8-Bit Evil
Ever wanted to be a villain without worrying about the consequences? In Idle Mastermind from Grumpy Rhino Games, you can! Work with three different evil masterminds to take over the world slowly but surely. Build unique underground lairs and order goons to ravage the populace and steal priceless items. Get to know the inner workings of running an evil business! How high can you raise your infamy before enacting your grand plan?
Idle Agenda
Did you ever meet someone without whom a business would essentially fall apart? That’s how you could describe Ms. Pence, secretary to megalomaniac villains. She walks you through how to play the game before turning you loose to wreak evil havoc. First you team up with Dr. DOS, a robot-obsessed mad scientist who hates humans and wants to bring about the robot revolution. However, he needs resources. So, time to send out the goons. Every villain has unique goons, each tasked with stealing a different resource. The first three you get with Dr. DOS is Tommy, Scrapper and Boa. Tommy is a stereotypical Italian mob man who wields two guns and steals cash, while Scrapper is a tough woman who steals machinery. Boa, a snake tamer, takes valuables. They run around the city attacking buildings like the bank and museum to steal a specific number of resources.
Buildings can be upgraded with stolen resources to increase the amount to be stolen. Additionally, if you’re impatient with the goons, use the giant magnet. It has a cooldown period of ten seconds, so it can be used often. With these resources, Dr. DOS’s underground lair can be built. Rooms include the Mainframe, City Planning, Laboratory, generators, weaponry, plus a server and crafting room. Generators, weaponry and server rooms create electricity, weapons and data chips than can be used to upgrade the lair and city buildings. After collecting enough resources, you can go to the Mainframe and unlock new rooms to help with the evil plan. Same with City Planning, though places in the city are unlocked. The Laboratory is where you increase your infamy. More infamy means more opportunities to earn rewards, like skill points. And skill points can be spent to improve your reward chances.
Heroic Rewards
You can’t have villains trashing the place without some heroes showing up to save the day. However, Idle Mastermind uses these heroes for the benefit of the villains in different ways. For example, every five minutes a hero called Ad Man circles the sky. You have one minute to tap him and earn four different rewards per day. Prizes include henchmen tokens, used to upgrade your goons, and wheel tickets. Those tickets lead into another hero, Captured Man. He’s literally a caped and masked man who’s bound and gagged to a prize wheel. Spending wheel tickets spins him around to land on the same rewards provided by Ad Man. Besides these two, a hero your goons fight is Art Man, armed with a colorful hairdo and giant paintbrush. It takes a while to defeat him but doing so earns artwork. Artwork is then used to improve your lair and goons.
Slow & Steady
Idle Mastermind is a colorful title providing unique takes on the super genre and plenty of things to do. Though a bit slow going, as most idle games are, the end rewards are always worth it. With different goons for hire, multiple rewards to earn, and layers of a lair to build, players will find themselves checking their phones every few hours just to see how much farther they can go.
Is It Hardcore?
Yes
Strategically planning an evil empire and hording riches to build it make for an engaging slow-burn idle game. Pesky heroes better beware!