Video Game Genres Codexery

Incremental game

Incremental games are a video game subgenre where players accumulate resources through repetitive actions or automation, often with exponential progression.[1] Games that emphasize active clicking are called clicker games, while those focused on automation are known as idle games.[1]

Making and release

The genre originated in the early 2000s with satirical titles like Progress Quest and Cow Clicker.[2] According to Anthony Pecorella in his GDC summit talks, Progress Quest (2002) by Eric Fredriksen parodied character stat progression and automated combat in MMORPGs.[3][4] On Kongregate, the initial idle game was called Kongregate Chat; it operated automatically while users engaged in conversation.[5] Cow Clicker, a Facebook title its creator called "a satire and playable theory of social games," was the first idle game to attract significant mainstream press.[4][6]

Following Cookie Clicker's triumph in 2013, incremental games saw a surge in popularity.[7] Make It Rain achieved the first major success for idle games on mobile platforms, though its idle features were quite restricted.[8] By 2015, outlets covering video games noted that titles such as Clicker Heroes were becoming widespread on Steam.[8]

What the cited sources add

Pecorella commented that the genre "is sorta a genre that almost doesn't want to exist; it's a joke, but despite itself, keeps being really successful".[9] He also described popular idle games as "glorified spreadsheets with some really neat mechanics".[9] The Candy Box creator aniwey told Kotaku that the time element lets players "do something else while playing the game" and that it "doesn't use all the player's attention".[10] Aniwey said Candy Box can take from two days to a week to complete, depending on the player's time and patience.[10]

The PC Gamer guide for Realm Grinder explains that the game features multiple currencies, including gems earned by abdicating and rubies from excavations.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Croce, "10 Best Incremental Games for Mobile", Game Rant, 2024-02-14 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grayson, "Clicker Heroes Is Super Popular On Steam... For Some Reason", Kotaku, 18 May 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games", Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2015, February 2015. facts only, no text reused. gdcvault.com
  4. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games", Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2015, February 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Earliest idle games on Kongregate", Kongregate (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bogost, "Cow Clicker", Official website, 2017 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sankin, "The most addictive new game on the Internet is actually a joke", The Daily Dot, 12 February 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games", Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2015, February 2015; Grayson, "Clicker Heroes Is Super Popular On Steam... For Some Reason", Kotaku, 18 May 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Incremental game" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games", Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2015, February 2015; "Idle Games: The Mechanics and Monetization of Self-Playing Games", Game Developer Conference (GDC) 2015, February 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Good, "Candy Box: A Game That's Simple, Sweet, and Strangely Compelling", Kotaku, 2013-05-05. facts only, no text reused. kotaku.com
  11. Morton, "Realm Grinder beginner's guide", PC Gamer, 2017-12-13. facts only, no text reused. pcgamer.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Incremental game (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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