You make the hero. Then you let go.

Drift Quest is a dark fantasy RPG that plays itself. Pick a race and a class, roll your stats and press Start Quest. From then on your hero carries on alone, one action every five seconds: slaying a wraith, digging up bloodroot, exploring an old library, selling a sack of rat bones to a merchant who never asks where they came from.

It's an idle game in the spirit of Progress Quest: a text RPG that sits in a corner of your screen while you work, study or play something else, and that you check on whenever you feel like it. There's nothing to click and no timer to babysit.

Free demo: a little over two hours of play, and your hero carries over to the full game.

Build your hero

Choose one of 9 races (Human, Elf, Orc, Dwarf, Reptilian, Gnome, Undead, Goblin or Troll) and one of 7 classes, from Archer to Warlock. Race and class are there for flavor. The numbers that matter are Strength, which decides how much loot your hero can carry before heading to the merchant, and Wisdom, which decides how many spells they can learn. Reroll the six stats as often as you like. Your hero goes by your Steam name.

Every five seconds, something happens

After a short prologue in a castle town, the story runs in chapters of 15 quests, and every quest takes 15 actions. There are 300 different actions, and each one leaves its own thing in the bag: rat bones, venison, an ancient tome, a quartz gem, chanterelles, a health potion. Quests go by names like "The bleeding cathedral" and "The hollow god rises". The chapters don't run out.

The current action plays out on its own line with a progress bar, while the plot and quest lists fill in beside it.

The merchant never closes

When the bag is full, your hero walks to the merchant without being told, sells everything one piece at a time and spends a few coins on new gear. There are 16 slots to fill, two rings included, and nothing stops your hero from carrying a melee weapon, a shield, a bow and a wand at the same time. Each new piece gets one of 800 names, like Obsidian Fable or Runic Fury, and rolls its stats against your level. Sometimes it's an upgrade. Sometimes the merchant wins.

Levels and 177 spells

Every level, each of the six stats can go up a little. With enough Wisdom, your hero also learns a new spell, picked at random from 177: Frost Bolt, Glacial Spike, Winter Breath and plenty more. Spells are collected, not cast, so the spell book just keeps growing. Hover over an item or a spell to read its name, or over a piece of gear to check its stats.

Made for the corner of your screen

• A borderless window you can drag anywhere, in 16:9 sizes from 1280×720 up to the largest that fits your monitor, or fullscreen with F11
  
• Keeps playing when you click away or minimize it, and slows itself down in the background so it stays light on your PC
  
• Your hero only travels while the game is open. Close it and they wait for you
  
• Remembers its size and position, mutes the music with M and can mute itself in the background
  
• Playable with the mouse alone

Also in Drift Quest

• Eight achievement tracks in the game, plus Steam achievements
  
• A global Top 10 for time played
  
• 50 music tracks, shuffled
  
• 30 interface languages
  
• Steam Cloud saves
  
• One purchase, with no microtransactions and no ads

Drift Quest is made by one person at NecoPlanet. If a quiet RPG in the corner of your screen sounds good, add it to your wishlist and Steam will let you know when it launches.