I love trashy mobile games. They’re like delicious junk food: scarf them down and toss out the wrapper and enjoy the seratonin. Sometimes mobile games stick, though. This list is quite short for me, but the current game topping said list these days is Fortress Saga by Burger Monster games.

Full disclosure, the only reason I gave this game a try is because the algorithm sent it my way when they were running a crossover with my beloved Delicious In Dungeon.

I assumed that once I had gacha’d my way to collecting the fab five (Laios, Chilchuk, Marcille, Senshi, and Falin) I’d swiftly delete the thing and move on to the next. But that hasn’t happened yet and I want to figure out why.

Fortress Saga is an idle RPG. The promise of idle games is appealing to me: I can enjoy the progression of RPGs without having to mash too many buttons. This promise hasn’t ever been delivered, though. Raid Shadow Legends (a game I will be referring to a lot as it’s the other “idle” RPG I’ve played most) is good and has some wonderful character design but falls apart among the endless popup ads and labyrinthine menus and endlessly iterative game modes. It’s a common a pitfall that FS somehow sidesteps.

I played the game for over a month before I spent any American currency and I felt like I was consistently progressing with minimal hassle. There is the odd pop-up ad for this ferociously overpriced package and that, but they go away and don’t come back. Ads are not compulsory, but instead use the Pirate Software approved model in which a character pops up and offers you gold for an ad instead. Best of all, there is a $10 option that allows to collect any and all ad-blocked resources without having to watch. That’s the only thing I’ve bought so far, and feels like a fair price to pay for the hours of enjoyment I’ve gained.

So FS has its monetization handled properly and respectfully, the effect of which is amplified by the sheer quality of the game itself. As I said, the menu system is reasonable which is really saying something when most free mobile games are more interested in covering the screen with buttons and ads rather than beautiful art assets. But the rest of the presentation is lavish. All of the (original) characters have lovely hand-drawn avatars as well as chibi-style sprites for when they are in the game itself. The stage backgrounds (all 20) are gorgeous and varied; monster assets are equally diverse. The original score is wonderful.

It feels like a proper game with a proper, original setting (more on that later).

Most importantly, the gameplay feels correct. If we’re calling it an idle game, I want to be able to play it idly and actually get somewhere. As long as the game is open, and you’ve pointed it in the correct direction, you are advancing. Your fortress is getting stronger, you’re knocking out achievements, and your heroes are leveling. Most idle or afk games can say this, but I’ve come to believe that what sets Fortress Saga apart for me is pacing.

The pace of any story or game is important. If it feels like things are sitting still, you’re going to get bored and move on to something more exciting. FS keeps things moving. It’s a bit astonishing because, though mechanical progression is simple (just keep moving the numbers around) progressing through a setting requires lots of assets (see above). After 20 or so quick stages, you’re on to a new part of the world complete with new achievements and all. Along the way you unlock titles, avatars, frames, and countless other oddments that both affect the game mechanically and let you feel like you’re getting somewhere. With Raid and other such games, I feel sandbagged every other quest. Like there are 20 hoops I have to jump through to tick the box. Either by incremental design or tremendous effort (or both) Fortress Saga’s progression is smooth.

Perhaps part of the momentum FS games is because the story is a total side dish. It doesn’t factor into the core game at all; it’s just there for you to read (and be rewarded for) whenever you like.

The story is nothing great. Because it seems to be translated from the original Korean, it reads like anime subtitles. And that’s fine. The real heavy lifting is done by the artwork. Even though the lore is reminiscent of the best of messy video game mythology, the imagery brings us into a world of steampunk fantasy. Magic and swords and knights exist comfortably alongside anthropomorphic cats with bazookas and roadside gangs. Its disparate but cohesive, not unlike Age of Sigmar. It all makes sense.

The culmination of a beautiful, fully decorated world explored through a game that offers steady momentum, in the package of free to play mobile game seems to be the sweet spot. But if the monetization and other “mobile nonsense” got in the way, it wouldn’t matter. And that’s what FS does well: it stays out of its own way.

Even when the genre demands this kind of game thrive on esoteric stats and numbers, the kind of thing that would normally drive me to throw my phone into the toilet, FS provides elegant tools to give you a sense of control without having to break out a spreadsheet. You can dig through the numbers and compare which hero melds best with which fortress loadout for which stage, or you can just sort things by its power level and pick the ones you want. You can even let the game do that for you! If it doesn’t work, that’s not a problem because you can switch on the fly at no cost or save what you’ve made and try something else in another slot.

All aspects of progression connect clearly and seamlessly to their requisite parts. I never feel confused about what comes next or what I need to do to find the next micro-currency to up the next item. It just works.

So maybe that’s the total package: a user experience that is clear, rather than cryptic, and shows respect to the user; art that communicates love and care and originality; and incremental progression that still feels rewarding and leads to the “just one more thing” high we all crave.