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An updated incremental games canon

1y 7mon ago by ncremental.social:443/u/thepaperpilot in incremental_games@incremental.social

Roughly 2 years ago I started work on the Guide to Incrementals, and most notably wrote a page on Defining the Genre. One part of it defines a incremental games canon - a selection of games that are definitively incremental games, and exhaustively illustrate the common elements of incremental games. When writing the list I tried to ensure there was nothing too redundant, preferring newer titles. So I mention clicker heros instead of cookie clicker, ngu idle instead of itrtg, etc.

But its been a couple years, I think its worth taking a critical eye on this list. What was missing, which games now have newer games to use as representation, how do we get a profectus game in the canon /j.

For reference, here's the old list:

  • A Dark Room
  • Clicker Heroes
  • Crank
  • Increlution
  • Kitten's Game
  • NGU Idle
  • Realm Grinder
  • Synergism
  • Universal Paperclips
  • Learn to Fly

And here are my thoughts on changes:

  • I think clicker heroes and realm grinder have too significant of overlap (they're both what I would classify as "cookie clicker"-like in their central design, and even branch off into many similar mechanics). I'd suggest dropping CH, due to RG's additional focus on per-run decisions which I think should be represented. This does mean we don't have the "level up to cap then ascend" mechanic present in CH and games like revolution idle, though.
  • I think Universal Paperclips and Crank are both on here for the same reason - they're both strong examples of paradigm shifts with very dramatic changes to gameplay. I'd suggest dropping Crank
  • Unnamed Space Idle is a new very popular title, and has the "unfolding collection of interconnected incremental minigames" aspect very popular amongst these titles, so could theoretically replace any of a good number of these. I think what would be the cleanest replacement would be a dark room (as ADR ultimately doesn't have that many other elements of incremental games), although I went back and forth between that and NGU idle in my head.
  • I think Evolve Idle could fully replace kitten's game as a newer title that covers the same elements of incremental games.

So with all my changes, the new list would look like this:

  • Evolve Idle
  • Increlution
  • NGU Idle
  • Realm Grinder
  • Synergism
  • Universal Paperclips
  • Unnamed Space Idle
  • Learn to Fly

I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts. Do you agree with my proposed changes? What changes would you suggest instead or in addition?

I think there is a push and pull here between 'most efficient path to seeing everything we have' and 'most commonly referenced games', and I guess this is actually to solve that by being the list to actually decide on using which gives it some weight. I recognize we are also trying to have a bias towards newer games which I guess is cool, indeed I haven't played some of the longer old ones.

That being said

Evolve Idle -> Shark game: new frontiers + ? Increlution -> Unnamed Space Idle NGU Idle -> Check back Realm Grinder -> Calculator evolution Synergism -> Fundamental Universal Paperclips -> Dodecadragons Unnamed Space Idle -> Theory of magic <- ? Learn to Fly -> Advent incremental

  • Evolve idle I haven't played past civ but you mention the category with Kittens game, you could say those are 'assignable workers' games or also 'many highly congruent resources'... I tried to place what I have in mind with highly congruent resources and came up with Shark game, especially with the new frontiers feels like it does cover it.

  • Shark game also includes post game meta progression and I am also thinking about Idle 1 with this, but I would say it is 'space theme' that covers this. Is there a space game in this sense? the ones that exist are more like resource conservation and that is similar to this. I think these share 'you have to do something redundant if you really want further resources', It seems that may actually suit Increlution. It also makes me less tempted to see it as only a loop game, although maybe this suits Progress Knight as well. Automation is then split off though,

  • The workers aspect feels tangential to the difference between 'progressing multiple areas idly'(I think characterized by progress bars), and progressing multiple areas manually so requiring choice. We need to include a 'wizard game' so can suggest any one of those would also apply to this. Read on to see which one I decide...

  • There is a hurdle to overcome to move on from NGU idle and it's not the obvious one, I find it is related to the 'overarching prestige' and namely is the explicit hour and day bonus that it has. So I think NGU really comes to mind for any talk of daily bonuses, but the hourly time scale takes a step further to say that you are not checking in to be reminded to do active play, and it's actually just talking in terms of pure check ins. That being said NGU also has lots of 'busywork' but calling it that does lead to Check back, and I can only see that NGU without check back would simply be a more normal game. I guess the mod is enough to fortify it a bit on this hill even if the scope that it ends up governing here is too much, but probably is accurate(checks out) at least.

  • Calculator evolution I am including with GCI also in mind to express the big respec skill tree phenomenon, I also then omitted Realm grinder's class system as I figure it's also can be considered similar to anything that needs a guide. I haven't played far in Realm grinder but am thinking of linear games that force you to do something you don't want to as a kind of content, so this is space for conversation about difficulty.

  • Synergism is hard because while i think it has a lot of different things, what I remember is indeterminately big time walls. Now those are talked about with a lot of games but maybe we are thinking about 'find the thing to do' games. This has a lot in common with difficulty. While it's tempting to have a separate category for when it's 'not punishing' my most robotic readings suggest that crunching numbers to decide on a build for a reset and crunching numbers to decide what part of the game to push are not different enough.

  • My nagging feeling though as to something else left is about buyable that just keep going up and become relevant to subsequent layers long down the road. I don't have a clear image of this but am thinking about Idle mine remix by Vepro, but I am not thinking it extends to where my mind has been a lot prior to this which is the progressing in multiple areas nonidly. I am thinking about strange non sequitur menus and am reminded of an idea from kindof a deep cut Infinity Island of random events. As much as 'weird format' sounds interesting it also ties back to the maze like visual format difficulty I already said is similar to games where you may or may not need a guide.

  • This definitely overburdens calculator evolution now though, so I am thinking Fundamental can at least bear that burden even if for no other reason. And Calculator evolution can stay for being 'just a specific segment the rest is fine', which also makes me feel better about the extent Fundamental is not guide requiring in the same way.

  • The Dodecadragons play seems like a big jump but I am mostly using it to actually cover off Antimatter dimensions which was not included, am thinking these are not active games but the action of them in all in number go up. So gameplaywise I am thinking about like 5min idle increments type thing. And Dodeca just seems like a good UI complement to Universal paperclips.

  • Unnamed Space idle somehow skipped my mind when i was thinking about space games but was in mind when I removed NGU idle. It also has the 'zones' from Trimps, similar to the enemies from NGU which in both cases are closely tied to the currency of a overarching prestige. Apart from this if we consider the many minigames I think we actually do come back to Increlution which I put as the space game... if we are thinking about the minigames as a whole instead of this is the minigame I am to some extent blindly doing right now, I suspect we are thinking about optimization in some way. So I am tempted to displace this to arbitrarily make room for theory of magic and the automation games I displaced in my reading of increlution.. And honestly I probably should call it this being kind of a sweet way to do that.

  • Prestige Tree was not included... while I definitely am game to let in Advent incremental (who hasn't played advent incremental? It's almost time..), the sensibility must also be considered to simply not include all this for being more so a format than a particular trick. Still there should be something to cover that concept of 'prestige' in it's unabashed sense, ...In some sense Learn to fly does this because it's like that idea of a roguelike that is actually moreso about metaprogression. The ultimate test though is whether a tmt launch game would make sense, well Advent incremental matches the plot of a lanch game, haha will not even say any more.

The Dodecadragons play seems like a big jump but I am mostly using it to actually cover off Antimatter dimensions which was not included, am thinking these are not active games but the action of them in all in number go up. So gameplaywise I am thinking about like 5min idle increments type thing. And Dodeca just seems like a good UI complement to Universal paperclips.

Unnamed Space idle somehow skipped my mind when i was thinking about space games but was in mind when I removed NGU idle. It also has the 'zones' from Trimps, similar to the enemies from NGU which in both cases are closely tied to the currency of a overarching prestige. Apart from this if we consider the many minigames I think we actually do come back to Increlution which I put as the space game... if we are thinking about the minigames as a whole instead of this is the minigame I am to some extent blindly doing right now, I suspect we are thinking about optimization in some way. So I am tempted to displace this to arbitrarily make room for theory of magic and the automation games I displaced in my reading of increlution.. And honestly I probably should call it this being kind of a sweet way to do that.

Prestige Tree was not included... while I definitely am game to let in Advent incremental (who hasn't played advent incremental? It's almost time..), the sensibility must also be considered to simply not include all this for being more so a format than a particular trick. Still there should be something to cover that concept of 'prestige' in it's unabashed sense, ...In some sense Learn to fly does this because it's like that idea of a roguelike that is actually moreso about metaprogression. The ultimate test though is whether a tmt launch game would make sense, well Advent incremental matches the plot of a launch game, haha will not even say any more.

  • The Dodecadragons play seems like a big jump but I am mostly using it to actually cover off Antimatter dimensions which was not included, am thinking these are not active games but the action of them in all in number go up. So gameplaywise I am thinking about like 5min idle increments type thing. And Dodeca just seems like a good UI complement to Universal paperclips.

  • Unnamed Space idle somehow skipped my mind when i was thinking about space games but was in mind when I removed NGU idle. It also has the 'zones' from Trimps, similar to the enemies from NGU which in both cases are closely tied to the currency of a overarching prestige. Apart from this if we consider the many minigames I think we actually do come back to Increlution which I put as the space game... if we are thinking about the minigames as a whole instead of this is the minigame I am to some extent blindly doing right now, I suspect we are thinking about optimization in some way. So I am tempted to displace this to arbitrarily make room for theory of magic and the automation games I displaced in my reading of increlution.. And honestly I probably should call it this being kind of a sweet way to do that.

  • Prestige Tree was not included... while I definitely am game to let in Advent incremental (who hasn't played advent incremental? It's almost time..), the sensibility must also be considered to simply not include all this for being more so a format than a particular trick. Still there should be something to cover that concept of 'prestige' in it's unabashed sense, ...In some sense Learn to fly does this because it's like that idea of a roguelike that is actually moreso about metaprogression. The ultimate test though is whether a tmt launch game would make sense, well Advent incremental matches the plot of a launch game, haha will not even say any more.