Welcome to Idle Mining Empire, a cute and casual browser game. This game has players build their own mining empire by collecting resources, and then building new shafts, upgrading equipment, and hiring more workers to earn more money and expand the, well, mining empire.

With its cute graphics and simple mechanics, Idle Mining Empire offers a relaxing and entertaining experience for players of all ages. As an idle game, most of the gameplay revolves around letting the game run in the background while the player goes about their daily activities, with periodic checkins on their little game people. I wrote about this in The Office: Somehow We Manage, another cute idle where players set their workers to tasks, and then come back later.

Players of Idle Mining Empire start out with three workers, and have to keep clicking to get them to work. As soon as a little worker finishes a task, they go to sleep and have to be told to keep at it. But as the game goes on, players can hire managers to automate workers. The graphics are cute,  with little miners in little hard hats. Later, the managers have a special ability to make workers work faster and earn more, but I don’t like to see managers yelling, even in casual games, so I never do it.

This cute mining idle is a fun background game, adorable and low-stress for a quick break at work. Players are always earning more and more money, and spending that on more and more upgrades, to generate more and more money, which makes a relaxing game because you’re always progressing and there’s always more to do.  The miners start out earning a couple dollars, but quickly progress to millions, trillions, and more. The idle gameplay style is great for this kind of relaxing, very casual play, since player can progress in the game without devoting their full attention to complex gameplay.

Casual games like Idle Mining Empire offer an easy way to unwind and escape for a few minutes at work. You can leave the idle game running, and just check back on your little miners when you have a few minutes. With simple mechanics and cute graphics, this is a laid-back little browser game.

For other browser games, I’ve also really enjoyed Doublespeak Games’ A Dark Room, a strange little adventure with no graphics, and Grey by Kevin Does Art, an indie platformer with a compelling story twist.

What about you? Do you ever play idle games? What casual games are you playing these days?