Needle Rush

Prospectus

An idle clicker about finding one needle in a haystack of ten million straws. Dig the stack down by hand, sell the hay and spend it on better tools: a rake, a pitchfork, a shovel, a vacuum and dynamite. Hire farmhands and build claw arms, fans, winches, hay robots and drones that dig for you. The hay behaves like a real pile: it slides, caves in and spills into the bins. Claim achievements, and find the needle faster each time. Hand-made pixel art.

How it plays

Dig the haystack until you find the needle hidden inside. Hay you dig falls into the bins and turns into coins. Spend coins in the shop on better tools, farmhands and machines that dig for you. Mouse: hold the left button on the haystack to dig, click a card in the shop to buy it. Touch: hold a finger on the haystack, or on the strip under the barn when the phone is upright, and tap a card to buy it. Tap the needle when you uncover it to win.

Opening an account with this game takes one press: Open the holding, above, and it loads on this page itself — nothing downloads and no form stands between you and the first decision. It is drawn for a flexible screen and takes its instructions from mouse, keyboard or touch, as the game prefers. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly. If a fullscreen control is offered, take it — a growing enterprise deserves the whole desk.

Analyst's notes for idle holdings

• Your real currency is the reset. Prestige and restart bonuses look like losing progress; in most idle games they are the fastest progress on offer, priced in patience.
• Automate the bottleneck, not the favourite. The upgrade that multiplies your slowest earner beats three that polish the one already sprinting.
• Check in at the rhythm the game suggests. Idle design is a metronome — short, regular visits beat one long stare, because every offline cap and bonus timer is set to that beat.

Needle Rush — questions from the readership

What does it cost to open Needle Rush?

Nothing, at any point. The holding is free from the first click to the last upgrade — no account to open, no download to wait for, no paywall filed anywhere in its pages. The advertising around this page is what pays the bookkeeping.

What kind of game is Needle Rush, exactly?

We file it on the Idle shelf of the ledger. It is a browser game through and through — the prospectus above is the publisher's own summary of what the game asks of you and what it gives back.

Can I play Needle Rush on a phone or tablet?

Yes — it runs in the browser on phones and tablets just as it does on a computer. It adjusts itself to upright and wide screens alike, so phone, tablet and desktop all present it properly.

Is there anything to download or install first?

Nothing at all. Needle Rush is an HTML5 game: press the open button and it loads on this very page, and closing the tab leaves nothing behind on your device.

Closing entry

Finished the audit, or still mid-season? The full Idle shelf is one click away — Games that keep working while you watch — or don't. One hundred and seventy-five idle holdings where the numbers climb on their own and your job is deciding what they climb toward.