5 Best Idle Games to Play While You Work

For many gamers, countless hours of the day are consumed by work, study, and other tasks that get in the way of gaming time. While they won’t help players grind levels in their favorite RPG, idle games do provide a nice balm for those non-gaming hours spent with pesky tasks like emails and taxes. Idle games are designed to be simple, requiring little attention to keep chugging along. They’re a light-touch way to get a little gaming in between doing other things, and the genre just keeps getting better.

With plenty of idle games to choose from, which ones are worth your time? This list of the best idle games to play while doing other things can help.

Spirit City: Lofi Sessions

Price: $11.99

This idle game is designed to be a productivity booster more than anything, making it the perfect companion for work or study. In Spirit City, you can put some time into designing an avatar and decorating your space. Then, you set up your coworking companion in the space and activity of your choosing and enjoy the sounds of excellent lofi playlists and a wide variety of ambient sounds.

The gaming element here is a light touch, perfect for giving you a little something without taking away focus from other things. There are several spirits that you can collect by figuring out the right combination of activities, location, and ambient sounds to attract each one. Finding them requires some idle time engaging in said activities, so it’s easy to let Spirit City fade into the background while keeping on task until the next cute critter appears.

Tiny Pasture

Price: $5.99

Tiny Pasture is an idle game where you care for tiny critters at the bottom of your screen. Start with a pixel bunny and work your way up to more complex pets like corgis, foxes, and even slimes. The game blends seamlessly into the bottom of the screen and comes with a soothing little soundtrack to keep you company while you work.

Here, you’ll need to give the occasional click to gather coins, feed your critters, and pick up their messes. Otherwise, it’s just a little companion with cute animals and soothing clouds to bring a little joy to the workday.

Rusty’s Retirement

Price: $6.99 on Steam

Rusty’s Retirement is an idle farming sim featuring a cute little robot. It’s kind of like if Stardew Valley and Wall-E had an idle gaming baby. This idler really sparked the “bottom of your screen” game craze and maintains an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam to this day.

In Rusty’s Retirement, you deploy Rusty and a growing team of robots to help care for a growing farm. The player will need to check in to plant crops and keep the farm growing, but the day-to-day tasks are automated by pixel robot pals. Thus, a great way to get your farming sim fix while tending to real-life tasks.

Ropuka’s Idle Island

Price: $3.99

If Disney Dreamlight Valley‘s floating islands are your dream environment, you might enjoy what Ropuka’s Idle Island does with your desktop. This game gives you a little floating island with a cute little frog to care for it. You can stick the island anywhere you like on the screen, then watch while Ropuka tends to the grass.

This game is simple and mostly involves watching the frog cut the neverending grass. You can use that grass as currency to upgrade various elements of the island, building it up to make it your own. Other than that, your frog co-worker doesn’t require much of your attention, making it a great idle game. Plus, the soundtrack offers lofi and ambient nature sounds to keep you focused.

My Little Life

Price: $5.99

This is the idler for the The Sims fan who needs to focus on other things but still wants to exercise a little control over tiny humans while doing it. My Little Life sits at the bottom of the screen, offering you an array of people who you’ll support as they gain work promotions, build up their homes, and acquire plenty of roommates to pay the bills.

The interaction sounds in My Little Life can be a bit distracting at times, and it does require a smidge more attention than some of the other titles on this list. You’ll need to add new items to help keep your humans happy, and there are plenty of wishes and goals to fulfill that bring the gaming elements of this idler up a notch. But at the end of the day, it still makes a nice bottom-of-the-screen companion that settles into the background once you’ve set everyone up for the day.