Marill?

Sounds fun! I’d reinstall the game if only to be able to help fellow players. Sadly, I can’t download the game now due to restrictions on my device.

This week I played some more of Vepro’s games. In particular, Yet Another Merge Game and Universe Shrinker. Both games have big enough numbers to warrant large number libraries. However, I noticed that in Universe Shrinker the shrinking of universes was represented on an exponential scale but could be easily translated to a linear scale. I guess I could find more examples of this in the “really big numbers” group of incremental games, but that one felt glaringly obvious to me.

I was browsing itch.io for new incremental games this week, and found Centrist Simulator. It seems to be good although it’s short and the appeal looks different from most other incremental games. Haven’t played it yet.

edit: haha I messed up the link format again

Okay, posted it! I’m kinda nervous about it though - it’s been a while since I posted outside of this instance.

Well, there was a post by thepaperpilot about the instance made on [email protected] half a year ago. Not much has changed about the instance that would be relevant to people from other instances since then, so I’m hesitant to make another promotion post for the instance. On the other hand, the community you mentioned is not the one thepaperpilot posted to around half a year ago (and one where promoting communities you belong to is more appropriate)…

I’ll think about it some more.

I’ve continued playing Coloot Idle and I seem to have reached a point of inflation. Whether this inflation will stop before I hit the number limit of the game I don’t know. I want to find out, but the game has gotten really repetitive at this point. I’m willing to DM my save though if anyone’s willing to do it.

I have also been playing Unnamed Space Idle (Web, Windows, Linux, just search for it) for the past few months, but haven’t mentioned it here for a while since I mentioned it in a previous check-in. That mention has probably been forgotten by now so I’m mentioning it again.

This isn’t incremental, but I’ve been playing NandGame, a puzzle game about building computer components from smaller computer components for a while. Currently stuck with trying to make a selector.

This week I’ve been playing web-based button simulators. Namely, Demonin’s Absolute Button Simulator 2 and Ducdat’s Infinite Button Simulator. I think I prefer Infinite Button Simulator among the two. Both games are very grindy/repetitive and they make no attempt to hide it. It’s charming in a strange way. I can’t explain it fully - it’s like these games have a sort of subtly shifting rhythm to them. Come to think of it, most incremental games also have their own rhythm; button simulators simply happen to be a sub-genre where I’m able to notice the nature of the rhythm very easily.

Vepro has published 3 games to galaxy.click. Of those 3, I’ve been playing Coloot Idle the most (but primarily because I’ve already played the other two). I’d consider it a semi-active simple game.

I only recently found out that Barribob has released a new game called Apex Machina. It lags a bit on my laptop but I like it. Take note that if you’re on Linux you have to run it on a Chromium-based browser (and I’d assume the same for MacOS, but I haven’t tested).

Oh yeah, there’s also a Genshin Impact-themed incremental published to galaxy.click called nahidaQuest!. It wasn’t my style and I’m unsure of its legality but I can see that there was quite a significant amount of effort put into it so you may like it.

She probably does mean the Matrix space. incremental.social has a slightly different interface compared to other Mbin instances, with the Matrix space being linked to as “Chat” in the navbar, there being a “Code” button which links to the site’s Forgejo instance, and the link to the list of magazines being listed under an icon on the right side of the navbar not present in other Mbin instances.

As for the engagement part, it may have something to do with the fact that the people organizing this place have/had ties to the incremental games community back on Reddit. I know I wouldn’t have joined if that weren’t the case.

Cavernous 2 is a puzzle game with idle and incremental elements. In that game, you can passively gain stats to compensate for your lack of skill (in this case, good routes). However, there is a limit to how high these stats can go which is determined by how good the routes are. This makes it kind of redundant, and adds timewalls for skilled players later on in the game when stat grinding is strictly required. I’d either switch the passive stat gain system to not have an upper limit (making idling much more valuable) or replace it with a system that automatically sets those stats to the upper limits (removing idling altogether, though still incremental).

Speedrun Dimensions is a game made during a game jam which involves repeating short incremental “levels” to grind resources that boost your rate of progress in those levels so you can beat further levels. It can get repetitive though, and I’d rather change the system so that you passively gain metaprogression resources based on your best time and replaying the level only serves to lower that time.

Fundamental is a slow game. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it. However, during the quick parts of the game the user interface gets in the way of my speed (and my finger health). It’s something I’d want to change, thought I don’t know what to change it to.

If you’ll notice, the first two issues are similar in nature. I’d imagine most of the changes people will reply with will have something to do with either pacing, the way certain resources are earned, quality-of-life, or how information is conveyed to the player.

I’ve mostly been scouring itch.io for games to play lately, since I’ve felt like I’ve gone through all the GitHub-hosted games. A Dark Forest is a new game inspired by A Dark Room. I didn’t get dragged into it, but perhaps you may. It’s still in early development though. Evil Incremental is a game that reminds me of Orb of Creation, or at least the first parts of Orb of Creation. Perhaps a bit too much. Note that it was designed with a mobile UI in mind. More Curiosity is a short, micromanage-y incremental game. I think I recommended this a while back, but I’m too lazy to check.

Also, not an incremental but I’ve been enjoying I Wanna Lockpick since laleyou recommended it to me a few weeks earlier. It’s a puzzle game with lots of numbers. I like numbers.

On a personal note: today is my first full day of summer vacation. Hope I don’t waste it.

I don’t like resets that are just a few seconds long or less than a second, because they tend to become repetitive and therefore boring. However, I believe that these issues are not just exclusive to quick resets. They can also be applied to games with longer reset cycles and in many of those cases the effects feel far more draining (an example: I’ve never been able to stick with Trimps for long). What I believe matters more is how much the game allows you to play at your own pace. I think a minute is a nice limit for a satisfying reset loop, though that is an arbitrary number so don’t take it as law.

Worse. Definitely worse. I was a late adopter.

Oh, we’re responding to the reddit reposts now? Anyways, here are the games I’m playing:

Cavernous 2: . It’s a game where you’re stuck in a cave and in a time loop and you have to manage multiple clones of yourself at the same time. I’d say it appeals more to the pure puzzle (whatever that means) audience than to the incremental audience, but it does have idle elements and I like it so I’m posting it here. I’ll probably post my full thoughts on the game in its own thread.

Synergism: . Abstract incremental, I’m at the stage (early Singularity) where the pacing is to check on it for a few minutes once or twice a day. I’m just playing this because of inertia.

Gooboo: . I’m not even sure if I’m playing this. The game allows you to idle for weeks on end without you getting FOMO, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve heard a lot of people play this more actively (read: daily checkups) though.

Pedro Pascal’s Triangle of Prestige: . For many this is merely a silly game made for April Fools Day. But for a select few it is more than a game - rather, it is a way of life.

Okay, I’ve gotten to a point where the game feels repetitive. I think I’ll drop it. It was good while it lasted, though.

My bad, was wondering why it was called “recon”… HACK GROW HACK WEAKEN? What on earth is this madness? Did… did you… did you do this on purpose?

Anyways, I think I’m going to write the essay despite no one asking.

The code is for an incremental RPG programming game called Bitburner, which uses a version of JavaScript that has some additional game-specific APIs and restrictions (the game originally ran in a web browser)

This code in particular is a (flawed) solution to the first problem the game throws at you, which is finding a way to hack as much in-game money as possible from in-game servers. (The problem is more complicated than it appears at first glance, and I’ll try to elaborate if you ask.)

Urghh, now I must post before I leave…

Hello, I’m one of those young people mentioned in the post and I’m partially responsible for our current topic.

My take is that the distinction between “fun” and “motivational manipulation” is blurry in a lot of forms of entertainment, and this blurriness is significantly more apparent in incremental games compared to other forms of media. As much as I don’t like to admit it, I think that most modern games (especially abstract ones such as The Prestige Tree) mostly consist of “motivational manipulation”.

That being said, I still think there is still fun to be had in this genre. My personal belief is that the fun in incremental games comes from the organic (or at least not tightly forced) discovery of the intricacies of the mechanical systems these games present. The problem is that very few games manage to handle this discovery well. I’ve also found interacting with the communities surrounding these games to be an enjoyable experience.

As to the notice, I think it’s an okay idea but I don’t have any strong preference on any one condition (there are a lot of factors to take into account). My primary doubt is whether the notice will work well since people may be reluctant to seek help and could easily switch to an equally manipulative entertainment outlet that doesn’t contain a similar notice.

It’s not as interesting as I make it seem. At the end of the day, it’s just a flat multiplier. It’ll take a few weeks or even months of somewhat involved play before you start reaching the point that the completion tokens start noticeably changing the game’s pacing. The game itself is not that much fun to play without this system.

I like it for the reason that the dev didn’t seem to have accounted for people grinding that bonus after completing all released content - but I’d expect that most people would not feel the same way.

My favorite implementation of a prestige mechanic is actually Ctrl/Cmd-C’s completion token system, simple and boring as it may be.

This system gradually makes you build up a multiplier which increases polynomially over the course of your playthrough. It can get big enough to break the game’s intended pacing, but you build it up slowly enough that you can see it slowly crumbling. In other games, behavior around prestiging is tightly controlled (this can be seen in the game’s chapters). That’s still the case here even with absurdly large multipliers but the feeling that you are supposed to do this is less present.

It’s a power fantasy in which you feel you are defying the developer’s intentions for how the game should be played. Eventually you quit because you have so much power that getting more requires giving the game constant attention (and by that point, a multiplier of 2x doesn’t feel like anything anymore).