Jagex signs first third-party RuneScape dev deal with Hyper Hippo

Hyper Hippo has become the first external developer to create a game based on the RuneScape IP after collaborating with franchise creator Jagex.

The studio is best known for its simulation game AdVenture Capitalist, which has been downloaded more than 10 million times, and will create Runescape: Idle Adventures.

Idle Adventures is a so-called ‘idle’ game, meaning that little player input is required to progress.

The game joins Jagex’s own card game tie-in Chronicle: RuneScape Legends in expanding the MMO’s universe.

“Idle games go by a few names,” explained Cody Vigue, game designer for AdVenture Capitalist and RuneScape: Idle Adventures. “Some call them clickers, some call them incremental games. Personally, I like the term ‘zero-player game’, because it describes the genre fairly well.

“Idle games are games that play themselves… well, you play them, you click stuff. But for the most part, an idle game is set up so that the game will play itself whenever you’re not. They’re all about that pleasant game loop of making progress that allows you to make more progress even faster.

“Anyone who’s played an RPG can probably imagine quite well why they’re fun. You know all those times you spend working on your sub-skills, the hours you spend in between quests mining, or picking flowers, or baking rolls? Well, idle games are that, but only that. They‘re a strange mix of pleasant tedium combined with the rush of leveling up.

“What we’re building is like RuneScape, but instead of being massively multiplayer, it’s one-player. Almost zero-player. It’s 0.5-player RuneScape.”