EpicBench

Independent notes on free Android games · Ireland

Bench log — 26 August 2026

Six free idle games.
One bench, real hours.

EpicBench is a small editorial bench in Ireland. Every title below was installed from Google Play, played on a phone we own and timed with a stopwatch — no press builds, no publisher decks.

What follows is the note we wrote afterwards: how long a sitting actually runs, what the first hour asks of you, and whether the game still works with the network switched off.

Read the six notes See the bench setup

The six titles on the bench

Listed in the order they were logged, not by score. Each rating is the Google Play figure for Ireland recorded on 26 August 2026; we copy it as it stands and do not average anything into it.

Gameplay from Idle Factory Tycoon: Business!

01

Idle Factory Tycoon: Business!

Kolibri Games

4.6Google Play score, Ireland

A production line that keeps moving while the screen is off. You open a workshop, put a manager on it, then leave it alone and come back to a queue of upgrades waiting to be tapped through.

The first hour is the busiest one; after that the game settles into two or three short check-ins a day. Menus are dense, but the tap targets are generous enough for one-handed use, which is why it lasted a full week here.

Simulation · PEGI 3 · Pixel 6a · sittings of 18–24 min

View Idle Factory Tycoon on Google Play
Gameplay from Hotel Empire Tycoon－Idle Game

02

Hotel Empire Tycoon－Idle Game

Codigames

4.4Google Play score, Ireland

Floors, staff and guests arranged as a long chain of small decisions. Every new wing changes what the previous one needs, so the order in which you upgrade genuinely matters instead of being cosmetic.

Loading stayed quick on a mid-range handset and the art holds up at small sizes. Of the six, this was the easiest one to pick up for ten minutes and put down again without losing the thread.

Simulation · PEGI 3 · Galaxy A54 · sittings of 12–16 min

View Hotel Empire Tycoon on Google Play
Gameplay from Airport Empire - Idle Tycoon

03

Airport Empire - Idle Tycoon

HYPERCELL

4.4Google Play score, Ireland

Terminals, gates and a schedule that fills up faster than you expect. The tutorial is short and the second gate opens within minutes, so the interesting decisions arrive early.

It wants a connection at launch, and that single detail is what kept it out of the offline column further down. Portrait layout throughout, comfortable to run one-handed on the bus.

Simulation · PEGI 12 · Redmi Note 12 · sittings of 20–26 min

View Airport Empire on Google Play
Gameplay from My Factory - Idle Game

04

My Factory - Idle Game

StormX

4.6Google Play score, Ireland

The lightest build in this set: the whole loop fits on one screen and nothing is hidden behind three taps. Sittings here were the shortest we logged, eight to twelve minutes, which makes it the one to open while waiting in a queue.

Nothing in it demands sustained attention, and that appears to be deliberate rather than thin.

Simulation · PEGI 3 · Moto G84 · sittings of 8–12 min

View My Factory on Google Play
Gameplay from Train Station: Classic

05

Train Station: Classic

PIXEL FEDERATION, s.r.o.

4.2Google Play score, Ireland

A flat, two-dimensional railway with proper timetables: you lay out routes, load freight and then watch the engines work them. It is the slowest and the most deliberate title of the six.

Sittings ran the longest here — half an hour is ordinary once a route is being planned. The timetable syncs online, so this is not a flight-mode game.

Simulation · PEGI 3 · Galaxy S21 FE · sittings of 30–41 min

View Train Station: Classic on Google Play
Gameplay from Idle Mining Factory Tycoon

06

Idle Mining Factory Tycoon

Hello Games Team

4.8Google Play score, Ireland

Shafts go down, ore comes up, and the lift is the bottleneck you keep going back to fix. It carries the highest Play score in this set and the reason is visible in the first minute: the loop explains itself without a word of tutorial text.

It also keeps running with the network switched off, which turned out to be rarer among these six than we assumed. Portrait, number-heavy, very little reading.

Simulation · PEGI 3 · Pixel 4a · sittings of 14–19 min

View Idle Mining Factory Tycoon on Google Play

Bench: what we ran them on

Six handsets, six builds of Android, one stopwatch. The table is the raw sheet — nothing in it is rounded to look tidy.

Handset, Android build, typical sitting length and offline behaviour for each of the six titles.
Title Handset Android build Typical sitting With the network off
Idle Factory Tycoon: Business! Pixel 6a Android 14 18–24 min Runs offline
Hotel Empire Tycoon－Idle Game Galaxy A54 Android 14 12–16 min Runs offline
Airport Empire - Idle Tycoon Redmi Note 12 Android 13 20–26 min Needs a connection at launch
My Factory - Idle Game Moto G84 Android 14 8–12 min Runs offline
Train Station: Classic Galaxy S21 FE Android 15 30–41 min Timetable syncs online
Idle Mining Factory Tycoon Pixel 4a Android 12 14–19 min Runs offline

How the sheet was made: all six were installed from Google Play in Ireland on handsets we own, each played across several sittings over the same fortnight. The sitting column is the range we actually measured, not a figure taken from a store page; the last column was checked by putting the phone into flight mode mid-session and reopening the game.

Questions that keep coming in

No. The notes are free to read and no space on these pages is sold to anyone. EpicBench runs no advertising, takes no fee for a listing, and the links to Google Play return nothing to us — the bench is funded by the desk that writes it.