(Image credit: Jagex)

It's easy to knock old-school RPGs, especially grindfests like RuneScape, for being games where you endlessly and sometimes mindlessly make numbers go up. But Melvor Idle, which self-bills as a RuneScape-inspired idle adventure game that claims to squeeze the genre into its "purest form," leans into that—and Jagex has partnered with developer Games by Malcs to make the RuneScape connection official.

The announcement blog from Jagex reads, "Melvor Idle takes a lot of inspiration from RuneScape and you can just feel it," adding that Jagex's support (and branding) is intended to help make the game "even bigger … while Melvor Idle 2 doesn’t take place in Gielinor, we think a fan-built idle game inspired by our MMOs is more than worthy of the title."

This isn't the first time Jagex has collaborated with Games by Malcs. It became the first Melvor Idle's publisher five years ago, albeit without a branding tweak.…