Games / Idle War

Changelog

0.6 - 31st October 2026

Volume II arrives: the Intruders are in the inner system, and the fleet has to hold without a medic. Your 0.5 save carries over, as the first of up to five saves.

Volume II - Under Siege

  • Five new missions and a free play mission, with new story, battle backgrounds and messages.
  • The Mender joins at the end of the volume. It is a support ship with armour and a shield that repairs the most damaged ship and recharges the shields of the fleet. Once it is unlocked it can fly in free play and when you replay Volume II missions.
  • New enemies: the sniper, which aims at your most damaged ship, the bomber, whose blast hits the ships next to the one it targets, and the shieldbearer, which is protected by a shield. They come with three new bosses: the siege cruiser, the marksman and the dreadnought.
  • Finishing the volume brings Sofia Romano, a new pilot with abilities suited to what comes next.
  • New achievements for the Mender and for the new enemies.

Equipment, drops and waves

  • Boss drops roll a random quality among the ones you have unlocked (Common or Uncommon for now), instead of one quality per volume. The first time you beat the last boss of a mission it always drops an item of the best unlocked quality; replays and free play drop at the usual chance.
  • Equipment and pilot boxes give Common and Uncommon only. Rare and Epic come back in 0.7, unlocked by waves played. Items and pilots you already found keep their quality. Boxes now show the chance of each quality.
  • Collect waves come at a set position in each mission, the same on every run: never the first wave and never two in a row. The item target is now a multiple of 5.
  • Volume I: the shipyard (mission 3) and mission 4 have slightly weaker enemies.

Saves, settings and tips

  • Up to five saves on one device. Settings lists them, with Play, Rename, Delete and New save.
  • Save to file and Load from file replace the copy and paste export and import. Reset game clears only the save you are playing.
  • A new save asks for music, sound effects and tutorial tips before the first menu.
  • There are 13 new tutorial tips and 3 updated ones, and a Tutorial tips switch in Settings.

Interface

  • The ship Stats tab shows base stats at mission level 1, before its own abilities, equipment, pilot, upgrades and achievements. Locked ships can be opened to see their stats, abilities and equipment.
  • Idle War sits in the centre of every top bar, and Home shows the save you are playing and the game version.

Fixes

  • Free play now plays its own music. It was silent before.
  • On a wide window the title and credits on the home screen sit above the menu instead of at the far edges of the window.

0.5 - 19th October 2026

A big rebuild of the game. Every screen is new and the battle rules are simpler. Saves from 0.4 do not carry over and you will be prompted if the game detects one to start fresh.

New rules

  • Ships start every mission at level 1 and level up from the enemies they kill. Levels reset when the mission ends, and ship levels can no longer be bought.
  • Ships auto level up during missions. They always start at level 1 on each mission.
  • Credits (CR) replace XP and upgrade points.
  • Waves are fixed for each mission, with a boss alone every 5th wave. Hull is fully repaired between waves.
  • Introduced collection waves in missions.
  • A lost mission starts again from wave 1, and a completed mission can be played again straight away.
  • Difficulties are gone for now: everything is Normal. They will come back again once I do further balancing.
  • The mission list shows how each mission is likely to go with your fleet: Comfortable, Doable, Risky, or Not yet.

Volumes and ships

  • Replaced Volume I with new the updated story.
  • The Bulwark which is a slow tank that draws enemy fire, is introduced at the end of the first volume and will be playable on the free play mission.
  • Enemies have tags (small, large, swarm, armoured, shielded, striker, support, boss). The mission screen lists them.
  • Ships shoot repair units first. Completing a mission shows its closing story message.

Pilots and equipment

  • Pilots: a roster of named pilots with five random abilities each, for their own ship or the whole fleet. Pilot level opens up to four active ability slots, and affinity makes the abilities stronger over time. Pilots gain a level every 50 waves completed.
  • Every new ship and every completed volume brings a pilot, and a pilot box opens a new one. Pilots can be swapped between ships or disbanded.
  • Equipment: six pieces per ship, found from bosses or bought in boxes of five with a guaranteed best find every 10th box. A find of a lower quality than the piece you own adds part of a level.
  • Global bonuses are bought with credits on the Upgrades screen: damage, hull, armour, shield, attack speed, enemy weakening, ability power, XP, boss drops, box discount, pilot training and game speed.
  • Achievements are reworked into a tiered series. Every tier gives all ships +1% damage, hull, armour and shield.
  • Large numbers show with units (12.5k, 1.25M, 3.4B).

New look

  • All pages have been refreshed and it now adjusts to screen sizes.
  • Information on the battle screen has been updated, and player ships are clickable to see real time information about them.
  • Messages during a battle close automatically.
  • New art for every ship, enemy and boss, and a light blue glow on your ships. Enemies descend at different speeds and drift from side to side.

Fixes

  • Enemies stop short of your ships, so a boss no longer sits on top of them.
  • A mission continued after Save and exit keeps its time, and counts as a success if the target wave was already reached.

0.4f - 13th October 2026

  • The XP boost from equipment now increases the XP earned from kills.
  • Fixed an error when a ship had manual rounds available.
  • Fixed an error when selecting the equipment piece to be awarded.
  • Fixed resetting the game sometimes keeping data from the previous game.
  • Updated the underlying game libraries.

0.4e - 6th December 2019

  • Fixed bug with options and reloading the game
  • Fixed bug preventing certain equipment pieces from being obtainable
  • Changed look and feel of the options panel

0.4c and 0.4d - 2nd December 2019

  • Added a new option "Run on background". This will prevent the game from pausing when the browser tab is out of focus.
  • Added a new option to select framerate (15, 30 and 60fps options).
  • Changing the ability to run on the background, the screen ratio or the FPS doesn't trigger a game restart anymore.
  • Balance pass on current story missions: reduce the required stage to complete to a maximum of 30, but with an increased difficulty on initial levels.

0.4b - 25th November 2019

  • Changed notifications to come from the top and follow the same design throughout the game.
  • Credits are now added to the global pool during the mission. You can toggle between current mission XP and global XP by clicking on the XP area on the top bar during a mission.
  • Ships can be levelled up during missions.
  • Ships require a click to fire. Each click fills the number of available rounds. After firing all the rounds you need to click again. You can click sooner to fill the manual rounds.
  • Manually firing deals 100% of the calculated damage.
  • New Upgrade: Auto fire - Ships fire automatically dealing 20% of the calculated damage. Starting cost of 1 point, maximum level of 5 (at which point it will deal 100% of calculated damage).
  • Once Auto fire is unlocked, you can still click the ship to add manual rounds. Doing so will increase the damage dealt, adding the manual damage (base 100%) and the auto fire damage (base 20%).
  • New Upgrade: Auto loader - Increased the number of manual rounds a ship has by 100%. Starting cost of 2 points, maximum level of 3.
  • Ability to reset the upgrades and get all used points refunded.

0.4 - 24th November 2019

  • Added mission difficulties. Next difficulty is available when the previous one has been completed.
  • Hard mode multiplies enemy HP and Damage by 4 and doubles XP earned. Insane mode multiplies enemy HP and Damage by 10 and triples XP earned.
  • Added the ability to get equipment boxes using earned XP
  • Added a maximum level to some of the ship equipments (others remain unlimited)
  • New achievement: Freeplay - Will it even end? - Complete stage 500 in free play. Awards 5 points.
  • New equipment for Stargazer: Smart projectiles - Increases ship damage by 0.5% but decreases HP by 0.05%.
  • New equipment for Bruiser: Aggressive stance - Decreases enemy hp by 0.05hp but also decreases the global damage reduction bonus by 0.1hp.
  • New equipment for Relief: Armor stasis field - Increases HP of all ships by 0.4% but decreases global attack speed by 0.1%.
  • New Upgrade: Practice makes it perfect - Reduces the ship bonus interval by 5% (currently only applies to the Relief bonus effect). Starting cost of 3 points, maximum level of 5.

0.3c - 11th November 2019

  • Fixed several formulas when calculating bonuses.
  • Ship stats (attack, attack speed, health, DPS and damage reduction) on the Mission selection screen and Main menu ship screen only use the ship's own equipment and upgrade bonuses. Bonuses given by other ships are not considered. During gameplay, those values are calculated using all the active ships bonuses.

0.3b - 7th November 2019

  • Mission will automatically continue (Try again option) after 10 seconds.
  • XP earned on a repeating stage will be decreased by 90% rounded up.
  • New background color for Free play mission to be more prominent.
  • Changed labels on main menu to Global XP and during a battle to Mission XP to clarify they are different pools.
  • Added an indicator if ships can be leveled up, both in the main menu and in the ship screen (an * on the top right of the ship image).

0.3 - 7th November 2019

Notifications

  • If supported, the game will send a notification to the browser when all ships are disabled or when the mission is completed. Can be disabled in options.

Gameplay

  • Chapter 1 missions and story.
  • Different backgrounds that change during missions.
  • Starting a mission has an option to auto fill the slots with available ships.
  • Free play mission type - upon reaching stage 50, subsequent restarts can start at 90% of the maximum stage reached, rounded down plus one. (if you reach stage 100, you can start the mission at stage 91).
  • Single drop rate probability for equipment. Starts at 10% and can be raised by the global bonuses (and is visible on the Statistics menu).
  • Equipment drop changes: first time you kill a boss at a specific stage below or equal to the required mission stage, it is a guaranteed drop (if the mission requirement is 30 stages, every boss on the first 30 stages have a guaranteed drop). Subsequent plays of the same mission, or bosses above the required stage use the global drop rate probability.
  • Free play missions don’t have a cut off stage, so every boss killed for the first time is a guaranteed drop.
  • Game speed, projectiles speed, enemy and player ship stats, xp earned and enemy spawn rate updated.
  • New enemies added.
  • New projectiles added.
  • New sound effects added.
  • New music added.

Ship changes

  • New ship screens on main menu and during gameplay, with clearer information about the ship details and available equipment.
  • Ships come with a certain number of slots for equipment. Some slots are locked and require the player to level up the ship to unlock.
  • Equipment can be equipped at any time and only equipped items give bonuses.
  • All ships have a global bonus.
  • Equipment can be upgraded once it reaches a certain level. Higher quality items provide stronger bonuses.

Bonuses

  • Completing missions and achievements awards upgrade points. These can be used to unlock and improve bonuses.

Achievements

  • Added several achievements that once completed award upgrade points.
  • Completed and in progress are separated in two tabs.

Other

  • Ability to export and import a save.
  • Several bugs fixed, including some that prevented the game from work in Safari.
  • About section added with information about assets used and links about the game.

0.2 - 16th October 2019

  • Player ships are now part of the canvas, which improves collision detection and will allow interesting things in the future
  • Player ships move left and right (might randomise this at a later build - I'll be honest, I forgot about it on this build...)
  • Enemies shot at a specific player ship, however the x axis is random. This is to try to compensate for the movement, but also means the enemies can miss a lot (or hit the neighbour ship)
  • Two aspect ratios to choose from: 9:16 and 3:4
  • Improve readability of text (new font for numbers and darken background where needed)
  • Popup when all ships have been disabled, to ask to continue or finish mission
  • Popup when the required stage is reached, if the player wants to finish the mission or continue
  • Add firing to support ships
  • Review enemy dps and health to compensate for the extra player damage [On going, but improved]
  • Added game speed options of 1x up to 5x
  • Fixed not being able to scroll the pages that didn't fit the screen
  • Squash any bugs found so far

0.1 - 15th October 2019

  • New fonts, sounds, background music and parallax backgrounds
  • New enemy ships, explosions and projectiles
  • New UI look
  • Wider play window

0.0 - 9th October 2019

  • Initial release