Incremental games vary as to whether they have a victory condition: games like Cookie Clicker allow the players to play indefinitely, while games like Candy Box! or Universal Paperclips feature endings that can be reached after a certain amount of progress is made. Realm Grinder by Divine Games (2015), introduced abdicating, reincarnating, and ascending.

Some games include multiple layers of prestiging, thereby making new content, meta-currencies or gameplay available. This mechanism gives players a sense of a rush of progress, which feels very rewarding. This mechanism is mostly optional player could choose to 'prestige' once they feel they hit the wall and felt their progress is getting slower (compared to the cost). Tap Titans (2014, by Game Hive) is a pioneer of the prestige mechanics in mobile games. It creates another layer of loop: players play from the start. This eventually would create an infinite game replays and various strategy of playing. This new currency is normally used to gain global bonuses that do not disappear after a reset, allowing the player to go further than the previous reset, or let the player replay the game with a greater power, often with several choices upon restart. The mechanism could also be tied to the previous mechanism of giving more power/rewards upon achieving a goal or achievement, which lead to optimization decision and meaningful direction.Īs a late-game or advanced mechanism, some games feature a reset-based system or ' New Game Plus', a term coined by Chrono Trigger (1995), where the player resets the progress of their game and gains another form of currency (prestige). This mechanism provides moments of joy spread out throughout the gameplay, to counter boredom and grinding feeling. It resonates with real world dialog (e.g., 'I'm out of cash I need to come back when I have more.') and gives players more control over their decision. This mechanism may be more palatable to core gamers who dislike social games. The difference being that in idle games this mechanism is natural, whereas in other social games, it is a construct intended to constrain the players. This is similar to (or even derived from) the ' energy currency' concept in social games, where a player gets one energy per hour, for example. This mechanism, in its core, involves a loop: the player logs in, spends all their currency, and logs out for a few hours. 'duoquadragintillion'), which sometimes make recording high scores a problem for the server.

They often incorporate very large numbers in their calculation of rewards/power, either using scientific notations (1x10 34/10E 34), shorthands (1M, 1T, etc.), shorthand (1a, 1b, 1aa, 1ab), or invented words (e.g. The rapid growth of cost, power and rewards is what makes incremental games fun and satisfying. It often relies on exponential growth (or perhaps high-degree polynomial growth), which is countered by diminishing returns. This mechanism offers a low-pressure experience (one does not have to be constantly playing), no loss condition, and constant growth and feedback, which is ideal for social or mobile play patterns, and often result in a very high player retention. These sources increase the currency production rate, but higher tier sources usually have an exponentially higher cost, so upgrading between tiers takes usually about the same time or even increasingly longer.

A common theme is offering the player sources of income displayed as buildings such as factories or farms. The player may spend the currency to purchase items or abilities that allow the player to earn the currency faster or automatically, without needing to perform the initial action. In an incremental game, players perform simple actions – usually clicking a button or object – which rewards the player with currency. Mechanics Progress without interaction, or very limited interaction In some games, even the clicking becomes unnecessary at some point, as the game plays itself, including in the player's absence, hence the moniker idle game. This ' grinding' earns the player in-game currency which can be used to increase the rate of currency acquisition. Incremental games, also known as clicker games, clicking games (on PCs) or tap games (in mobile games), are video games whose gameplay consists of the player doing simple actions such as clicking on the screen repeatedly. Video game type Progress Quest (2002), considered the first idle game

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