Click, buy, automate, watch numbers grow. The pacing curve is everything: early purchases every few seconds, later ones every few minutes.
Tips for idle and clicker games
Give the cost formula explicitly: 'each purchase costs 15% more than the last'. Without it, prices either stay flat or explode.
Ask for number formatting (1.2K, 3.4M, 5.6B) from the start. Idle games break visually when numbers get long.
Ask for offline progress capped at a few hours, saved with a timestamp in localStorage. It's what brings players back.
starter
Bread bakery clicker
Make an idle clicker game about baking bread. Click/tap a big loaf to earn 1 loaf. Shop with 5 buildings: Apprentice (15 loaves, +0.1/s), Oven (100, +1/s), Bakery (1,100, +8/s), Mill (12,000, +47/s), Factory (130,000, +260/s). Each building costs 15% more after every purchase. Show loaves, loaves per second, and owned counts. Format big numbers (1.2K, 3.4M). Save every 10 seconds to localStorage and give offline earnings for up to 4 hours when the player returns. Floating '+1' when clicking. Warm brown and cream palette.
Exact costs, rates and the 15% growth rule give a well-paced curve from the start.
Follow-up tweaks
Add upgrades that double a building's output, unlocked when 10 of it are owned.
Add a golden loaf that appears randomly and gives 30 seconds of 7x production.
intermediate · tested ✓
Space miner idle
Make an idle space mining game. The player owns drones that mine asteroids automatically. Resources: iron, crystal. Tap an asteroid to mine faster by hand. Shop: buy drones (cost grows 12% each), upgrade drone speed, and unlock new asteroid belts that need crystal. A research tree of 8 upgrades with clear effects shown on each card. A prestige option: after reaching 1M iron, reset progress to gain Stardust, which gives +10% production per point permanently. Save with timestamps and give offline progress for up to 8 hours. Dark space look, drones orbit visibly.
Defining prestige as a precise formula avoids an unbalanced reset loop.
Follow-up tweaks
Add a random event every 5 minutes: meteor shower doubles mining for 30 seconds.
Add achievements with small permanent bonuses.
starter
Lemonade stand tycoon
Make an idle business game. The player runs a lemonade stand; tap the stand to sell a cup for $1. Hire helpers that sell automatically. Buy new businesses in a list (Lemonade, Ice Cream Cart, Pizza Van, Bike Repair, Garden Centre), each with a cost, earnings per cycle and cycle time shown as a progress bar. Buying 10, 25, 50 of a business halves its cycle time. Managers (one per business) make it run without tapping. Save locally with offline earnings. Sunny cartoon style.
Milestones at 10/25/50 give regular goals, the key to idle pacing.
Follow-up tweaks
Add a 'buy x1 / x10 / max' toggle.
Add an investor prestige system that boosts all earnings.
intermediate
Garden idle with merge
Make an idle merge garden. A 5x5 grid of pots. A Seed button (or automatic every 5 seconds) adds a level 1 sprout to an empty pot. Drag two plants of the same level together to merge into the next level (10 levels from sprout to giant tree). Each plant produces coins per second based on its level (level 1: 1/s, doubling each level). Coins buy faster seed spawning and higher starting levels. Save to localStorage. Plants gently sway; merging makes a little bloom burst.
Merge plus idle combines two loops with one shared currency, simple and sticky.
Follow-up tweaks
Add a compost bin: drag a plant there to recycle it for a lump sum.
Add a collection book that shows each discovered level.
intermediate
Dungeon idle hero
Make an idle RPG. A hero automatically fights cartoon slimes in a corridor, one at a time. Each slime has health and drops gold. Tapping the slime does extra damage. Gold upgrades: sword (damage +), boots (attack speed +), armour (health +). Every 10 floors a boss appears with a 30 second timer; failing sends the player back 2 floors. Show floor number, damage per second and gold per second. Save locally. Chunky pixel-style drawn with rectangles.
A timed boss gate gives idle progress a clear wall to push against.
Follow-up tweaks
Add companions that attack automatically and can be levelled.
Add a rebirth at floor 50 that grants a permanent damage bonus.
starter
Fish tank clicker
Make a calm clicker game set in an aquarium. Tapping the water releases food, and fish eat it and drop coins. Buy new fish (cost +20% per fish), bigger tanks (more fish slots), and auto-feeders. Fish types: goldfish, angelfish, puffer, each with different coin rates and looks. Coins float up slowly and are collected by tapping or with an auto-collector upgrade. Save locally with offline earnings. Soft blue water with light ripples.
Collectible coins give active players something to do while idling still works.
Follow-up tweaks
Add decorations that boost coin rate by a small percentage.
Add a rare golden fish with 1% spawn chance.
advanced
Factory automation idle
Make an idle factory game with production chains. Resources: ore, plates, gears, robots. Machines: Drill (makes ore), Smelter (2 ore -> 1 plate), Press (3 plates -> 1 gear), Assembler (2 gears + 1 plate -> 1 robot). Each machine has a speed and can be bought multiple times (cost +15%). Robots sell for money automatically. Show each resource's per-second income and consumption with green/red numbers, and warn when a machine is starved for input. Save locally. Clean blueprint-style UI with conveyor animations between machine cards.
Visible income vs consumption turns a spreadsheet game into one players can reason about.
Follow-up tweaks
Add a storage cap per resource with upgrades to raise it.
Add research that unlocks a second product line.
advanced
Star cultivator
Make an idle game about growing a star. Click to gather dust; dust buys particles; particles collapse into stars automatically at thresholds. Three tiers: Dust -> Gas Clouds -> Stars -> Galaxies, each tier generating the one below. Costs scale exponentially (x1.15 per purchase) and production uses multipliers from milestones (x2 at 25, 50, 100 owned). Show time-to-next-milestone estimates. Prestige into a 'Big Bang' that grants Light, spent in a tree of 12 permanent perks. Save locally with offline progress. Deep space gradient with glowing dots that grow brighter as numbers rise.
Time-to-next estimates give players a reason to wait or to click.
Follow-up tweaks
Add an auto-buyer unlock for each tier.
Add a stats screen with total resources ever made.
starter
Kids' sticker clicker
Make a gentle clicker for children. Tapping a big smiling sun makes stars appear. Stars fill a jar; every 20 stars, a new sticker (animal, fruit, vehicle) is unlocked and added to a sticker book. Buying a helper cloud for 50 stars makes stars fall automatically. No big numbers, no timers, nothing to lose. Sticker book shows locked stickers as silhouettes. Saved locally. Large rounded buttons and bright friendly colours.
Small numbers and a collection goal make idle mechanics suitable for kids.
Follow-up tweaks
Add a sticker scene where the child can drag stickers onto a picture.
30 fill-in master templates with worked examples, 12 multi-step build recipes (what to prompt, what to check after each step, and the fix prompt when it breaks), 40 bug-fix prompts by symptom, 20 art-direction briefs with upload tips, and a game-design + launch checklist. Markdown files, instant download.
One-time $12. Use and adapt the prompts in your own games, commercial ones included. 14-day fix-or-refund if it doesn't work as described. Secure checkout by Stripe.
Free sampler
T01 · Path defense master template (template)
Use it for: classic tower defense with a fixed route and placed towers. The most reliable starting point for the genre.
Variables
Variable
What to write
Example
{{theme}}
Setting in a few words
backyard garden
{{enemy}}
Who walks the path
slugs
{{base}}
What the player protects
the garden gate
{{waypoints}}
Path as a waypoint description
6 waypoints snaking left to right
{{tower_1..3}}
Name, price, role
Pea Shooter, 25, single target
{{start_money}} / {{reward}}
Economy
100 / 5
{{lives}} / {{waves}}
Lose and win conditions
10 / 12
{{palette}}
Visual style
flat bright greens and browns
Master prompt
Make a one-screen 2D tower defense game set in a {{theme}}.
PATH: {{enemy}} walk a fixed path through {{waypoints}} to {{base}}. Draw the path clearly. Enemies move from waypoint to waypoint and never leave the path.
BUILDING: The player clicks or taps an empty build tile beside the path to open a small menu of towers:
- {{tower_1}}
- {{tower_2}}
- {{tower_3}}
Greyed-out buttons when unaffordable. Tapping a built tower shows its range circle and a Sell button (refund 50%).
ECONOMY: Start with {{start_money}} coins. Each enemy defeated gives {{reward}} coins with a floating "+{{reward}}".
WIN/LOSE: {{base}} has {{lives}} lives; each enemy that reaches it costs 1. Survive {{waves}} waves to win.
WAVES: Waves start with a Start Wave button. Use a wave list: each wave adds enemies and +10% enemy health; every 4th wave adds a faster enemy type; the last wave has a boss with a health bar.
FEEDBACK: Enemies flash white when hit, pop into particles when defeated, and the screen shakes briefly when a life is lost.
HUD: coins, lives and wave number at the top; Start Wave and Pause buttons.
STYLE: {{palette}}, simple shapes drawn in code, no external images.
CONSTRAINTS: one HTML file, works with mouse and touch, all movement based on elapsed time, Restart button on the win and lose screens.
Worked example
Make a one-screen 2D tower defense game set in a backyard garden. PATH: slugs walk a fixed path through 6 waypoints snaking from the left edge to the garden gate on the right… Towers: Sprinkler, 10 coins, slows enemies 40% in range; Pea Shooter, 25 coins, single target; Bee Hive, 40 coins, small area damage. Start with 100 coins, 5 per slug. 10 lives, 12 waves. Flat bright greens and browns…
After the first generation, check: enemies stay on the path; towers only fire within the drawn range; selling refunds the right amount; the boss appears on the last wave.
Strong follow-ups
"Add a 2x speed button. Don't change anything else."
"Add upgrades: tap a tower to upgrade to level 2 (+50% damage) for 1.5x its price."
T13 · Classroom quiz engine template (template)
Use it for: any subject quiz you'll reuse with new questions every week.
Variables
Variable
Example
{{subject}}
Year 6 science: forces
{{questions}}
your list, pasted in the format below
{{timer}}
20 seconds, or "no timer"
{{teams}}
2 to 4 teams, or "single player"
{{reward}}
a star burst and a "Great thinking!" message
Master prompt
Make a quiz game for {{subject}}.
DATA: put all questions in an editable array at the very top of the code, clearly labelled QUESTIONS. Each item: question, four answers, index of the correct answer, optional explanation. Use exactly these questions:
{{questions}}
FLOW: shuffle questions and answer order; never repeat within a game. One question at a time with four large buttons (keys 1-4 also work).
TIMER: {{timer}}.
TEAMS: {{teams}}. If teams: show whose turn it is; correct = +10 to that team; turns rotate each question.
FEEDBACK: correct: {{reward}}. Wrong or timeout: chosen answer red, correct answer green, explanation shown for 3 seconds.
END: scoreboard, list of missed questions with correct answers, Play Again.
DESIGN: high contrast, at least 28 px answer text, readable on a projector and a phone.
CONSTRAINTS: one HTML file, works offline, no external fonts or images.
Question format to paste
Q: What force pulls objects toward Earth? | Friction | Gravity* | Magnetism | Air resistance | Gravity pulls everything with mass toward the Earth's centre.
(An asterisk marks the correct answer; the last field is the explanation.)
Check: the asterisk is removed from displayed text; explanations show for wrong answers only; teams rotate correctly after a timeout.
Ship a tower defense in 6 prompts · Step 1 of 6 (recipe-step)
Make a one-screen 2D tower defense game. Cartoon beetles walk a fixed path of 6 waypoints from the left edge to a tree stump on the right. The player clicks or taps a grass tile to place a Leaf Turret for 25 coins; it shoots the nearest beetle within 120 px once per second. Start with 100 coins; each beetle gives 5 coins. The stump has 10 lives; each beetle reaching it costs 1. A Start Wave button sends 8 beetles. Show coins, lives and wave at the top. Shapes drawn in code, flat greens and browns. Restart button on game over.
Check after:
Beetles follow the path exactly and never cut corners through grass.
Turrets can't be placed on the path or on top of each other.
Coins rise on each defeat; lives drop when a beetle reaches the stump.
If it breaks:
*Beetles leave the path:* "Move enemies from waypoint to waypoint in a straight line at constant speed; when within 2 px of a waypoint, snap to it and target the next one. Don't change anything else."
*Towers placed on the path:* "Mark path tiles as unbuildable using a grid; highlight buildable tiles on hover in green and unbuildable in red."
A cozy farm in 8 prompts · Step 1 of 8 (recipe-step)
Make a cozy farming game with a 6x4 grid of soil plots. Tap a plot to cycle: till, plant, water. Seeds: Turnip (2 coins, 2 days), Carrot (5, 3 days), Pumpkin (12, 5 days), chosen from a seed bar. A Sleep button advances the day. Watered plots grow one stage per day (3 visible stages); unwatered plots don't grow. Tap a ripe plant to harvest into a basket. Start with 20 coins. Show coins and day.
Check: crops only grow when watered; watering resets each morning.
Checklist · Core loop (checklist)
[ ] I can describe the game in one sentence: the player does X to achieve Y while avoiding Z.
[ ] The main action is fun on its own for 30 seconds, before any upgrades or levels.
[ ] Every action gives an immediate visible result.
[ ] There's a reason to do the action again (score, progress, story, collection).
[ ] The game has a clear end state for a session (game over, level complete, day end) or a natural stopping point for idle/cozy games.
[ ] I removed features that don't support the core loop.
Fix prompt: "Remove [feature]. It doesn't support the core loop. Don't change anything else."
Checklist · Mobile and touch (checklist)
[ ] The game works with touch only, without hover.
[ ] Touch targets are at least 48-64 px, with space between them.
[ ] Multi-touch works (move and jump at once).
[ ] The page doesn't scroll, zoom or pull-to-refresh during play.
[ ] The game fits portrait and landscape, or clearly asks to rotate.
[ ] HUD stays clear of notches and rounded corners.