A Look at Progress Quest: The Original Idle Game

Progress Quest is generally considered to be the original idle game. It came out in 2002 as a parody of EverQuest and the emerging MMORPG boom. “Playing” it consists of creating a character, clicking “Sold!”, and then watching progress bars fill forever. There’s no interaction, no real gameplay, just waiting.

At first glance, it feels like a gimmick — a joke to poke fun at the MMO trend. But what’s surprising is that the creator of Progress Quest, Eric Fredricksen, built a whole RPG simulation underneath the progress bars. There are 270+ monster varieties, procedurally named equipment, multiple storylines, intentionally weighted stats, real loot tables, and a surprisingly complex progression system. On top of that, there’s even an authentication system for competitive multiplayer leaderboards that are somehow still around today.

I love Progress Quest because of its absurdity, but also because it’s such a good example of something being far better than it needed to be. The amount of effort and attention to detail put in this game makes me smile.

Exponential Progression

At the heart of Progress Quest is a single formula that controls level progression. The time it takes to complete level N is: (20 + 1.15^N) * 60 seconds. That means early levels take minutes (a few hours to get to level 10), while later ones take years. There is also additional time outside of leveling for the player to go to market, buy/sell things, and head back to the “killing fields”.

By my analysis, there are still thousands of active players across the remaining multiplayer realms, and pretty anyone above level 95 has had the game running for over a decade. That doesn’t even count single-player characters.

Races and Classes

The race and class systems are hilariously absurd, but they don’t affect gameplay at all. The player races are: Half Orc, Half Man, Half Halfling, Double Hobbit, Hob-Hobbit, Low Elf, Dung Elf, Talking Pony, Gyrognome, Lesser Dwarf, Crested Dwarf, Eel Man, Panda Man, Trans-Kobold, Enchanted Motorcycle, Will o’ the Wisp, Battle-Finch, Double Wookiee, Skraeling, Demicanadian, and Land Squid.

And the classes are: Ur-Paladin, Voodoo Princess, Robot Monk, Mu-Fu Monk, Mage Illusioner, Shiv-Knight, Inner Mason, Fighter/Organist, Puma Burgular, Runeloremaster, Hunter Strangler, Battle-Felon, Tickle-Mimic, Slow Poisoner, Bastard Lunatic, Jungle Clown, Birdrider, and Vermineer.

Hilarious Monster Types

There are over 270 hand-crafted monsters, and every one of them has a matching loot drop. Many are hilarious including:

• Giants
  • Humidity Giant (drops “drops”)
  • Beef Giant (drops “steak”)
  • Rice Giant (drops “grain”)
  • Porcelain Giant (drops “fixture”)
  • Mini Giant (drops “pompadour”)
• Golems
  • Beer Golem (drops “foam”)
  • Oxygen Golem (drops “platelet”)
  • Cardboard Golem (drops “recycling”)
• Scouts
  • Cub Scout (drops “neckerchief”)
  • Girl Scout (drops “cookie”)
  • Boy Scout (drops “merit badge”)
  • Eagle Scout (drops “merit badge”)
• Elementals
  • Bacon Elemental (drops “bit”)
  • Cheese Elemental (drops “curd”)
  • Hair Elemental (drops “follicle”)
  • Porn Elemental (drops “lube”)

When the game picks a monster to fight, it level-matches against your character and then applies modifier prefixes based on the gap. That adds more flavor to the monster names.

Procedural Equipment

When you get new gear, the game doesn’t just pull from a list. It runs a little algorithm:

1. Pick a base item matched to your level from a list like Stick → Shiv → Longsword → Halberd
2. Calculate the quality gap between the item’s base level and your level
3. “Spend” that gap across up to two modifier adjectives
4. Whatever is left becomes a numeric +N prefix

So a level 40 character might find a +13 Custom Holy Mithril Mail — a level 19 Mithril Mail base, with Custom (+3) and Holy (+5), leaving +13 unspent.

The modifier tables are split into good and bad. If the gap is negative — meaning the item is actually better than you — the game pulls from the bad list instead: Rusty, Dull, Bent, Plastic, Nerf (-7), Rubber (-6).

There’s also a whole list of spells with names like “Holy Batpole,” “Grognor’s Big Day Off”, and “Roger’s Grand Illusion” that will make their way into your spellbook and increase in level with roman numerals.

The Main Game Loop

Surprisingly, the game has a real game loop. It works like this:

1. Kill monster: The game generates a monster with a duration based on your level. When the timer finishes:
   • Loot is added to your inventory, either a specific drop or generic loot
   • XP is gained, which can trigger a level-up
   • Quest and plot bars advance
2. Check encumbrance: After a kill, if encumberance is at or above your limit, you go to market instead of fighting:
   • The game will say “heading to market to sell loot”
   • Then the game sells items one at a time, removing the top item in inventory and adding gold
   • Items with “of” in the name sell for much more
   • This continues until only gold remains
3. Buy or head out: After selling, or if you weren’t encumbered in the first place:
   • If the player’s gold is high enough to buy better gear, the game says “Negotiating purchase of better equipment” and the game upgrades a random equipment slot
   • Otherwise the game will say “Heading to the killing fields”
4. Next kill: After heading out, the game generates another monster and the cycle repeats

Stat Progression

When you gain a stat point, the game uses a weighted system biased toward your highest stat. Half the time, the gain is completely random. The other half uses quadratic weighting, where each stat’s chance is proportional to its value squared. That creates a snowball effect where your best stat keeps getting better, which feels authentic to how RPG builds tend to work.

The only real strategy to playing Progress Quest is rolling a high STR at character creation. Having higher STR gives you higher max encumberance which reduces how often you need to go to market. The thing is, the market trips are such a small fraction of the actual game time that this only gives you about a 5% advantage to your overall level up speed.

In Conclusion

Progress Quest is an absurd, charming little game, and I hope it somehow lives on forever. If you want to play the “multiplayer” Windows version, you can download it here.

I recently wanted to play again and (because it isn’t on Mac) vibe-coded a Swift version that runs on modern Mac hardware and works with the multiplayer leaderboard. See you on the killing fields!