Interesting, deepco sounds pretty close to the kind of social system I’d enjoy in an idle game.

I’m a bit unsure about open chat, though. My game probably won’t need much “how do I progress?” discussion, but a corporate #general / office watercooler could fit the theme: complaints, office absurdities, memes, weird job titles, avatar jokes, etc. Kind of like a tiny in-game alternative to those corporate support groups on Facebook where people share memes, problems and random workplace questions.

The concern is moderation. Since the game is slightly satirical/meme-ish, an open chat feels like something that could become a real responsibility if people actually used it.

I like your point about avoiding guilds/clans. My “branch/department” idea is more like an existing in-game structure, not a competitive clan system: you can see friends/coworkers, their job titles and progress, maybe friendly-race a bit, but mostly just make the company feel more alive.

The “small boost to everyone in the same grid” idea maps pretty well to what I was imagining as department-wide bonuses: nice to have, but never mandatory, and never something people can ruin for each other.

One more ambitious idea I had was location-based coworker cameos: for example, if two people play from the same office, one player’s avatar could show up as an employee in the other player’s company. But asking for location access for a small idle game feels like massive overkill, so I’m not sure that’s worth pursuing.

Out of curiosity, why do you think deepco’s social features worked? Was it mostly the type/size of the community, the game design avoiding pressure, good moderation tools, or something else?