphics now.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game's optimization is a mixed bag; while it runs smoothly initially and supports various platforms like the Steam Deck, performance issues arise over time, leading to noticeable FPS drops, particularly with frequent clicking. This suggests potential coding flaws in the optimization process, detracting from the overall experience despite the enjoyable progression mechanics.
- “The fact that it runs smoothly, has lots of upgrades, achievements, and works on Steam Deck is a plus.”
- “On the positive side, it runs smoothly and has a nice feeling of progression throughout.”
- “However, the only downside of this game is that the FPS will drop after some time, which suggests there may be some coding issues with the game's optimization.”
- “Performance degrades the longer you have the game open, and forget about clicking often past a certain point.”
- “However, the only downside of this game is that the FPS will drop after some time, which sucks because it's most probable that there's some coding that went wrong with the development in this game's optimization.”
- “There's an upgrade that makes every click count for 2 or 3 clicks, which I think affects performance as well.”
story
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
60%
The reviews indicate a significant dissatisfaction with the game's story, with some users claiming it is virtually nonexistent and others comparing it unfavorably to more compelling narratives, such as "Twilight." Overall, the consensus suggests that the story fails to engage or resonate with players.
- “What story?”
- “No story”
- “Twilight was a better love story than this”
monetization
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
The monetization strategy of the game has been criticized for resembling mobile app store microtransactions, leading some to view it as a cash grab targeting players who become quickly hooked. However, the end-game prestige system, while tedious and repetitive, surprisingly does not include real-money options for automation, which some players expected. Overall, the monetization approach appears to be a mixed bag, with potential for improvement.
- “This game is infested with mobile app store-like microtransactions.”
- “It needs a lot of re-iteration and just seems like a quick cash grab on people who get hooked in the first few hours. It has a lot of potential, but don't play it!”
- “Somehow, this abomination of an end-game prestige system -- this wall of monotonous, active clicking to repeatedly cycle through the first, second, and then third tiers of prestige over and over again -- is not a cash grab.”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users report significant stability issues, citing the game as boring and repetitive, with numerous bugs and a sense of abandonment from the developers.
- “It's boring, repetitive, buggy, and abandoned.”