The last week of August saw a flood of new games across various genres on Steam. Mirror's Edge-inspired parkour platformer Volume received enthusiastic responses from users, while Big Ambitions and Witch's Garden transitioned to full release, maintaining positive reviews of over 90% thanks to excellent post-launch content enhancements. Amidst this fierce flood of new games, a hidden new release has started to spread by word of mouth for its unique dark fairytale atmosphere. Released on August 28, it is the idle clicker RPG Alice's Gaze.

Alice's Gaze is an idle incremental game combining a clicker system similar to Cookie Clicker with retro pixel graphics and a grim fairytale. Players wake up as a blonde girl named Alice in the dark with lost memories, tasked with growing Alice to escape a bizarre mansion haunted by rotten dust and unidentified monsters while uncovering the hidden truth.

The setting of the game is a mansion that exudes a gloomy yet languid charm. Players can acquire gold coins by petting a cat god lazily dozing off at the altar, and use the obtained gold to upgrade equipment to defeat monsters in the 'abyss' connected to the fireplace. Once players start collecting souls obtained by defeating monsters this way, the full-fledged mansion adventure begins.

As players collect gold coins and souls to unlock various functions, a colorful array of goods and features begins to open up within the game. Players will encounter various convenience features such as an auto-click function, skills and equipment upgrades that can be used when defeating monsters. By the time combat can proceed stably, players can employ rabbit men who collect carrots to gather resources, and subsequently repair the mansion's old furniture bit by bit to unlock new rooms and features.

This expanding progression method is intuitive yet features a unique rule. It is the 'Gaze' system, which is also the core title of the game. Unlike typical idle games, production and tasks are activated only when players are 'gazing' at the systems or facilities that Alice has unlocked. In other words, despite being an idle game, it brings out the charm of control where players strategically move between various resource production sites, upgrade facilities, and complete automated processes to accumulate wealth.

Since the coexistence of production and combat is the core, exploring the hundreds of floors of the 'Abyss Dungeon' which requires constant management even during production is another core element of the game. Players can not only defeat abyss monsters and collect souls, but also grow stronger through clues and relics. In particular, the relics collected through combat contain key keywords from familiar fairytales, maximizing the game's atmosphere.

By breaking through the Abyss Dungeon like this, players can obtain 'Gaze Points' whose points increase in proportion to the floors cleared. Players can utilize Gaze Points to maximize production output in the production area they are currently gazing at. In short, it has a well-tuned cyclical system where improvements in combat power increase production efficiency, and increased production efficiency in turn enhances combat power.

In particular, the biggest differentiator of this game is the absence of the 'Reincarnation (Ascension/Reset)' system, which is an essential formula of the typical clicker genre. This means players do not need to restart everything from scratch, and can achieve the ending and 100% achievements within a day at most. It offers a neat progression experience to users who had to endure forced, dragged-out late-game play just to fill up achievements. Swift updates have also been made, such as applying a 3x movement speed buff patch in response to feedback raised right after launch regarding the Abyss Dungeon clear speed.

As a result of combining these elements, Alice's Gaze is recording a Very Positive rating on Steam as of August 31 (84% positive). Favorable reviews emphasizing the simplicity and convenience characteristic of idle games are following, such as "A solid composition where you can see the ending in a single day without reincarnation stress", "Excellent atmosphere and addictiveness compared to the low price", and "A low price that is great to enjoy briefly over the weekend."