IDLE HQ
Start with hands-on work in a small office. Move tasks through Sales, Build and Delivery, then hire employees to keep the workflow moving automatically.
Upgrade busy desks, expand your headquarters with QA, and open a second floor with Design. Watch work travel between departments as your team grows. Once all five departments are staffed, you can keep improving their speed and return later to collect offline earnings.
# Controls
- Click or tap a desk to process a task manually.
- Tap a staffed desk for a short 2× processing boost.
- Use Hire, Upgrade and expansion buttons to grow the office.
- On small screens, switch between floors using the Floor buttons.
- Use the speaker button to mute or enable sound.
- Keyboard: Tab to a control, then Enter or Space to activate it.
# Features
- Three headquarters levels, ending in a two-floor office.
- Five departments: Sales, Design, Build, QA and Delivery.
- Manual processing, employee automation and desk upgrades.
- Local progress saving and capped offline earnings.
- Responsive desktop and mobile layouts.
- Adaptive procedural music and gameplay sound effects.
# Offline progression
Offline earnings require every department in your current headquarters to have an employee. They are estimated from your slowest required department and client arrival rate, at 10% efficiency, for up to two hours away. Temporary tap boosts are excluded. Collect your earnings in the Welcome Back panel.
Progress is stored in this browser on this device. Clearing site data removes it. Saves do not sync between devices or between different hosting sites. Browser privacy settings may restrict saving in embedded games.
# Audio
Music gains subtle layers as the headquarters grows. All audio is synthesized locally; there are no external music tracks. Sound starts after a user interaction. Master mute is saved on the device, and audio pauses when the page is hidden.
Download
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Development log
Comments
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there is no reason to ever go above level 3 with our team
That was a fair criticism. Once the team was waiting for new contracts, buying more speed didn’t help much.
In v1.2’s new M&A path, Sales unlocks Marketing at level 4 to bring in contracts more frequently, and Design unlocks higher-value contracts at level 4. The aim is to make further upgrades change what your company can do, not just make the progress bars faster.
With your existing save, you can choose to transfer to this path on the upgrade screen after an IPO. The preview explains what happens to your assets and that the transfer replaces the legacy Shares/IPO route—there’s no need to manually reset your save.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Nice idea but it feels empty after reaching prestige. Probably because prestige does not extend the core gameplay. And the fixed 5 seconds delay between new contracts make speeding up the workers kind of a moot point.
Two suggestions:
First another layer after the first prestige. Perhaps some kind of Research or Controlling which boosts the working floor.
Second - Secondary skills which affect the progress. For example for sales a marketing skill which reduces the 5 seconds delay. Design could get a skill which boosts the worth of a contract every now and then. And so on.
Thanks for the detailed feedback—your Sales and Design suggestions directly influenced v1.2.
Testing confirmed the bottleneck you described: increasing worker speed alone could leave deliveries unchanged because contracts were still arriving every five seconds. In the new M&A path, Sales can now improve contract arrival rates from level 4, while Design can make every fifth contract it processes more valuable from level 4.
I also added Operations Lab after the first exit. You can choose Growth to strengthen contract acquisition or Premium to strengthen higher-value contracts. It’s a small strategy layer rather than a full research tree.
M&A exits now lead into reinvestment, too: spend the sale proceeds on permanent upgrades, keep the remainder as cash for your next company, or balance the two.
For your existing save, the transfer option is available on the upgrade screen after a legacy IPO. It previews the asset conversion before you commit. You can also stay with the old route; transferring is a one-way switch to the new M&A economy.
I’m still tuning the balance, so I wouldn’t call the repetition problem completely solved. Does the second company feel meaningfully different to you now?
Thanks for your work. Tell me when 1.2 goes live. I want to give it a spin. At the moment it still shows IDLE HQv1.1.1 compatible progress
Thanks for checking! The “v1.1.1 compatible progress” message is actually part of v1.2. It means your existing company is continuing under the legacy IPO rules. Sorry—that label makes it look as though the update hasn’t arrived.
To try the new M&A/reinvestment path with your existing progress, finish your current IPO. On the post-IPO screen, look for “Choose your next chapter” and select “Review transfer to M&A →” before starting another legacy company. If you’re already on that screen, you can review the transfer now.
The preview shows the Shares and Seed conversion and the Talent, Process, and Brand levels you’ll keep. You can cancel before confirming. Once confirmed, it’s a one-way switch to the new M&A economy, where the legacy Shares/IPO route is no longer available.
Please don’t reset your save or clear your browser data. Thanks for flagging the confusing label!
nothing happens after geting 5 workers im guessing you used AI
Thanks for the feedback, and for playing far enough to point this out. You were right that the game needed more to do beyond hiring all five workers.
The earlier update added IPO/prestige, permanent upgrades, new goals, and repeatable company challenges. v1.2 now goes further with a new M&A and reinvestment path: sell your company, invest the proceeds in permanent upgrades, and carry every unspent dollar from the sale into your next company.
That path also gives you more reasons to develop the team beyond level 3. Sales unlocks Marketing at level 4 to bring in contracts more frequently, while Design unlocks higher-value contracts at level 4. After your first exit, you can choose Growth or Premium as your next company’s strategy.
There’s no need to reset your existing save. You can continue your current company on the legacy IPO path. After an IPO, the upgrade screen lets you either stay with that system or preview a one-time transfer to the new M&A economy. The preview explains the Shares and Seed conversion and which upgrades carry over before you confirm. Transferring is a one-way switch; the legacy Shares/IPO route is not available afterward.
Your feedback helped shape these changes. I’m still tuning the balance, so I’d be interested to hear whether the next company feels more rewarding—or where it still feels repetitive.
It appears this game is unfinished.
I leveled all 5 workers up to level 9 with 512 shipped projects, yet no new challenges appeared.
Additionally, player clicking is always faster than these automated workers.
Thanks for the feedback!
I’ve just updated IDLE HQ with a new IPO / prestige system, permanent upgrades, new goals after full automation, repeatable company challenges, and a reworked automation balance.
Your existing save progress is preserved, so you should be able to continue from where you left off.
I really appreciate you taking the time to play this far — your feedback directly influenced this update.