Ropuka's Idle Island's simplicity is its biggest comfort.
I’m always looking to add a little whimsy to my day-to-day PC usage, which makes me a total sucker for a desktop pet. A lil’ dude that chills on my screen while I go about my day, minding its own business. It’s just something nice to break up the monotony of Google Chrome windows and emails, y’know?
I’ve done farming robots and considered spending way too much money on Hatsune Miku. By far the most enamored I’ve become is with my new adorable grass-cutting frog in Ropuka’s Idle Island, which I came across thanks to the current Idler Fest running on Steam.
Developers Moczan, Little Chmura and Begoña Pereda describe the idler as a “playable sticker for your desktop,” a description so accurate I couldn’t have worded it better myself. My frog fella has a house, a chair, and a small patch of land that I can drag around my screen and scale so he fits wherever I need him. In the corner, on top of my important emails, hell, even at the bottom of this document. Right now I am staring at my green son while typing about how much I love him.
Mostly Ropuka’s Idle Island consists of my frog—who I’ve been calling Derek but I’m now just realising is probably called Ropuka—cutting grass for as long as he can before retiring to his chair for a quick nap, regaining stamina and going at the shears once more. His grass cuttings let me upgrade things like the growth rate and the grass quality, as well as Ropuka/Derek’s resting time, stamina, running speed, and how much he cuts in one go. It’s a lovely simple loop, as idlers should be, though I can’t help but check in far more often than I need to just to see how much grass he’s collected.
It’s not just stat increases that I can spend grass on, though. Ropuka’s Idle Island has a bevy of cosmetics, from different houses and grass types to fences and adorable headwear for my frog son to equip like bunny ears, flower crowns and an adorable nightcap.
They can either be purchased or, better yet for my gacha-addled brain, be pulled for in a lottery. I’ve been exclusively using the latter for my decorations, the thrill of the uncertainty being more exciting than spending more coins on something I actually want. Better yet, each cosmetic provides a small stat boost itself, which gives me even more incentive to throw all of my grass cuttings at the lottery.
It’s the exact right level of chilled out company that I’ve been needing to get through my writing this week—there’s even a collection of lo-fi tracks and ambient birdsong if you’re looking for that extra level of relaxation. I’d love it if there was a way to get more ambient sounds in the future: A bit of rain, a babbling brook, or a light breeze perhaps. It seems likely that we’ll definitely be getting more things—the devs seem committed to updating the game, with one update this week already adding new items as part of the Idler Fest.
For now, though, I’ll continue keeping an eye on Ropuka as he trims away at a lawn that never ceases to grow. For just the price of a cup of coffee, it’s been well worth it to see my frog son’s adorable green face light up my screen over the last few days, and I reckon I’ll be a little sad when I’ve idled in this game all I can.
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