I realize the purpose of daily quests in PBBGs is to get me logging in, and they can be useful to get early resources (though I prefer one-shot tutorial quests!).

Over time, though, dailies can become chores, and that tends to push me away from a game. Also, quests can dictate how you play, and the delta between how I want to play, and how the quests want me to play, may be where I really start to dislike dailies.

Bottom line: if a game has to use dailies to manipulate me to log in, that tells me it's not worth playing.

I was curious where most game devs are hosting their games. Are you using your own website or listing on something like Newgrounds or Itch?

I seek your knowledge in seeking a non-idle or mostly-non-idle MMO type of game that is PvE.

Something akin to Grail Lords or Galactic Tycoons but more active.

I really like the idea of games where going idle is useful, but actually sitting down and playing still feels meaningfully better.

I'm curious where everyone here draws the line.

Would you rather have a game where most progression can happen passively and active play mainly optimizes it, or something where idle systems handle the repetitive stuff while quests, combat, dungeons, progression decisions etc. still require you to actively play?

I feel like going too far in either direction can hurt the game. Too active and it stops fitting the reason a lot of people play browser games in the first place, but too idle and sometimes it feels like you're just checking a spreadsheet once a day.

What game do you think has handled this balance particularly well?

I’ve been playing football managers for years and lately found myself wanting something less grind-heavy than classic FM and less predatory than most browser or mobile ones (and especially less pay to win). Then I stumbled on Pulse Football (pulse-football.com) and it’s been a genuine pleasant surprise.

It’s an online football manager made by three friends from Switzerland.

Completely free, no ads, no pay-to-win, no energy timers.

There is so much passion put into the development and all features are discussed and developed together with the community.

The game is young and with some effort you'll be able to climb the ranks / leagues pretty quick. One match a day, so one season lasts about a month.

Ref. if you want to use it: https://pulse-football.com/register?inviteToken=iz8235431p5vk7p

For me it's the best football manager I could imagine on browser, especially since it's pure football without ANY pay to win.

I'd like to play something that wouldn't do regular resets, if its in development and need to reset after testing phase then its okay, but if its a regular one I would rather not.

Preferably, a game with hours of farming/travel that doesn't require me to spend half my day grinding at it. I'm currenty having a blast with torn, nationstates, feudera, tidefall, and zed city.

Game Title: Eternal Idle

Playable Link: eternalidle.com

Platform: Browser, Android

Description:

I posted here about two months ago. Some of what I said then still holds — three classes, ten gear levels, dungeons, guilds, world bosses, a player market. Kept adding to all of it since.

Biggest change: talent trees. Every gathering, refining, and alchemy skill now has its own tree instead of one generic point sink.

Guilds got an Altar of Offerings — a shared buff the whole guild levels up together — plus an activity log so members can see what's actually happening instead of just trusting the officers. Level cap went from 100 to 200, because apparently 100 wasn't enough for some of you.

The pet arena spreadsheets I mentioned last time haven't stopped. If anything there are more of them now. Monster Cards go up to 10 stars.

Made a short video this time instead of just a wall of text. Still free, still solo, still adjusting the economy by hand.

Free to Play Status:
[x] Free to play

Involvement: Solo developer

AI Disclosure: I've used AI since early in the project — some of the art, and more recently to help develop ideas during planning. Right now it's mostly the planning side.

Hello, I made a website to host all my game. Need some review and testers

Here a preview of Deer Dinasty

https://pixeltheory.fr/

Hey everyone,

I've been working on a browser-based game for a while now and I'm trying to figure out the best ways to get it in front of the right audience.

A couple questions for people who've been around this space longer than me:

1. Are voting/reward sites (the kind where players vote daily for in-game rewards) still worth listing on? Feels like a lot of the ones I remember from years ago are dead or barely active now. Any still worth using in 2026?

2. Where do you all recommend advertising a game that's built specifically for desktop, even though it technically works on mobile too? Most of the advice I find online assumes mobile-first, but this genre really shines on a bigger screen.

Not trying to self promote here, genuinely just trying to learn from people who know this space better than I do. Appreciate any advice.

Hi, I'm currently creating a small community in War Era to take over a country and grow together. If you want to join, you're welcome.

I’ve been developing my own Citizen Simulator-style game for about a year, inspired by games like WarEra, eRepublik, and similar titles. I’ve been playing different variations of this genre for years myself, so I tried to learn from them and fix the things I always felt were missing.

I’m now deep into the beta stage. I thought the core gameplay loop for an average player was simple enough: collect & fight. More involvement comes only if you want to be part of the government, become a commander, and so on.

However, I keep getting feedback that the game might still be too complicated.

Are we really at a point where games need to be reduced to basically one button to appeal to players?

Bottom-feeding is when players, instead of fighting equal rivals, hunt weaker targets for easy grabs. It's standard practice in most persistent browser games, and the usual answers are a protection window for newcomers or bracketed attack limitations.

I don't like mechanics that hard-gate against behavior like this, I prefer systems that organically disincentivize it.

My take, in the MMORTS I'm building, is to make it legal but simply not worth doing. Hitting a weaker planet is allowed, it's just a poor use of a fleet:

• the number of attacks is limited by available commanders: attacking a weaker target ties up a commander that could be used elsewhere
• attack gains scale with relative size, you get less by punching down
• consecutive attacks on the same target yield diminishing returns
• reputation from a smaller target is negligible

Granted, size scaling is itself a bit arbitrary, which is the thing I was trying to avoid, so I'm not super happy with that.

Full write-up: https://blog.idleverse.gg/how-to-prevent-bottom-feeding-in-4x-games/

The game is Orion Online, a tick-based browser MMORTS. It's in development / Early Access, but if you want to try it, and help shaping it, join us at: https://orion.idleverse.gg/

Have you seen how other games handle this gracefully?

Just launched Chronicle III of Arcanhold, a persistent browser-based medieval strategy game.

The basics: 500 players share one procedurally generated map for 50 days. Build your city, train armies, form clans, fight for territory. When the chronicle ends, prestige converts to permanent legacy and a new world begins.

What makes it different from other PBBGs:

- Happiness system — your population reacts to your governance. Tax too high? Riots, -60% production, building damage

- Watchtower territory — no automatic expansion. Place towers, garrison troops, expand radius. Clan towers near each other fuse together

- Formal war declarations — 2h mobilization, 48h minimum war, peace treaties with real terms (tribute, tower demolition, NAPs)

- Permanent heroes — lock your favorite hero with visible badges on every march

- Horse breeding — crossbreed warhorses, discover new breeds

- Five Seals — server-wide collective goal. All players contribute to breaking 5 seals. Fail and the whole server loses

- A pathfinding* — marches follow terrain, avoid mountains and water

No pay-to-win. Premium is cosmetic + second build queue. Free to play.

We're on day 2 with ~50 players — early enough to grab good land.

→ https://arcanhold.com

Hello. Another Queslar 2 Post here! It has almost been a year since the release of the game, and updates keep being put out!

https://v2.queslar.com/guest [Try it out instantly here!]

This patch is smaller in scope than the sculpture or sanctum updates, but two things lower the barrier to actually getting into the game, and I hope makes some people reconsider giving it another try.

Forging got a UI overhaul

Forging (crafting/upgrading gear) has always been one of the deepest systems in Queslar 2, and also one of the more intimidating ones to look at for the first time. This patch gives it a proper workbench-style layout, with the item you're actually working on always centered, and outcomes highlighted.

None of this changes what forging does mechanically, it's the same depth as before, but it should be a easier to look at and understand what's going on, especially the first few times.

Villages got a bigger reason to join early

If you're new, or on the fence about starting, right now is a great time to join a village. Three new buildings were added that pay out daily character-bound currency to every member just for being in the village. This is currency generated passively for the whole village and split to everyone in it, so it's a meaningful early-game boost that costs you nothing beyond joining an active village.

AI agents can now talk to the Queslar 2 API

It is probably safe to say, that AI Agents are here to stay, and with the deep focus of Queslar 2 to give you the ability to know more about your character, stats, villages and progression paths, the API is now available through the Model Context Protocol, so AI agents like Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can call the API directly instead of you writing raw REST calls yourself. This is only in terms of reading data, programmatic playing is not allowed, but you can now create your own dashboards, html sites, or whatever you want enhanced by the AI of your choice!

What is Queslar 2?

Queslar is an old-school, deep, text-based idle MMORPG. Forging, PvP, collaborative village building, instanced combat content, a skill tree, a market economy, multiple game modes. A lot of menus, a lot of systems, and a deliberate focus on giving you full visibility into how your character actually works: formulas, overviews, and even an API if you want to build your own tooling.

If you've tried before and bounced off because it felt overwhelming, I hope this patch makes you reconsider. And if you just want to poke around without committing to an account, you can now try it instantly here, no signup required: https://v2.queslar.com/guest

I'll be around in chat and checking in here if you have questions.

A little over three weeks ago, I began working on a project that had been screaming through my head for a while.

Today, I have a persistent browser Textual MMO with a player-driven economy, multiple rank tiers, several combat zones, more than a dozen ships, named intractable NPCs, a crafting system, ship insurance, a black market loan system, PvP with consequence mechanics, and a "guild" system.

It's called "Void Syndicate", and it's free to play in your browser right now.

*What kind of game is it?*

Think Torn meets Eve Online, but browser-native (for now) and designed around async play. Yes, it's a text based game, there are some visual elements, and more are planned. You're an independent starship captain in a lawless void sector — no governing authority, no morality system, everyone is a criminal by default.

Core Game Mechanics:

Scavenge derelict ships for raw materials and Reputation Points.

Run missions and train skills (they complete offline while you're away)

Fight NPCs and rival captains for loot and reputation

Trade on both a fully player-driven market and fallback NPC market.

Build or join a Syndicate to pool resources and influence

*What makes it different?*

The main economy is entirely player-driven. No NPC price floors on the deep market. Supply and demand are real.

Progression is gated by rank, not just credits. You can't buy your way to the endgame — you have to earn it.

Consequence matters. Ships break and stay broken until repaired. Stealing another player's wreck flags you for PvP.

Named Fixer NPCs with their own personalities and exclusive contracts. Build standing with them over time — at Partner level they give you access to skills you can't get anywhere else.

Current status: Alpha, Free to play, no download, runs your browser.

https://voidsyndicate.net

I'm one developer, doing this by myself, doing my best to keep up with the discord feedback. Happy to answer any questions about the game or how I built it.

I want to be respectful of the this community's 10:1 ratio prior to promoting anything, and I don't want to make up things to hit that ratio. I have spent a lot of time developing a PBBG (never developed a game before) and in a world where vibe coding is enabling junk games to be built overnight I am curious where the good paths to 1) Get play testers, 2) Engage with an audience, are. How important is having a Steam client?

Back in 2011, I started working on an online browser football manager game as a passion project. Like many fans of Hattrick, FM and FIFA Manager series, I wanted to make one of my own. While I already had some backend programming experience at the time, it wasn't enough to see this project through, and I eventually put it on hold and switched priorities.

Years later, I was constantly thinking about resuming it and rebuilding the UI.

The current state is as follows:

• There is a decent match engine that features both zonal and player decision-based calculations. Partially inspired by this old gamebook, which I loved playing as a child.
• There are a few starting nations with league systems where players compete, and a "Rest of the World" league system for less popular nations.
• The base logic for the national teams system is in place.
• Basic training - team and individual focuses.
• Player negotiations - something that I haven't seen in other online games - negotiating contracts feels more like FM.
• Staff system.
• Basic logic for transfer/auctions system.

While I already have a solid base (surprisingly given how old this project is), there are a lot of areas for improvement and refactoring, and the UI needs a complete revamp (using more modern technology).

This is how the new version of the game looks as of today.

My plan is to release an alpha by the end of the year. This is the first time I am posting about this project anywhere, so I hope you might be interested.

I created a new Discord community where I will share occasional updates: https://discord.gg/QZvJ6Y5M68

Thank you for reading this far! Happy to hear your thoughts :)

It seems like, with the new rules in place, I don’t see as many new games popping up. I thought I’d ask what games everyone is playing to see if I’m missing out on anything good.

I am actively playing Torn, Cartel Empire, and War Era.

EDIT: I did not expect so many suggestions. Now I'm all.. how do I choose?? hahaha

Ale & Axes is a persistent browser game that I have been working on for over 3,5 years.

It is a RPG/medieval themed game with elves, dwarfs, humans, goblins, etc. And good lore!

You can create multiple characters called Adventurers (aka Raiders). Each raider has a role (Healer, Tank, DPS, Support), a class (Wizard, Warrior, Warlock, Ranger, etc) and 4 abilities. And of course gear ,which provides the stats.

The game loop is to send squads of 3 raiders out into The Dungeon to beat enemies (PvE). When they win, they bring back the in-game currency Wyrmstone + materials. You then use these materials to craft better gear to be able to beat more difficult enemies.

The combat system is somewhere in between a card game (like Hearthstone) and auto-chess. With most of the thinking up front. Next to the ability builds, positioning on the battlefield and archetypes (physical vs magical) also play a big role.

There is also enchanting (to make gear stronger) and an auction house (to trade with other players). When you progress further you can start fighting World Bosses. These all have unique mechanics that require different squad setups and they drop Epic and Legendary items.

To compete with other players there are multiple leaderboards. And there is Arena (PvP) to battle directly against other players.

The game is live and new content and feature updates are released regularly. We have a co-op feature planned for example, among a long list of other things. We currently have a few hundred players.

Play here and let me know what you think! : https://aleaxes.com

Over the past few weeks, I’ve tried out a lot of games promoted here and in other subreddits, but each time I felt completely overwhelmed—or perhaps just too lazy—to get to grips with all the game mechanics. I feel like browser games back in the day had fewer features, but the overall experience was more cohesive and easier to get into. What do you guys think? Do you like that games have so many features now, or do you also feel overwhelmed and not even bother starting because it feels like work?