- Hallows Eve theme and a spooky new playlist - 1 October 2026
Update 8j: Hallows Eve Spooky season is here, so the office got decorated. New theme: Hallows Eve Pumpkin orange and candlelight over a dark eggplant night, with autumn leaves drifting down past the side panels. Every skill gets its own spooky color too (witch purple, pumpkin, candy apple red, slime green, ghost teal and candle gold). Pick it in Settings, then Theme. New playlist: Haunted Hours Six new tracks, all lofi and all made in the game's own synth like the rest of the soundtrack: In the Hall of the Mountain King (Grieg) Funeral March (Chopin) Toccata in D Minor (Bach) Graveyard Shift, Pumpkin Spice Standup and Haunted Server Room, three new originals Pick it in Settings, then Music and Sounds. The classics are old enough to be public domain, and these are new arrangements of them. Like the July 4th theme, both stay in the game for good, so you can use them any time of year. Fix:…
- Update 8i: The card collection bar really does fill now - 4 August 2026
A fix for a fix. The card collection bar now actually fills A while back someone reported that the Collection completion bar left a tiny empty sliver at the far right once you had all 150 cards. I fixed part of it, said it was done, and they came back to tell me they could still see the gap. They were right, and I had only closed about half a pixel of a four pixel problem. The real cause was the bar itself. It was built by hand out of two pieces sitting side by side, a filled part and an empty part, and that kind of layout always keeps a small gap between its two halves no matter how you size them. So the filled part could never reach the end, at any percentage. It is now a standard progress bar, which draws all the way to the edge when it is full. Below 100% it looks exactly the same as before. This time I checked it with a screenshot of a finished deck instead of just reading the code…
- Update 8h: No more useless duplicate crafts - 14 July 2026
A small one from your feedback. Crafting duplicates is blocked Someone asked on the forums what the point of crafting a duplicate card was, and the honest answer was: there wasn't one. You can only equip one copy of a given card, and breaking a spare back down returns just a fraction of the shards you spent, so crafting a card you already owned only wasted shards. Now, if you already own a card, the Craft option for it is greyed out with a note explaining why. Crafting a card you are still missing works exactly as before, so you can still target the specific cards you need to finish your deck. Thanks for the good question.
- Update 8g: A couple of fixes - 13 July 2026
Two small things from your reports. July 4th theme and the right side of the screen On smaller or high-DPI windows, the Star-Spangled (America 250) theme added an extra label to the top bar that could push the Boosts and Menu buttons off the right edge, which made it hard to get back to Settings. That label now tucks away on narrow windows, the same as the other top-bar extras, so those buttons always stay reachable. Card collection bar now fills all the way Once you had collected every card, the completion bar left a tiny sliver unfilled at the far right. It now fills completely at 100%. Thanks as always for the reports.
- Update 8f: A few fixes - 11 July 2026
Some small things you reported. Refound confirm dialog Two fixes here. First, pressing "Refound" on the confirm dialog now actually closes it and resets your run, instead of leaving the dialog sitting open. Second, the Founder Point total on that dialog now updates live while it is open, so it reflects what you would actually bank right now instead of the value from when you opened it. No more sideways wobble On smaller windows the middle skill panel would shift a few pixels to the side as the level, XP and current task text changed width. It now stays put. Thanks as always for the reports.
- Update 8e: Two small fixes - 10 July 2026
A couple of things you reported. No more "0 seconds" on the speedrun boards The fastest-first-99 and fastest-all-99 boards sort by shortest time. A very fast run that finished in under a second was getting rounded down to zero, so it sorted to the very top as a "0 seconds" record. That is fixed. Any real time now counts as at least one second, so those fake zero-second entries stop showing up. To be clear, this does not fix outright cheating. Some entries with impossible totals are people editing the leaderboards from outside the game, and there is no server check on my end to stop that yet. I am aware of it and looking into it. Readable Founder Points Founder Point numbers now have comma separators, so 2000000 shows as 2,000,000. That applies to your balance, the Founder store costs, and the refound amounts, which makes it much easier to tell two million from twenty million at a glance…
- Update 8d: Two bug fixes - 9 July 2026
A couple of things you reported. Card totals no longer get stuck The Card Collector and Deck Hoarder achievements count every card you have ever pulled, duplicates included. The problem was that scrapping a duplicate for shards was lowering that count, so if you completed the set and then broke down your spares, the total could stall at 150 and Deck Hoarder (300) became impossible. That is fixed. There is now a lifetime "cards pulled" total that scrapping never lowers, so it keeps climbing as you pull more, no matter how many duplicates you break down. If you were stuck, it will start moving again on your next pulls. Clearer "Keep as Cash" button When you come back after being away, the Welcome Back screen lets you keep your offline earnings as cash instead of letting auto-buy spend them. To do that it has to switch your auto-buys off, otherwise they would spend the cash right away. Tha…
- Update 8c: Graphics settings - 7 July 2026
A few of you reported the game running your CPU hot or spinning up the fans. That is fair, for an idle game it should barely register, so I looked into it. Here is what was going on. The game had no frame rate limit, so on a high refresh rate monitor it was redrawing the whole screen 144 or 240 times a second, even though almost nothing on an idle screen actually changes. That is a lot of wasted work, and on some machines it pinned a CPU core and heated things up. What is new Frame rate cap: pick 30, 60, or Unlimited. It now defaults to 60, which looks identical on an idle screen but uses far less power. V-Sync toggle: on by default, turn it off if you prefer. You will find both under Menu, Display, Graphics. Your choice is saved and stays put between sessions. If your machine was running warm, this should take care of it. If it is still warm after updating, tell me your setup in the di…
- Thank you. 38,000 players in two weeks - 7 July 2026
Thank you Two weeks ago I put this game out with no idea what would happen. Since then more than 38,000 of you have added Idle Startup and actually played it. Two weeks. I did not expect that, not even close, and I am kind of blown away. Here is the part I want to be really clear about. Almost everything I have shipped since launch came from you. People post what they want, I read all of it, and I build what makes the game better. That is the whole loop, and I want to keep it exactly that way. Two weeks, eight updates, most of it from your feedback Run your whole team at once. Parallel skills was the number one request from day one, so now every skill can work at the same time, online and offline. Prestige and contracts. Exit and Refound your company for Founder Points, spend them in the Founder Store, and chase timed contracts for a reason to keep checking in. A real endgame and global…
- Update 8 — The Rankings - 7 July 2026
The Hiscores just became a real competition. You asked to actually see the field instead of a lonely rank number — so now you can, plus a big batch of fixes and polish. See where you really stand How far off the lead are you? Every board now shows the gap to the next player and to #1 (e.g. "+80T to #46 · 3.1% of the leader") — one push away, or light-years behind? Top 100, with names & avatars. Tap any board for the full ranking — your row highlighted and pinned. Browse Global, Around Me, or just your Friends. New board: Contracts Done, plus a one-tap hide-names option if you'd rather see ranks only. Much faster launch Coming back after time away used to freeze the game while it caught up on your offline progress. It's dramatically faster now, and shows a "catching up…" loader instead of ever looking stuck. Quality-of-life & fixes Scrap duplicates in bulk — dismantle every dupe of a rar…
- Founder's Deck — Hotfix - 6 July 2026
A few quick fixes from your post-launch reports: Fixed a freeze when changing music — switching tracks or soundtracks (especially the Star-Spangled set) could hang the game for a few seconds. Switching is instant again. Fixed the 100-hour "Centurion" achievement — it now unlocks the moment you cross 100 hours instead of quietly catching up on a later launch. Better crash recovery — added a safety net so the game can recover on its own if a bad save ever stops it from opening. If your game ever won't open, drop your OS and roughly which update it started on in the discussions — it helps a lot. Thanks for the reports! 💛
- Update 7 — The Founder's Deck - 6 July 2026
The biggest update yet, and a whole new endgame: collect a 150-card set, equip cards for permanent boosts, and chase a complete deck. Built to break the late-game income wall and give you something to keep reaching for. Collect the Founder's Deck 150 cards to collect — Common to Legendary, earned as you refound. Every one is an original, startup-themed card with its own art. Equip for permanent power — slot up to 2 cards (a 3rd unlocks with Founder Points) for compounding boosts: income, XP, task speed, Founder-Point rate, offline cap and drop luck. Complete the set for a permanent +50% income, forever. Shards, Rolls & the workshop Duplicates become shards — dismantle spare cards into a currency you can spend. Roll for cards — spend shards to pull random cards (×1 / ×5 / ×10) at the shown odds. Craft or Reroll — craft a specific card you're chasing, or gamble duplicates in the Reroll wo…
- Update 6.15a — Boost fix - 1 July 2026
Fixed the free 2× boost (and speed upgrades) under-delivering for late-game players: once your tasks were already very fast, the boost was only giving about 1.4× instead of a full 2× because task speed was hitting an internal cap. Tasks now scale properly at any speed, and the $/sec readout matches what you actually earn. Big thanks to shpasic for the detailed report that pinned this down.
- Update 6.15 — Star-Spangled: Happy 4th & Happy 250th, America! - 1 July 2026
2026 marks America's 250th birthday — the Semiquincentennial — so we're throwing a little party in your startup. Our first-ever holiday update brings a festive new look, a full set of patriotic tunes, and fireworks over the office. New "Star-Spangled" theme A deep-navy night sky with firecracker-red, liberty-blue and gold-star accents. Flip it on under Menu ▸ Theme. While it's active, subtle background fireworks drift across the side panels — a distant show behind the daily grind — and an AMERICA 250 badge flies in the top bar. Holiday music playlists — real patriotic songs Your soundtrack now comes in playlists. Keep the everyday Chill Vibes, or switch to the new Star-Spangled set — full-length lo-fi renditions of: The Star-Spangled Banner America the Beautiful Battle Hymn of the Republic Yankee Doodle Every note arranged and synthesized in-house. Grab them under Menu ▸ Music & Sounds…
- 6.14c — Welcome Back, reimagined - 1 July 2026
Returning after a break now gets a proper offline recap instead of a plain list. Offline haul front and center, with quick stat chips — XP earned, levels gained, time away. A level-up bar for every skill that gained levels while you were gone, animated and colored per skill. Your call on the cash: if auto-buy is on, choose to reinvest it into upgrades or keep it as cash. The buttons stay pinned, so you can dismiss instantly without scrolling. Also fixed: a rare case where the game could open stuck in fullscreen (it now always opens windowed), plus a tidier delete option on the Manage Save File screen.
- 6.14b — Hotfix: game opening minimized - 30 June 2026
Fixes a bug from the last update where the game could launch minimized or off-screen for some players (from the new "remember window size" feature). If you were affected, just update — it corrects itself automatically on the next launch, no reinstall needed. Thanks to Fenimore for the report.
- 6.14a — Offline-earnings diagnostics - 30 June 2026
Behind-the-scenes logging added to the offline-earnings step to track down the "offline money shown but not kept" report. No gameplay changes.
- 6.14 — Quality-of-life bundle - 30 June 2026
A round of polish from your forum feedback. Speedrun times now show seconds — your "fastest run" Hiscores read like 2m 14s instead of rounding to a whole minute, so steady improvements actually show up. The window remembers its size — reopen the game at whatever size you left it last time. Tidier save management — "Manage Saves" and "Delete Save" are now a single Manage Save File screen. Each copy (Steam Cloud / This Device) has its own delete button, so you can clear a specific copy without touching the one you're playing. Plus a fix so confirmation pop-ups always appear on top of the menu they came from. Thanks to Loop, Ducimus and LostEnigma_ for the suggestions!
- 6.13b — Buy preview follow-up - 29 June 2026
A quick refinement to yesterday's buy-preview fix on the Company and R&D tabs. Picking ×10 or ×100 now previews the full effect of that quantity — matching the cost shown on the Buy button — instead of shrinking to what you can currently afford. Only Max reflects your current cash. So ×10 / ×100 / Max each show a distinct, accurate before → after result. Thanks to IrishGoat for the sharp follow-up.
- 6.13a — Buy preview fix - 28 June 2026
The green "before → after" preview on the Company and R&D tabs now respects your selected buy amount. Previously it always showed the effect of a single level, even with ×10 / ×100 / Max selected. It now previews the real stacked result — the true income, XP, or speed you'll get for the quantity you're actually buying. Updates live as you switch between ×1 / ×10 / ×100 / Max. Thanks to IrishGoat (and the confirm) for flagging it.
