̶B̶a̶d̶ Good Game Design – Clicker Games (Idle Games, Incremental Games)
I’m not trying to stir up drama, so please be respectful in your arguments to me or Snoman.
Watch Snoman’s video here:
Check out the Incremental Games subreddit:
Scroll down for links to the games!
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Links to games mentioned at the end of the video:
Mine Defense ►
Realm Grinder ►
Kittens Game ►
A Dark Room ►
Spaceplan ►
Wizard and Minion Idle ►
Pixels Filling Squares 3.0 ►
Idle Wizard ►
NGU Idle ►
Trimps ►
Universal Paperclips ►
Antimatter Dimensions ►
Links to games in the video, but not mentioned:
Candy Box ►
Candy Box 2 ►
Galaxia ►
Fragment Hunters ►
Clicker Heroes ►
Cookie Clicker ►
Leave a comment if I forgot one and I’ll try my best to add it!
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Attributions:
Apex Legends footage:
Oxygen Not Included footage:
Dead Space 3 footage:
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![DR. METH – Clicker Games #41 [german]](https://androidgamestore.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/pnvfvvcez3umaxresdefault-1024x576.jpg)
Me watching this while I have Cookie Clicker on the background
My fav still Idlers And Dungeons 🙂
Idle heroes is my favorite idle game. It has an idle part of it and an active part in it.
NGU Idle has a shit ton of cool features
I enjoyed this video a lot!
Thanks 🙂
If any of you want to see the lesser known origins of the very popular NGU Idle, search on kongregate for “Idling to Rule the Gods”. It’s practically the same mechanics wise but has weird obsession with its own book-long lore.
5:34 trimps gang where you at?
I wouldn't define management games as clickers as the clicks you need to do in order to gather food of build a barn are more of orders. In clickers, when you click the main button, you shouldn't lose anything unless you are buying upgrades.
Animal crossing must be TERRIBLE to him
Hearing your points for the reasons you like these types of games and what they're involving into, I'm getting the impression that we've already seen the final evolution of this genre decades ago. It's called Real-Time Strategy. And possibly Tower Defense. From Factorio over Frostpunk to StarCraft. Give it a go, it's fun.
Great video. I'd argue that converting a player to spend real money in your game is a sign of good game design. Whether it is done ethically is another question.
I personally prefer the more simple idle games. I don't want to think anymore, just give me that stress free dopamine hit.
i remember playing a lot of clicker games beforehand on kongregate, you know just the ones that are famous and well known. I accidently tried out realm grinder because it sounded fun. And i was really suprised at how realm grinder become more of a idel strategy game where you would deliberatly not play and let the game do the farming while you would do anything else. The game wouldnt even need to be open. I like the fact that you, as the player, can devise a plan and go through. Especially after you unlock new races and new stuff (mercenaries, alchemy, spell upgrades, excarvation upgrades etc etc). At some point u do grow tired, but plowthing through reincarnations was fun. There is always one or two tough ones, but if you do them the game really opens up.
At one point i got 12 reincarnations in a fucking day because i planned the abdictions and just plowed through. There are a lot of games which have sophisticated system besides the clicker theme itself, adding features to a game that are not your typical clicker mechanic. If done right that's what makes those games diverse. RN there is a flood of idle games on phones and oh boy, most of them suck.
Pickcrafter is also one of the Best imo.
Simple minecraft based clicker.
Except it flips the entire clicker genre on the head.
You Have the numbers called "picks" right? Well you Will be using it as a SECONDARY value.
Your main profit comes from, blocks and items you craft and break.
Need a new pickaxe? Get X amount of X.
Need some extra picks? Get X amount of X.
To progress further, you need to unblock biomes rather than getting some more Accessories. When you reach the end you need a special pickaxe at a certain level everytime to prestige (and also a load of picks) But thats not over!
After 5 prestiges, theres a new biome past end you need to unlock to prestige again, more blocks, more pickaxes, more Accessories and harder Access to the biome.
Same happens after 25 prestiges unlocking Chronos's liar, and after 50 prestiges that gives you the Void.
Still. Thats not it.
You Have bosses which are like minigames that reward you with a item that can be used to craft a stronger accessory or even a unique pickaxe. To Little? Check the game as it flips the genre with more things like:
A full skill tree
Prestige reward is a upgrade item, not more picks
Furnace which combines 2 blocks/items into 1 block/item
Most mobile clickers Will have popup ads while this one Will use ads only for faster progression if you want.
Event challanges
If anyone wants a good idle game you should try get a little gold or idling to rule the gods
Thanks! I enjoyed the video. Great points made and I think this is a unique and interesting genre worth exploring.
I find more fun in these games than a lot of games with active gameplay. Because NGU Idle REALLY got me into the incremental genre. Showing me how deep these can get. And I fell in love with it and have been playing it for about 2 years and have seen the end game evolve even more. Altho I'm really bad at any game so I've never really hit the "end" game..
A good incremental game that most people don't talk about much is evil genius. The whole pace of the game is split between assigning henchmen to base defense/management and resource mining.
To each his own. I understand the appeal of any well designed game but I'm against a game that doesn't have an end. Look at gaming before they were online or ad supported. I don't think it's a good use of time to do something endlessly
Good clicker games like universal paperclips seem to play like management suimulation games. Also in it, you can't leave the tab open and leave; you will run out of wire and lose.
Thanks for making this video, I had a couple of gripes about the original and I think this perfectly encapsulates what I thought was wrong.
13:19
I love cookie clicker
ANTI IDLE IS THE BEST INCREMENTAL GAME OF ALL TIME SHOW MORE LOVE OH MY FUCKING GOD
snoman: says something really really stupid
clown: *smack*, no, stupid, bad
I feel like it brushes over another false criticism really. Cookie Clicker is great also, mainly because it really has no real gameplay, it really is about watching numbers go up, and really does have no ending… And that's kinda the point.
Can't really go into the feeling it invokes without sounding like a weird philosophy student reading too far into things, the developer made it for fun and didn't intend it to be seen this way, but Cookie Clicker feels like escapism in it's purest form. It's not meant to be fun… But it is, because brain chemistry… it teaches you about it and lampshades the techniques which more predatory games will abuse to actually cause harm, like skinnerboxes and other methods to keep you playing long after you stop having fun. It's ironic humor in a way, but playing it makes me feel like I'm learning more about myself and the way my brain works, to the point where I have better control…
On top of that having an honestly quite compelling moral choice narrative about consumerism and social disconnect. Quotes about what's happening in the Cookie Clicker world flash up on your screen ranging from people being happy about cookies, to people forgetting what life was like without cookies, to eldritch monstrosities appearing, to guilt trippy "You could have stopped this.", to… a literal apocalypse happening. Of course you can put a stop to the apocalypse and make the world's lives better at the expense of your cookie production… or you can abuse it for more cookies… And that is how you do moral choices in games not "Do you shoot this puppy for the badass powers or feed it treats for the other badass powers?".. Feels very Darkest Dungeons.
I'll get this to 1000 comments
Or no
Yeah! Learning new skills in code and game Dev by building an idle game myself. Way to have our backs! Great video!
I play Cookie Clicker cause of its humor. Just makes me giggle whenever I get an achievement
Sorry for sharing links… If you like other Idle games.. please visit Github.
https://github.com/topics/incremental-game
I actually really enjoyed universal paperclips. It was almost philosophical at times. And you could beat it, though it offered the option to restart.
i made a clicker game but there's no autoclickers
my top incremental game is factorio, not exactly Idle, but it is incremental, there is a point where your only goal is to make your factory grow
T h E F A c T O rY m U st gr o W
12:39 THAT GUY WAS IDLE FOR OVER 3 YEARS
You know if you think about city builders are idle games but without the offline non-player interaction, because when your offline you don't get anything for being offline. You only get anything if you leave the game running. Except for maybe SimCity reboot, but I'm not 100% sure since I haven't played it and haven't done much research on it.
Hey if you see this comment, I think Idle Mastermind is a pretty alright game; would recommend.
cheat engine has saved me from clicker games. If i didnt have it i would endlessly be playing them but now i can just skip it lol.
Good clicker games add substance and more interaction than simply grinding.
Thanks for enlightening me.
Great video. It's good the guy you critiqued went back and realized a lot of his mistakes.
Swords and Souls was probably the only idle game that i have ever played that doesnt feel like an idle game. So for me is the best by far.
I personally never understand all of the love of Cookie Clicker or similar ones, because they are tedious and slow compared to other games in its genre… Some people said tha you have to keep playing, but honestly, i think this is like a joke game. Idle games are not for everyone. I like idle games, but very few.
honestly, i think the only reason i actually like it is because of how cool the upgrades are, and also because its the only game i can play in school
You should check out IDLE ISLAND TYCOON! An idle survival game
When I hear you voice I just think of you saying "hi! I'm guybrush threepwood. I'm a mighty pirate.
yeah time mechanics are baadaadadadadad, so coc on of the most loved mobile games is bad, cuz there you have to wait to do most things
i play Minecraft terraria and henry stickman collection. Besides that i play Pretty much ONLY IDLE GAMES i like to read at the same time
No ending is bad? Hah! Minecraft much? Animal Crossing, anyone?
Actually, Animal Crossing is an interesting comparison!
Nice video, i just dropped here while searching for refs for my first game dev project
U totally predicted that in the end of the video xD
What's the game at 19:28 called?
Hey man, first off I wanted to thank you for doing a very level-headed response in a respectful way, as well as presenting my original thoughts accurately and not out of context. My short answer is that for the most part I agree with you – turns out there are a TON of newer incremental games I had never heard of after I made my video, and I played some of them and definitely agree that they are more in-depth than the ones I had experienced in the last several years. I'm shocked I didn't find them when researching, probably because I went looking for clickers instead of idlers which are pretty different honestly. Happy to know the genres evolving, I do think you did it justice.
Just a few more quick points: my video came from my perspective and experience on the genre, definitely not a quick buck cash in. In fact it's been on my mind to make for years now and I'll admit it would've been more relevant back then. I said many times that I got hooked on them too, and don't think poorly of anyone that enjoys them, just more of less wanted to talk about my time with them and how it basically felt like going cold turkey from a drug habit lol, having to quit them altogether because I felt like I was wasting my life. Again, that's my view but I know others totally love them.
Also, you're right than any game can manipulate players with microtransactions (and I would argue any of those games that DO are just as bad lol), as with the reasons I found the genre poorly designed (real time/no end) – but my point was that it was the COMBINATION of the lack of real gameplay with these other elements that really made them toxic to me; they're not inherently bad on their own. Obviously with the examples you gave that isn't necessarily true. So I suppose take my video with a grain of salt saying those older examples are the bad apples.
Keep doing what you're doing bro, I realized I'd seen some of your other vids on the endslate, you make good content. Peace