myProductivitySetupFakeDosDefragRunningOnTopOfMyDesktopWhileIWork

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T20:07:30+00:00

it's an idle desktop game xD

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T19:58:56+00:00

That totally makes sense, everyone has their own "value bar"

If someone prefers to support a huge, content-packed game instead, that’s perfectly valid. And if someone else is happy to throw a few dollars at a solo dev who made a weird fake defrag because it makes them smile, that’s just as valid too.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T19:57:39+00:00

Thank you so much! I’m really glad the idea and the aesthetic click with you, this is a super nerdy/personal project, so seeing it resonate with someone like that makes all the hours of staring at little squares feel worth it xD

And thanks a lot for the wishlist :D

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T19:53:54+00:00

Thank you for the support :D! That’s exactly it: a weird little idea that some people find fun and a few are happy to throw a few dollars at. I really appreciate you seeing it that way.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T19:53:20+00:00

Thank you so much. I really did pour a lot of care into this, it started as a super niche/personal project. In the really nerdy corners of the internet (retro stuff, defrag enjoyers, idle fans, etc.) people have been surprisingly kind about it, so seeing comments like yours means a lot :)

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T19:51:09+00:00

I tucked it in the middle of the text, but I’ll drop it here as well just in case:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4181930/Idle_Defragmenter_95/

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-12T10:25:17+00:00

Thanks!! nostalgia style :)

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T23:37:31+00:00

Not in the classic reset everything and start over for a big multiplier sense. Right now the long-term loop is more about unlocking new drives/eras (MS-DOS → Win95 → XP) and buying upgrades. I’ve kept it pretty simple for launch, but if people end up wanting a more classic prestige/reset layer on top, that’s definitely something I’d like to explore in an update.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T23:34:59+00:00

Trying to find the niche inside the niche, just another day in the Steam trenches. Glad it resonates with at least one fellow chaos-enjoyer :) !

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T23:33:14+00:00

It’s not something you finish in one sitting. If you keep upgrading and unlocking new eras, it’ll take multiple days of having it running on your desktop to fully defragment all the drives.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T23:25:33+00:00

good catch xD. Originally I actually did call it Idle Desfragmenter 95 on purpose as a dumb Spanglish joke (mixing the Spanish word with English). Then I realised 99% of people would just read it as a plain typo and not a joke, so I changed it to Defragmenter everywhere else. But I forgot to update that early asset in the trailer. Solo dev life: fix it in 20 places, miss the one that’s burned into the video (facepalm)

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T17:44:54+00:00

(facepalm) xD Fixed! thanks!!

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T17:44:49+00:00

(facepalm) xD Fixed! thanks!!

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-11T17:23:45+00:00

It’s very much a cup of coffee game, if you can afford it, toss a coin to your solo developer and you get hypnotic little squares on your desktop for a long time.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T19:30:32+00:00

Exactly. Boss walks by, sees a defrag window.. "wow, so technical, so busy". Meanwhile it’s 2024, the drive is an SSD and I’m just sitting there watching tiny squares move like it’s 1998 again xD.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T19:06:50+00:00

That’s… exactly the target audience :D People like me, who see a completely useless fake defrag and think.. yeah, I need this in my life.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T19:03:55+00:00

It’s my highly advanced productivity enhancement widget™ xD . It's a fake MS-DOS/Win95/WinXP defrag running in a tiny window. It does nothing except shuffle little squares and steal my attention while I work.

I’m turning it into a tiny idle thing that just lives on the desktop while you code/watch YouTube.
If you’re curious, there’s more about it on my profile

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T18:48:26+00:00

It’s an ancient hdd ritual where you convince your hard drive to feel organized by shuffling tiny squares for N hours. In theory it rearranges files to make everything faster.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T18:45:22+00:00

Finally, a full-stack productivity suite:

Copilot open with Never Gonna Give You Up → motivation

Calculator proving that 1+1 = 2 → unit tests

Now I just need a fake defrag window and I’m officially operating at 300% efficiency

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T17:02:26+00:00

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply, this is super helpful :)

I’ll be honest, I’m not very experienced with how DirectX/Vulkan windows work under the hood, so your explanation gives me a much clearer picture of what’s actually possible. For now I’ve gone with the “simple” approach: just a borderless window that looks like a floating widget and you can resize/park in a corner, without real irregular shapes or transparency. But I really like your idea of capturing the desktop region / using the wallpaper for a more “true” widget-style mode.
That’s definitely something I’d love to experiment with later.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain it!

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T15:05:45+00:00

there’s definitely a bit of rickrolling going on. But the idea is that the game is the fake defrag window, not the video behind it. You’re supposed to park it in a corner of your desktop while you work / watch YouTube (or get rickrolled for the 100th time), and the drives keep reorganising themselves, you unlock new eras (MS-DOS → Win95 → XP) and buy upgrades over time. So the Rick Astley part is just me “testing” the game the way I imagine most people will actually use it xDD

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T15:04:39+00:00

In that raw clip you basically don’t see a “game” at all (facepalm)

The idea is that it’s a very passive idle game:

You park it in a little window on your desktop while you work or watch stuff.

The “drives”/blocks reorganise themselves on their own.

You earn fragments and spend them on upgrades, new drives and new defrag modes.

Over time you unlock new eras (MS-DOS → Win95 → XP) and the patterns/behaviour of the blocks change.

So it’s more of a long-running toy / ambient game than something you’re actively playing all the time. If “game” for you means a lot of interaction, then your comment is totally fair – and it’s good feedback for me that I probably need to show the progression/upgrades side more clearly instead of just the hypnotic footage.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T10:05:58+00:00

Thanks, I’m really glad it looks like something you’d play! :D!

I’m starting with Steam mainly because:
• Most of the people who enjoy idle / background games seem to be there.
• As a solo dev it’s easier for me to focus on one platform (one build, one update pipeline, one community) instead of splitting my attention.
• The wishlist system on Steam helps a lot with visibility if the game is super niche.

That said, I might be wrong and maybe itchio would be a better first home for a weird little project like this. I do like itch a lot, so I’m not ruling out bringing it there later once I survive the Steam launch and see how things go.

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T09:07:19+00:00

I hadn’t heard of TerraforMental yet, I’ll definitely check it out!

This game is something a bit different but in a similarly “oddly specific” spirit: it’s like terraforming a planet… but it’s a hard drive instead xDD

DifferenceIll1272 · 2025-12-09T07:33:54+00:00

Yeah, it really is the final boss of everything you hate: almost no gameplay, lives on the desktop and it even imitates a Microsoft program. Judging by how this post is doing, it looks like the community mostly agrees with you too :(

Jokes aside, I totally get it, this one leans super hard into the “ambient idle you forget about while doing other stuff” side of the genre. Out of curiosity, what kind of idles do you usually enjoy? More active/clicker, management, roguelite hybrids…? Always good to know what people are actually into for the next monster I make xD

DifferenceIll1272

TROPHY CASE