After selling 100,000 copies of its idle Stardew Valley-like, Rusty's Retirement dev celebrates "spawning a genre" of games that run at the bottom of your screen

The developer of idle Stardew Valley-like, Rusty's Retirement, has seemingly started a new indie trend of games that run at the bottom of your screen.

Last week was a busy week for game releases. Not only did we finally get our hands on PS5-exclusive Stellar Blade, but extremely popular city-builder Manor Lords and the action-RPG adaptation of Akira Toriyama's Sand Land also launched, not forgetting indie Rusty's Retirement - an adorable little farming sim that runs at the bottom of your screen.

The latter of the four, Rusty's Retirement, had an extremely good first week as it sold 100,000 copies just five days after its release - which is especially impressive considering all of the other games that could have stolen attention away from it. It seems the Stardew Valley-like has done more than just populate players' screens though, as it may have also started a new indie game trend.

As highlighted by the devs themselves, Mister Morris Games isn't the only one to have the idea of a game that can be played at the bottom of your PC screen. "We're spawning a genre!!" the developer shares, quote tweeting the post above which features a tiny kingdom builder that also sits at the bottom of your screen. 

This is just one example of the trend popping up following Rusty's Retirement. Developer Nine Finger Games also recently announced their Tamagotchi-inspired life sim that operates on the bottom of your screen called My Little Life. Similar to the farming sim, players can idly play the game while getting on with other things, or be completely distracted by it and neglect any work they were supposed to get done.

Find out what other hidden gems are on the way with our upcoming indie games list.