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📈🚀📈🚀📈🚀📈🚀 Hey come check out some experimental clicker / idle / incremental games! 👇📈👇📈👇📈👇📈👇 For their final projects in my 'economics for game designers' class at @nyugamecenter.bsky.social, students made some awesome incremental games, so I wanted to do a thread sharing their work! 🧵⤵️ 1/~15

(Some context: - The prompt was loose, but it had to be "recognizably an incremental game", and we focus on systems design - All solo projects, made in about five weeks - Students gave me permission to share these - They're all relatively short-form, generally playable in a single sitting.) 2/

First up check out "Squares" by Jon Topielski, a minimalist clicker made in Pico8 about filling up an ever-increasing grid of squares. I love the embrace of abstraction here, there's no 'theme', but it still has this satisfying progression. Check it out! jontopielski.itch.io/squares 3/

"Omni-Sort" by Riley Lyman is an impressively polished incremental game about sorting algorithms. I think this one came out beautifully, a really in-the-weeds topic that's conceptually a great fit for the genre, and some great juice with the bar charts too 📊 rjley.itch.io/omni-sort 4/

Incremental games can often have a mechanistic feel, but "Plantagotchi" by Zhili Chen explores a more organic take on "growing". It's a neat plant-based spin on the genre. I'm always very partial to plant games, so especially loved this. 5/ zhili-chen.itch.io/plantagotchi

All incremental games are about labor, really, and Lucas Chan's "Stairs Simulator" is an especially Sisyphean example about ascending an endless staircase. There's a clever setup here with nested meters that I really like mechanically as well. 6/ lucaschann.itch.io/stairs-simul...

No batch of incremental games could be complete without a Lovecraftian one- Amber's game has you leading a delightfully uncanny "finger tribe" of ambulatory digits, members of which march around the screen's edge. Some interesting chance mechanics here as well. 7/ oldzombie14.itch.io/finger-fingers

This next one needs a partner! Abhishek Chatterjee's "Ascension" is an incremental *fighting* game, where two players compete in raising a number. The shared pool of points you take from is a nice touch I think. Grab a friend! 8/ abhishek-chatterjee.itch.io/ascension

Patrick Liu made a particularly stellar (heh) space game, where acceleration is the number to go up as you speed through asteroid fields faster and faster. Very finely balanced for a ~10 minute or so experience, and a nice active clicking mechanic too 🚀 9/ k9ght.itch.io/edge-of-the-...

A more experimental one, Adrian Becerra's "Try" is really promising prototype that plays with temporary and ephemeral game elements which I don't think I've seen done in an incremental game before. The upgrades come and go, but you remain. bcra.itch.io/try 10/

With a lovely fictional OS interface, Shuhang Chen's 'Rosruc' is a typing game about AI coding and how automation becomes management. Open up notepad++ to get started, and note the funny error pop-up if you resort to spamming the same letters over and over. 12/ lappas.itch.io/rosruc

(That typing-as-mechanic incremental idea is an unintentional callback to a fantastic project from last year, "you are a writer" by @thewriterwins.bsky.social, about writing rather than coding. Typing is underexplored as a clicking analogue!) 13/ bsky.app/profile/lite...

In Matt Lamm's "Entitled", it's a sort of automated Crusader Kings meets Reigns, where you're trying to usurp titles with a bit of stat management. Lovely writing as well, where the humor comes from taking your decrees to their absurd conclusions. 14/ lammbot.itch.io/entitled