Melvor Idle (2021)

• Playtime: idled 8 months, 100+ hours of actual interaction

• Played: 2025

• Expectation: None.

Intro

Idle games are a type of management game in which you assign a task to complete and in some cases choose equipment, bonuses, etc. for your agents. Melvor Idle is (apparently) based on the MMORPG Runescape. But instead of enduring grinding and enjoying combat, you just sit back and give orders.

Review

So, here's the thing. Who is this for? All you do is click "Mining" and select something to mine. Or you click "Crafting" and click something to craft. The most engaging thing is combat, and even that can be automated almost entirely. There's also not a lot of depth to this. The only options in combat are melee, ranged and magic, and the barrier and abyssal variants of those. You don't really need to think about the right equipment, spells, prayers, etc. because almost always you just pick the "best" stuff you have.

Still, i had some fun with this. With minimal effort you can grow a character and a town. There are all kinds of items, skills and enemies to engage with. Mostly i just like to see the systems and elements game designers come up with. And Melvor has a ton of those. It's niche but it's nice.

Btw, don't play this without mods: my list of recommended mods

Screenshots

There's only one task i didn't complete:

RNG being annoying (drop chance is 1 in 150):

The final phase of the final boss:

Recommended mods

+++ - I couldn't live without it

++ - Very useful

+ - Useful

Special Mentions

• Ancient Relics Everywhere +++

Ancient Relics are normally limited to a game mode with very annoying restrictions. With this mod you can also get relics in Normal/Hardcore/etc mode. Lesser relics give a nice small boost to various skills. Ancient Relics give minor to huge bonuses. These make the game easier, quicker and much more interesting. I started a new game just for these (ARs are guaranteed to drop at skill level 20 and 99).

• Unlimited Offline ++ - Removes the 24 hour cap for being offline, making it much more viable to run parallel saves (e.g. for different game modes).

• SEMI Core n/a - Required for most SEMI mods.

Information

These only give you more information without changing anything about the game.

• Skill Boosts +++ - Shows all items and upgrades that affect the current skill, and allows you to equip them with a single click.

• Show Item Sources And Uses +++ - Where can you get an item in and what is it used for.

• ETA +++ - When does your skill reach various levels (next, max, player defined).

• Shop Item Owned Indicator ++ - How many of an item do you own.

• [Myth] Summoning + - Displays currently equiped summons in bottom left of screen.

• SEMI Drop Chances + - Chance to get an item.

Quality Of Life - no "cheats"

Mods that just make the game less tedious.

• Upgrade All Potions ++ - Upgrades all potions to max unlocked level.

• SEMI Auto Sell ++ - Sells items chosen by you.

• SEMI Auto Open ++ - Opens chests

• AutoCaper + - Automatically switches skill capes for selected skills.

• Shop Tabs Stay Closed + - This should've been the defauly behaviour.

• Bank Tab Select All + - Selects all items in a bank tab.

Quality Of Life - minor "cheats"

These have almost no effect on how hard the game is.

• Absurdly High Max Township Storage +++ - Having to babysit the town inventory sucks.

• MaxTownshipSoulStorage +++ - Same as above for Abyssal storage (Into the Abyss expansion).

• Skip Township Casual Tasks For Free ++ - These aren't that useful and the cost becomes ridiculous.

• Adjustable Extra Bank Tab Cost + - The default cost is absurd for something that is purely a convenience.

• SEMI Auto Bury + - Consumes selected items for prayer points.

Quality Of Life - moderate "cheats"

These mostly make it so you can idle more and babysit less.

• SEMI Auto Loot +++ - Normally you need to wear an amulet for this, which is awful.

• SEMI Auto Farming +++ - Harvest and plants stuff in your preferred order.

• Mastery Pool Can Overflow +++ - Sets overflow cap to 900%.

• Semi Auto Township ++ - Repairs your town so production doesn't drop.

• SEMI Auto Smith Bars + - If you run out of materials, starts making the next available bar (moving up the list).

• Priority Miner + - Mines ore/essence/etc while the source with higher priority is recharging.

• SEMI Auto Master + - Spends mastery points for selected skills when above the 95% treshold. Can also consume mastery tokens if enabled.

Quality Of Life - actual cheats

These mods are combat related, and the only ones i would consider to be "real" cheats.

• Speed & Auto Eat +++ - The in-game Auto Eat upgrade is less effective, very expensive initially and doesn't let you set specific tresholds.

• No Item Loss On Death +++ - Some items are just absurdly hard to get and losing them can cost you literal days. I have no interest in that.

• SEMI Auto Slayer + - Lets you whitelist and blacklist monsters.

I have been enjoying this way more than expected. It took me a minute to figure things out, but it's my main second-monitor/mobile/semi-afk game now. I had been looking for something to replace the OSRS itch, especially with the new CEO's red flags. Fortunately, even tho the Play Store said this is published by Jagex like OSRS is, it is not and Malcs has retained full control. This just worked out since so many of the features are derived from Runescape.

I already have a couple 99s, full Mastery of Astrology, currently working on Agility which incorporates most other skills. It's quite overwhelming, and Township and Cartography took me a bit to figure out but I like that there is always a fully afk option, but also often faster-XP-rate options to encourage you to check more often when you want that. I'm not super familiar with idle game culture, this and IdleMMO are the only ones that remotely clicked and unfortunately IdleMMO hasn't been hitting the spot.

Yada yada, this has officially supplanted my OSRS addiction. Haven't touched OSRS in over a month. I still occasionally log in to Brighter Shores, and I still consider myself a player of Bitcraft (tho I wont fully commit to that one's grinds till its full release), but this is my main one. Speaking of, I have enough Ent Tablets to switch back over to Woodcutting now :) Mwahahaha