An Idle Game Maker game is simply a text file that our website converts into a browser game.

To make your own game, you will have to write that text file using the commands and syntax described below (you'll see, there's a whole array of cool things you can do). Here's what a finished game file looks like : http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=YrmTqheS. Pretty readable, huh?

You will then have to find a place online to store your text file (pastebin.com is a good one; your text files are hosted for free and, if you register, you can edit them as much as you want. Here are some other text-hosting sites).

Once you're happy with your new game, all that remains to do is to share it with the world!

To play a game, take its source file's URL and append it to http://orteil.dashnet.org/experiments/idlegamemaker/?game=.
A game stored at www.example.com/mygame.txt would be playable at http://orteil.dashnet.org/experiments/idlegamemaker/?game=www.example.com/mygame.txt.

• If your game is hosted on pastebin.com, you only have to refer to its identifier (the letters at the end of its url). For example, http://pastebin.com/YrmTqheS becomes http://orteil.dashnet.org/experiments/idlegamemaker/?game=YrmTqheS.
• Note : when hosting your file on pastebin.com, make sure you're registered - or you won't be able to edit your game later! Also make sure to set the file to never expire, and to make it either public or unlisted.
• If you're not hosted on pastebin.com, make sure your file is a .txt file! Your game won't work with any other file type.

• You can make an idle game about practically anything. Just look around you!
• Spend some time examining the games you like. You'll probably learn something from the gameplay or from the source file!
• Test your game. A lot.
• If people seem to like your game, consider making a forum where players can talk about it and discuss new features. Having community feedback is essential when making a good game!
• Keep a separate version for testing only.
• Keep backups of your game's source - you never know!
• Add descriptions and, if possible, pictures! Flavor is everything.
• Don't mindlessly copy other cool games you've seen. Add something of your own, be creative! (And no, replacing every instance of "burger" by "pizza" and calling it Pizza Clicker doesn't count as being creative!)
• Beware of spelling mistakes, they can quickly make a game appear very unprofessional. Use spell-check!
• Keep your game fresh and your players curious by adding new stuff regularly!

• All work from games made using this engine is copyrighted to their respective owners.
• Content creators are expected to respect copyright laws. No user-created content is hosted on our servers.
• Don't use illegal content in your game!
• Please no games involving overly lewd, nude or violent stuff.
• Try not to use copyrighted images (be careful with google image search)! If you use content that demands proper attribution, make sure to provide it!
• Don't do anything shifty with our engine! Basically, if it feels wrong, don't do it.
• Don't try to mislead the players into visiting websites they don't want to.
• No circumventing our system to include scripts or other disallowed HTML tags in your games!
• Please do not use CSS to change or hide the top bar.
• Finally, please do not attempt to hide or alter the ads through CSS, they're what keeps the site afloat! (Using adblock when playing is okay though.)

Your game is made of elements : each resource, clickable button, building, upgrade and achievement is an element.

You can create new elements under the appropriate sections. The code for this is simply creating a new line with *IdentifierForTheElement, below which you can add properties to the element through commands.

You can define their name, their picture, and lots of other things such as their price, their passive powers, what they unlock...

An element is either visible or hidden. "Unlocking" refers to making an element visible (and earning it, if it's an achievement).

A simple example element would be :
*Cow
"A placid, friendly mammal. Generates 1 milk every second."
costs 20 money
gives 1 milk
visible
picture : http://example.com/cow.png


• An identifier needs to be composed only of letters and numbers, with no spaces. For example, "Slay monster" should become something like "SlayMonster".
• You cannot have two elements that share the same identifier.
• Identifiers are case-insensitive ("ABC" is treated the same as "Abc" or "abc").
• Note that you can use the named X command to give an object a displayed name different from its identifier.
• Only refer to an element's identifier in commands, not to its name!
• Be careful about plurals. If you gave a resource the identifier cookies, the command gives 1 cookie wouldn't do anything - it should be gives 1 cookies!
• Important : do not change an element's identifier once set! This would mess up your players' saves since the parser would treat this element as an entirely new object! Instead, change its displayed name.

• Pretty much every command is optional, save for the first two lines (Let's make a game! and your game's name).
• Tabs and multiple spaces are ignored, as are hyphens (-) when they're the first character on a line; feel free to use those to format your source and make it more easily readable.
• HTML is ignored everywhere except in descriptions, where only <b> (bold), <i> (italics), <u> (underlined) and <q> (quotes) are allowed.
• If you make a mistake in your source (or use commands in ways we didn't expect), you might get an error message, or the game might freeze completely. Try to undo your last changes and see where it went wrong!
• By the way, make sure to pay attention when you edit your game. Our parser is designed to be fairly forgiving, but still - a simple typo or syntax error is all it takes to freeze the game!
• A good way to learn more about our syntax is to simply check out the source for Burger Clicker, a game specifically made to showcase many of Idle Game Maker's functions.

• Note : can be overridden in a specific building with the command price increases by X%.