The Completionist vs Idle Deepcore
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Completionist
Build a pop culture magazine from scratch in the 1990s. Hire staff, commission stories, and manage your workflow to grow from a photocopied zine to a digital media company. Make strategic choices to avoid bankruptcy and achieve IPO success.
- Build a pop culture magazine
- Hire and manage staff
- Kanban workflow management
- 90s aesthetic and events
- Prestige system for upgrades
- IPO and bankruptcy risk
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The decade is 1990. Your zine has a circulation of zero and a GeoCities page with a broken hit counter. You have opinions about Tarantino, a 14.4 modem, and just enough cash for one print run. Build a pop culture magazine from nothing. Hire writers, editors, and researchers. Commission stories about the movies, music, games, and news that shaped the 90s. Move work across a Kanban board from pitch to published. Watch your operation evolve from photocopied zines at Kinko's to a real media company with a .com domain and a homepage that loads in under 8 seconds. Try not to go broke before the IPO. Part strategy game. Part idle. Part workflow sim. Part love letter to the decade that broke the internet. WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT • Your Choices Matter — Specialists or generalists. Deadlines for bonus pay or slow burns for 5-star quality. Hire fast and spend thin, or run lean and invest in iMacs and Aeron chairs. Prestige early for a few legacy points, or grind deep for the full haul. Every run asks a different question. • Windows 95 Aesthetic — Beveled chrome, tiled wallpapers, system fonts. Looks like running Netscape Navigator on your parents' Compaq. In a good way. • In-Game Achievements — On top of Game Centre achievements, more homage to the 90s. • Events and Multipliers — Random events from the 1990s that boost (or tank) your revenue mid-run. • Easter Eggs — Can you find the flying toast? The Konami input code? The dial-up modem? • IPO — Take a chance at the big time, but if your stock tanks... Godspeed, old friend. • Thousands of 1990s Headlines — Jurassic Park opening weekend. Nirvana knocking Michael Jackson off #1. The O.J. trial. Pokémon. Y2K panic. The stuff that shaped a generation. • Kanban Workflow — Research, draft, create, edit, publish. Manage stories across the board like a project manager who's really into Radiohead. • Build Your Team — Creators write. Editors catch typos. Researchers break leads. Managing Editors keep the whole operation from imploding. Hire smart, level up skills, equip your crew with Power Macs, standing desks, and Discmans. • Prestige System — Hit $500K and complete a Volume. Start your next run with permanent legacy upgrades that pull your strategy in new directions. Revenue Boost or Inflation Shield. Quality Boost or Fast Learners. There's no correct order. There's your order. • Speed Boosts — Frappuccinos, Surge soda, Snapple. The fuel of journalism. Consumables for a temporary push. A Bull Terrier for permanent motivation. Or upgrade your dial-up to a T1 Line. • Analog to Digital — Watch your magazine evolve from paste-up zines to a full online publication. Your arc mirrors the decade's defining shift. • NO ADS. NO ENERGY GATES. One optional speed boost. That's it. The first Volume teaches you the ropes. Volumes 2 through 10 are where you figure out what kind of editor you actually are.
Idle Deepcore
Embark on an epic pixel-art mining adventure, tapping to break blocks and collect ore. Automate your progress with upgradeable machines, even while offline, and descend through diverse biomes to discover rarer resources. Reset your progress for permanent boosts and unlock new systems to dig deeper and get richer.
- Tap-to-mine with pixel-art feedback
- Automate with upgradeable mining machines
- Smelt raw ore into valuable ingots
- Descend through distinct biomes
- Prestige for permanent power
- Build a rocket and mine asteroids
- Offline progress
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Idle Deepcore is a pixel-art idle mining game about digging from the surface all the way down to the planet's molten core — and beyond, into orbit. Tap to break blocks and collect ore, then buy machines — jackhammers, steam drills, seismic hammers, excavators and more — to mine for you, even while you're away. The deeper you dig, the rarer the ore and the tougher the blocks. FEATURES • Tap-to-mine with crunchy pixel-art feedback • Automate with a roster of upgradeable mining machines • Smelt raw ore into valuable ingots in your furnaces • Descend through distinct biomes to ever-deeper layers • Prestige to reset for permanent power and unlock new systems • Skill tree, mastery nodes and a research lab to specialize each run • Build a rocket and mine asteroids out in orbit • Offline progress — your machines keep mining while the app is closed • Cloud save via Game Center — back up and restore your progress • Playable in 29 languages Optional rewarded ads can double your offline haul — never required to progress. Dig deeper. Get richer. Idle Deepcore.
Screenshots
Verdict
The Completionist and Idle Deepcore both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 50% of Idle Deepcore's written reviews are positive against 0% of The Completionist's. Idle Deepcore also leads on price (Free vs $1.99) and ratings volume (80 vs 11). The Completionist's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 5 days). On rating, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Idle Deepcore is free to download; The Completionist costs $1.99 up front. The Completionist sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Idle Deepcore sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for The Completionist against 4.6 for Idle Deepcore. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Idle Deepcore has 80 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 0% of The Completionist's written reviews are positive against 50% of Idle Deepcore's.
The Completionist ships an update every 2 days, Idle Deepcore every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Completionist | Idle Deepcore |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.6 (11 ratings) — better | 4.6 (80 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 11 | 80 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 138 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Frosty Pop | Flavio Valceschini |
Customer experience
The Completionist
Idle Deepcore
In-app purchases
The Completionist
- T1 Line$1.99
Idle Deepcore
- Supporter Pack$5.99
Questions
Is The Completionist free?
Is Idle Deepcore free?
Which has better reviews, The Completionist or Idle Deepcore?
Do The Completionist or Idle Deepcore have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Completionist or Idle Deepcore?
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