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Do you find that your games have too much gameplay in them? Does it disappoint you that you can't make progress in a game while you sleep? Do you enjoy the pointless grind of MMOs, but wish they didn't have so many graphics? If so, you've come to the right place! What??? Idle games, or incremental games, are a loose genre of browser games in which the player is rewarded, usually with a gradual income of some resource, for leaving the game window open in the background without actually doing anything in it. Often these resources can be spent to buy items that make the resource come in faster, so you can buy more items, so you can get even more resource. Some games, called Clickers, have a big button you can click to manually get more resources, but they are usually outpaced by your idle income very quickly. Most idle games have either no graphics, ASCII art, or at most perhaps a few still images drawn up in Flash. Why??? It's a dumb Skinner box thing. Numbers getting bigger makes lizard brain happy. That being said, outside of the pure Clicker games there's usually something more than just numbers going up. A lot of the fun comes from seeing what new mechanics or aspects of the game world open up. Especially in the early games like Candy Box and A Dark Room, exploration or RPG aspects can end up overshadowing the actual number-goes-up portion of the game. Other times, new and different resources and ways of earning them appear. But to be honest, a large part of the fun is going to sleep at night and waking up nine hours later to have a mountain of cash to spend. This is stupid. Okay yes it's very  and stupid. But unlike that farmville game your cousin still plays, at least these don't clutter up your facebook news feed. And they're good for running harmlessly in a background tab when you don't have time to devote to a Notable idle games: Candy Box !  One of the early idle games that kicked off the genre's popularity around spring 2013, and one of the greats. Though you can improve your candy and lollipop income a little bit, the real focus is on the RPG system that opens up. Before long the focus is less on how many candies you have and more on figuring out how to use the potion brewing system to get past quests full of monsters. ASCII graphics. Has a sequel, Candy Box 2, which follows a similar formula with a larger world, and is also very good. Anti-Idle: The Game  One of the oldest idle games from long before Candy Box, and also one of the longest to play. Despite the name it has a large idle aspect, but also has a variety of mini-games to actually play. It's probably really good but my computer hates it for some reason. A Dark Room  Released a few months after Candy Box 1, and shares a lot of its best aspects. A bit more emphasis on building up your resource income, but it's not so much about getting larger and larger numbers of resources as it is about converting resources into other resources. The main focus is exploring the large open world map that opens up and the story behind it. ASCII graphics. Cookie Clicker  The turning point for the genre, this has only a single resource, no RPG or exploration system, no complex mechanics, and nothing to do beyond "spend cookies on buildings that earn you more cookies". But unlike its predecessors, it has a colorful non-ASCII visual interface and allowed your numbers to climb into the quadrillions, so it proved massively popular. Spawned a lot of clones, usually titled "_______ Clicker", that were basically the same game except with slightly different building prices and a different name for cookies. This is arguably where incremental games became recognized as a genre, and where their focus shifted from using idle income to support a basic RPG system to focusing entirely on the idle income and making the numbers as huge as possible. It standardized a lot of the genre's conventions, such as having the player click to gain currency for the first portion of the game until idle income becomes reasonable, increasing the costs of resource-producing buildings exponentially, and including a standard "Prestige" system in which you reset your progress in the game in exchange for gaining a static multiplier for all your earnings in the new game. Has its own thread. Derivative Clicker  The only other "______ Clicker" I'll mention, and only for its unique mechanic: instead of just buying buildings that earn you money, you can also buy buildings that build buildings that earn you money, or buy buildings that build buildings that build buildings that build building that earn you money. This means that even your income rate improves while you idle (and the rate at which your income rate improves also improves while you idle, and...) Beyond that, it's a pretty standard "make numbers bigger" game, but it's my favorite of the pure Skinner Box games. AdVenture Capitalist  WARNING: REQUIRES UNITY  The Cookie Clicker clone du jour, mainly notable in that unlike other idle games you still earn income even if you don't have the game open. The idea seems to be to make it hard to quit playing; even if you stop for a while, if someone links it again it tries to draw you back in with an entire month's worth of income waiting for you. Sandcastle Builder  By far the most game in an already genre. Created by a weird community of dorks that got really, really obsessed with a single page of xkcd, and full of weird in-jokes nobody gets. The visual interface is also pretty ugly.Despite all of this, it's one of the most intricate and mechanically interesting incremental games, the new techs it introduces regularly shift how you're earning castles so that it stays fresh, your tools give each other exponential boosts so it never runs into the "I have 200 of this tool, getting to 201 will barely make a difference" problem, and it has a lot of neat tricks like a one-time Towers of Hanoi-style minigame of locking and unlocking certain boosts. It's one of the longest, slowest (most things only happen every half-hour), and most elaborate incrementals out there, so if you can stomach the awful obscure in-jokes it's worth a look. Has its own thread, which seems mostly dead now, but contains a very long walkthrough that's somehow more impenetrable than the game itself. Kittens Game  Combining some of the extensiveness of Sandcastle Builder and the village-building, non-xkcd-ness of A Dark Room, this focuses on building up a civilization of kittens in the forest. Start out with a few dark age farming huts and progress your civilization through the industrial era. Interesting for seeing what new technologies and resources appear, and for lowish resource caps downplaying the "sit around waiting for hours while money trickles in" aspect. This is the current popular one that lead to this thread splitting off from PYF Flash Games. Most of these games have their own subreddit, if not their own wiki. There's a subreddit for incremental games here so you can be the first to get your hands on the latest Something Clickers, and a list of many more incremental games here.
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Jul 30, 2014 23:19
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| # ? Apr 18, 2024 16:16 |
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I like the part where the number gets bigger.
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Jul 30, 2014 23:24
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Cattegame is neat but drat does it ever turn into a clusterfuck by the time you hit navigation.
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Jul 30, 2014 23:49
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dis astranagant posted:Cattegame is neat but drat does it ever turn into a clusterfuck by the time you hit navigation. How so?
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Jul 30, 2014 23:50
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sniper4625 posted:How so? Process furs into parchment which is then processed into compendium, which are then processed into megalithic/some other poo poo. There are two or so other vital resources like this
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Jul 30, 2014 23:54
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And everything is bounded by everything else. But mostly scaffolds (gently caress scaffolds).
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Jul 30, 2014 23:59
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Edit: nevermind the cheats I found did work I just had to adjust my villager jobs to make them go.
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Jul 31, 2014 02:49
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With most games, later in the game they make things harder to buy by making them cost a million or billion times more. Catgame keeps the actual numbers low and instead says "You need 50 of this stuff, each of which costs 50 of this stuff, each of which costs 50 of this stuff, which you get at about 1/50 the rate of your main resources". Even with lots of Workshops, the Wood --> Beam --> Scaffolds --> everything else chain hurts a lot.
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Jul 31, 2014 04:52
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Wood. Bloody wood. Worst production, worst multipliers, highest costs, used in everything.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:33
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Steel. loving steel. Makes wood costs look like pocket change. Used in everything after architecture. This includes steel products like alloy, gears and oil. My storages are loving huge but my rates have stagnated for days.
dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 15:37
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There's a Cattegame update that adds something to the endgame and also an AdVenture Capitalism update that you're much too poor and Irish to get any benefit of.
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Jul 31, 2014 17:33
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A dark room seems pretty ok. Bigger numbers can gently caress off, more story/exploration is exciting.
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Jul 31, 2014 20:35
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It's neat but it ends really fast once you figure out what you're doing.
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Jul 31, 2014 21:24
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Speak for yourself, I'm rich and Irish enough to take advantage of it. 1.5 Qt angel investors (after buying most of the angel-costing upgrades) helps.
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Jul 31, 2014 23:46
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How do Angels work? Is it the higher your bank roll when you reset, the more angels you get?
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Aug 1, 2014 01:43
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Mmm.. so how much autism will I need to enjoy this video games?
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Aug 1, 2014 01:47
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Noxin of Shame posted:How do Angels work? Is it the higher your bank roll when you reset, the more angels you get? It's just like heavenly cookies. They're based on your all time cash count.
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Aug 1, 2014 01:55
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Noxin of Shame posted:How do Angels work? Is it the higher your bank roll when you reset, the more angels you get? It's based on your total cash earned, not how much money you currently have available to spend. Each angel requires slightly more cash earned than the previous one and their "price" doesn't go back down when you reset, but since the cost increase is only linear your improved income outpaces their rising costs. If you played Cookie Clicker its an exact copy of how Heavenly Chips worked there. big duck equals goose posted:Mmm.. so how much autism will I need to enjoy this video games? It ranges from very mild autism (Cookie Clicker works on pretty much the same principle as Farmville, which is dumb but not exactly autistic) to staggeringly high levels of autism (Sandcastle Builder).
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Aug 1, 2014 01:59
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Hi everyone, here are two games I made. Both are pretty small and can be finished in sub 20 minutes if you are a click-master (read: auto-clicker). FISH Inc. (flash game on Kongregate) Takes a little bit of skill to follow the fish around to click. The more you click the more you level them and the better the income. Finish the game to get on the leaderboard. Get the 5 achievements. ___  Planet Running Master, also flash on Kongregate A simpler game, pretty straightforward. Stick around for the ending for an enjoyable ending. All the music in both games made by me too, which people seem to like.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:40
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Is there an easier way to increase your science in Cattegame? I need titanium for like every major new thing right now and the only way I can see to get it is to get cargo ships and trade with zebras but I need 55k science and every science building is expensive as hell and I'm like 10k science cap away. I'm thinking its time to drop cattegame, I liked the additional "depth" to it initially, but you can't really idle in it and when I idle all day to afford 1/10 buildings I need to get to the next progression step its really loving boring
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Aug 2, 2014 04:41
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If you're into titanium, it's more of an idle game than ever. Don't you have steamworks and automation? Especially with a mint, just turn that stuff on and leave.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:40
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Fellis posted:Is there an easier way to increase your science in Cattegame? I need titanium for like every major new thing right now and the only way I can see to get it is to get cargo ships and trade with zebras but I need 55k science and every science building is expensive as hell and I'm like 10k science cap away. Do you have Observatories yet? They improve your science quite well, and they shouldn't be oppressively expensive. I'm a bit ahead of where you are, and you're at the part where the game gets much more idle-able. Steamworks let you idle for slabs, beams, and manuscripts; before long you'll also be able to idle for plate and a bit of titanium; and your gold, iron, faith, and coal caps will be so high that you can basically idle for them too.
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Aug 2, 2014 06:06
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Shintaro posted:If you're into titanium, it's more of an idle game than ever. Don't you have steamworks and automation? Especially with a mint, just turn that stuff on and leave. Yeah i just got a mint and drat now happiness is back over 100% and i built another steamworks and i can probably afford some more observatories/compendiums tomorrow and increase population again
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Aug 2, 2014 08:40
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How to describe where I am? Call it early industrialization. The only tech I have left on the list is Theology, I have a bunch of stuff to craft out manually, I'm producing some coal from Deep Mining and iron, The Steamworks is there but neither bought or upgraded, and everything is feeling way too damm expensive.
Bloodly fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 08:55
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You just need to get over the hump.
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Aug 2, 2014 08:59
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From what I'm seeing the hump doesn't end. Gears and Steel are required, also masses of beams and manuscripts and scaffolds and ugh. Some of the possible things I don't even have the storage to create, and getting the storage up is MORE 'ugh'.
Bloodly fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 09:07
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Progress Quest has way more idling than any of these games.
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Aug 2, 2014 09:41
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Red Minjo posted:Progress Quest has way more idling than any of these games. Only if you bought the Ruby or Diamond disc version.
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Aug 2, 2014 10:01
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Bloodly posted:From what I'm seeing the hump doesn't end. Gears and Steel are required, also masses of beams and manuscripts and scaffolds and ugh. Some of the possible things I don't even have the storage to create, and getting the storage up is MORE 'ugh'. Steamworks and mints are kind of a red herring. They're handy for when you're going to bed but are massively inefficient until super late game techs. Same goes for calciners once you get them, the titanium rate simply doesn't compare with getting a bunch of cargo ships and constantly trading with the zebras. I'm not sure how that guy above got as far as he did with his happiness under 100, I had hit 150 long before that. I've just about hit the point where it finally makes sense to reset. Just gotta round up 20 more concrete so the price of huts can bottom out. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 12:21
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Sounds like the former guy didn't put in enough Amphitheatres. I know if I've got furs and ivory going I'm right at 100% with 40 kittens and 12 of those buildings (and 1 temple if that makes a difference). I've been concentrating on getting the trading posts up to 25, while building up the steel and manuscripts, which hopefully means those resources will stay. 25+ maybe even turn it around!
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Aug 2, 2014 14:46
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Sage Grimm posted:Sounds like the former guy didn't put in enough Amphitheatres. I know if I've got furs and ivory going I'm right at 100% with 40 kittens and 12 of those buildings (and 1 temple if that makes a difference). I've been concentrating on getting the trading posts up to 25, while building up the steel and manuscripts, which hopefully means those resources will stay. 25+ maybe even turn it around! All discounts have diminishing returns after 75%. It's still good to have lots of trading posts because one of the later upgrades causes them to have some slight influence on how often the zebras hate you for no reason. Try and build a ziggurat as early as you can get away with. They give you another rare resource that doesn't decay.
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Aug 2, 2014 15:07
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dis astranagant posted:Steamworks and mints are kind of a red herring. They're handy for when you're going to bed but are massively inefficient until super late game techs. Same goes for calciners once you get them, the titanium rate simply doesn't compare with getting a bunch of cargo ships and constantly trading with the zebras. Eh, a handful of steamworks with printing press are my best source of manuscripts, and therefore my best source of compendiums. Mints I don't understand at all, though. Long before I unlocked mints my hunters had already been bringing in way more furs and ivory than demand consumed, and slowing down my gold income is the last thing I want to do.
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Aug 2, 2014 21:39
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Does it ever become possible to automate sending hunters? It's really the one thing left which I can't just leave. My catpower cap is low enough that with more than a few hunters, it fills up in five or ten minutes, which isn't really so useful. When I'm making gears or something, I can just play some other game and maybe alt tab back to empty my iron and coal again. When all I want right now is manuscripts, it's not really at all convenient.
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Aug 2, 2014 21:55
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Mints are there for idling. If you work out the math on mints, they're kind of terrible for furs and ivory. But... you don't have to hit them every five minutes or whatever. Maybe I'm not as far as you, but for me the gold's not that big a deal. (Then again, I've been favoring a heavily idle-based strategy and got almost the bare minimum of titanium from those terrible Zebras and have been relying on Caliners and lots of free time. And I only got my second Mind recently.)
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Aug 2, 2014 21:57
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MooCowlian posted:Does it ever become possible to automate sending hunters? It's really the one thing left which I can't just leave. My catpower cap is low enough that with more than a few hunters, it fills up in five or ten minutes, which isn't really so useful. When I'm making gears or something, I can just play some other game and maybe alt tab back to empty my iron and coal again. When all I want right now is manuscripts, it's not really at all convenient. Pretty sure the closest thing to that is Printing Press manuscripts.
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Aug 2, 2014 21:58
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I guess I'll have to settle for playing a little less directedly. Thus far, I've basically been looking at what I want next and putting everyone who isn't farming to just do that, but if that's not going to work...
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Aug 2, 2014 22:01
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Shintaro posted:Mints are there for idling. If you work out the math on mints, they're kind of terrible for furs and ivory. But... you don't have to hit them every five minutes or whatever. Maybe I'm not as far as you, but for me the gold's not that big a deal. (Then again, I've been favoring a heavily idle-based strategy and got almost the bare minimum of titanium from those terrible Zebras and have been relying on Caliners and lots of free time. And I only got my second Mind recently.) Gold gets super important later because everything starts costing vast amounts of titanium, vast amounts of alloy (which costs titanium) and vast amounts of iron (which bottoms out and ends up having to be traded for to keep up with your coal). I'd have never gotten concrete huts with just calciners and it took several hours to get trading with 200 ships. But now I don't have to worry about it because I reset with the 120 kittens I got out of concrete huts.
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Aug 2, 2014 22:45
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Oh my god I knew I needed ships to start trading with zebras but I thought I had to research cargo ships for that, I didn't see that Trading Ships showed up in the workshop tab because I never craft from workshop tab. I feel like a huge idiot
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Aug 2, 2014 22:54
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Fellis posted:Oh my god I knew I needed ships to start trading with zebras but I thought I had to research cargo ships for that, I didn't see that Trading Ships showed up in the workshop tab because I never craft from workshop tab. I feel like a huge idiot You also need tons of ships to trade with them effectively. The chance of getting titanium is based on your number of ships and it also boosts how many you get trade.
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Aug 2, 2014 22:56
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Well I have like 250 star charts banked so at least I won't have to wait for those, just scaffolds, but that's a problem I can sleep on.
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Aug 2, 2014 23:03
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