Widget Inc Ultimate Beginners Guide
Widget Inc. is an interesting factory-building incremental idle game that seems pretty easy at a first glance, but might need a proper beginners guide to optimize the progression for the new players.
Game Basics[edit source]
The main idea of Widget Inc is simple, you create frames, the production facilities that take one map tile which produces or refines specific resources. At first you won't have a lot of available options and you will start with tier 1 frames.
Each type of frame has its own minigame, that can be played to earn the resources. It can be anything: clicking the button to start production of Iron Mine drills, loading Smelter with ore and starting it or producing Basic Widgets by clicking create widget button.
Over time you will be able to add additional features to each frame. Workers that will automate the production and upgrades that will improve its efficiency.
First frames of each tier are always either free or cost previous tier resources, so you will always be able to construct basic production line for manual resource production.
There is also a Tech Tree that allows to research upgrades, unlock new buildings, tiers and other game features. Research is instant, but consumes the resources.
Tier 1[edit source]
Tier 1 is pretty basic and will just introduce you to the game. You have Iron Mine, Iron Smelter and Widget Factory.
At first construct one of each frame and start manual production of the resources:
- Iron Mine: click 4 drills to make them start mining
- Iron Smelter: add up to 20 Iron Ore to the smelter and start the smelting process
- Widget Factory: Click create widget button to convert Iron Ingot into Basic Widget
Since Iron Mine is the slowest building to manually manage order 6 workers there first and create enough resources to build them. Then move on to the Iron Smelter and finally to the Widget Factory.
Iron smelter will still require manual activation when all 20 ore is inserted, but it can be automated using the Tech Tree.
Once your first production line is automated it's time to expand it. Build more frames 1 by 1 and automate them. I would recommend going to 3-4 Iron Mines, 3 Iron Smelters and 2 Widget Factories at Tier 1 to increase the Widget production and keep the resource production and consumption balanced.
You can check your produced goods in the inventory and see the production and consumption ratios. Those are calculated in the real time and can give you overall idea of what's your factory's weak link. Try to make sure that production of each resource is higher than the consumption.
Work on other available research and finally research tier 2 technology to unlock another tier of resources and frames.
Here is a Beginners Guide video for easier comprehension highlighting the basic mechanics and Tiers 1-3 Walkthrough.
Tier 2[edit source]
For the Tier 2 there are 4 production frames:
- Sand Pit: press the button to start the Sand production.
- Glass Kiln: Increase the temperature on the right by clicking on it and smelt glass by pressing the button. Each craft will lower the temperature a bit.
- Gyroscope Fabricator: Click "Create Gyroscope" 2 times to create a Gyroscope of Glass and Basic Widget.
- Widget Spinner: Click the button when the spinner needle points upwards to the golen arrow. Each time you succeed the rotation speed will increase allowing you to produce Spinning Widgets faster.
Keep in mind that some tier 2 production frames use tier 1 resources as well, so you might want to expand both tier 2 and tier 1 production lines.
In the Tech tree you will unlock additional upgrades for tier 1 production building, that will make them get bonuses based on their placement. Use Frame Relocation to move your frames in the right position to optimize their productivity.
As for the Tier 2 frames, start with 1 of each and gradually expand to 6 Sand Pits, 5 Glass Kilns, 4 Gyroscope Fabricators and 3 Widget Spinners. That seems to be the most balanced build you can use to push towards tier 3 technology.
Check out Game Vault Game Guides for info on other games.
