#incremental

[entropy-game-dev]

Phylogenesia Automatorum is out!! A roguelite / incremental / life simulation hybrid

Download it here!

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working on my entry for the New Years Incremental Game Jam 2024, and I finally submitted it late last night.

It's a silly little game where you tend to your garden of digital plants, hoping to generate enough Life and Death points when they spawn/die respectively, in order to buy more plants, mutate their characteristics, and expand the field in which they live.

Mutations and field properties will directly (and indirectly) change the plants' behavior on both a local and global level, with some very interesting and unexpected results. Numbers going up isn't always better either too, as, if you upgrade their stats too much, you might make a superplant that chokes the life out of the rest of your simulation and other plants!!

(Oh, and my friend did the music for this game, and it's awesome - each plant as their own instrument/track and they layer on top of each other as you buy more!)

It's a roguelite in the sense that each run you will be choosing between random upgrades, plants, and field tiles with various effects between simulation runs in order to try and maximize your point gains and stay ahead of the reset cost. It's not totally balanced (as it was whipped up in 2 weeks), but with a bit of knowledge and juuuust a hint of luck, you can make almost any run pop off! The goal is to buy all 10 plants and have them all produce points within a single run (representing a diverse garden or something, rather than a monocrop).

As I mentioned previously, it's based heavily on Conway's Game of Life, as I am a huge sucker for incrementals with hypnotizing visuals that change and evolve as you interact with the various systems at play. I took this idea, added a bunch of plants that are variations on the standard ruleset, and went from there.

You might also notice that I used some assets from Stellar Terminus, namely, the 3 sound effects, fonts, color palette, and, retro computer theming. I swear I can do other styles, just, er, not in 2 weeks when I already had quite an ambitious idea!

Over the coming days I'll post some more about the development of it, how I implemented certain systems, and a post mortem. You can probably imagine how datastructures-heavy this game was. In the end I had 1 object that ran the entire simulation, 1 that displayed the breakdown of how each plant was doing, and like 20+ objects for UI...

For now though? I'd love for you to try it out, play a few runs, and hear your thoughts on it!!

[pratchettquotes]

800th Post: A Reflection on Increments*

Some jobs offer increments. This one offered--well, quite the reverse, but at least it was in the warm and fairly easy to get the hang of. After a while he got into the rhythm of it, and started playing the private little quantity-surveying game that everyone plays in these circumstances. Let's see, he thought, I've done nearly a quarter, let's call it a third, so when I've done that corner by the hayrack it'll be more than half, call it five-eighths, which means three more wheelbarrow loads. ...It doesn't prove anything very much except that the awesome splendor of the universe is much easier to deal with if you think of it as a series of small chunks.

Terry Pratchett, Mort

*Here, Mort Sto Helit demonstrates the same incremental psychology in his stable work which all tumblr users have refined. When I first started this blog I thought I'd see if I could share 1,000 Pratchett quotes. Let's see, another two hundred posts will be a thousand posts. That's two hundred days, call it six months, which is only half of a year....

[freyawolf]

[gamertogamedeveloper]

How do these updated gifs look? Do I need to zoom in more?

[littlepillbugs]

Happy December!!

I made a short incremental game for Christmas

Christmas Incremental (isosquad.com)

[ratedjo]

dreamcore95idle.exe

Creator's Description: CAN YOU ESCAPE YOUR DREAMS?

Le leggere ciocche di memoria si mescolano a gocce di sogni. The flowing strands of memory mix with droplets of dreams.

N̵̘̍͘O̶͇̽̈̈́͜S̶̠̻̋̅̊T̶͎̳̈́͑A̶̛̦L̵̼̗̓G̷͉͌I̴̖͖̾̚Á̵̝͔̺͑͑ ̵̫̉̅̐Ǐ̶͙̘̪̄S̵̠̅ ̷̥̰͌͝Y̶̢̛͍̙̾O̶̯̬̠̊̿́Ū̶̮̀̄R̸̦̂̒ ̵̳̔̉͝F̷̧̠̓̏͜R̵̹̫̣͝Í̵̫͍͘̚E̴̤̹̓͒̎Ņ̸̰̱̌D̸̢͕͂́̑

Developer: Atovange Engine: Godot Price: Free/ Name your price Download: Itch.io

[ayuranslounge]

Out of all of the 'optimise until you have built a machine to eat the planet' have that I have played (which isn't a ton) bit burner has been the only one to actually make me want to optimise.

I think it comes down to the fact that the main limiting factor to how far you go is primarily up to you.

There's a limit to how deep into the network you can go when you scan-analyse. But nothing is stopping you from long through the entire network if you know how to script it.

Yeah every script is killed off when you reset. But so are all the programs on your pc when you reboot. Your pc has a boot sequence. Robots have an initialisation phase. You can just... program something that gets you everything you need on a fresh startup.

Again. The only limiting factor is your imagination.

Feel like your basic hacking script is not efficient enough? Work on creating a process manager which tells all your little bots what to do.

Heck. The entire game is a browser with javascript. Redesign the ui to make it better for you.

Hack the game about hacking.

And by the end of it you'll understand enough to hack all the idle browser games.

[syi666]

after experiencing the wonder that is pokeclicker. I'm begging someone to make a final fantasy or power ranger themed incremental game. THERE. IS. SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL.

[howifeltabouthim]

There's a simple small line at the mouth of hell. It's not a big deal when you get there. It's just another step is all.

Lisa Taddeo, from Animal

[cnu-newurbanism]

Great Idea 4: Incremental development

Great places are built in small increments, and urbanists are restoring America's know-how and capacity for small-scale development by many individuals in their own communities. Do you want to be a small developer? Read more.

[entropy-game-dev]

Phylogenesia Automatorum Post-game Devlog #1: Idea conception

In this series of posts, I'll take you through my thought processes in coming up with and developing the game I release for the New Years Incremental Game Jam 2024. But first, if you aren't familiar with my game, please go and try it out for yourself first! And if you want, you can also rate it and check the other cool entries out!

My favourite part of any incremental/idle is having some nice accompanying visuals that are directly impacted by the decisions that you've made. I really can't remember how I began thinking of Conway's Game of Life in this context, but I thought this would be an amazing jumping-off point for an incremental game.

I quickly implemented the very simple rules (the left image). Counts of cells in the 8 surrounding cells are needed to progress the simulation, so I have a debug overlay of the counts for each cell. Each tick, the simulation progresses according to the following rules:

If there are exactly 3 live cells surrounding an empty cell, on the next tick, that cell becomes live on the next tick

If there are between 2-3 live cells surrounding a live cell, that cell persists to the next tick

If the above is not true, the live cell dies on the next tick and becomes empty again

When defining this with code, I quickly realised a cell is defined by 4 values organised into two ranges: its spawn range (3-3) and sustain range (2-3). I then thought it would be interesting to see how another "organism" with different ranges would change the dynamics of the system.

I coded in a second type of cell, which I had termed the Voidberry. It had a spawn range of 0-8 and a sustain range of 0-8. This meant it could spawn anywhere, but I decided to make the simulation probabilistic by giving it a spawn chance of 2% and a spontaneous death chance of 80%. While Conway's original rules were completely deterministic, I felt this would limit the types of cells I would be able to create. So now we have 6 parameters total.

In the right picture, you can see how the Voidberry disturbs a stable formation of original Conway cells, making it disintegrate over the following ticks.

These two cells would go on to have the following sprites in the game:

I knew I wanted to modify these values and so I also wrote some simple code to tally up how much were spawning and dying, too. I didn't know how quite I'd be using them at the time, but these would go on to become the Life and Death points that drive the player's influence and progression in the final game...

And that's it for Part 1! Thanks for reading and I'll have more for you guys very soon!

[drnic1]

Debt, DNA, and a Dose of AI

Delete Your DNA and Eat a Steak This month’s episode of “News You Can Use” on HealthcareNOWRadio features news from the month of May 2025 News You Can Use with your Hosts Dr Craig Joseph and Dr Nick van Terheyden The show that gives you a quick insight into the latest news, twists, turns, and debacles going on in healthcare with my friend and co-host Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph), Chief Medical…

[risegamefreaks]

Rise and Click: My Chaotic Descent into Clicker Heroes

This is pure gem. A game from long time ago, but still a complete brilliant! Let's begin...

...So there I was, sipping my highly caffeinated gamer brew and contemplating whether to dive into a grand open-world RPG or stare blankly at my Steam backlog until one of the titles magically installs itself. That’s when Clicker Heroes crept into my life like an uninvited pop-up ad... except I clicked it voluntarily—and I haven’t stopped clicking since.

Welcome to another absurd adventure from the desk of a game developer who moonlights as your friendly neighborhood game-reviewing knight. Let’s unpack this hypnotic, pixel-smashing, dopamine-dripping, productivity-obliterating clicker game that stole my afternoon (and possibly my soul).

What Is Clicker Heroes?

At its core, Clicker Heroes is a clicker game, aka an idle game, aka a “watch numbers go up and feel joy” simulator. You click on monsters to deal damage. When they die, you get gold. You use gold to hire heroes. Heroes deal damage for you, even when you’re not clicking. Soon, you don’t even need to click. It’s like training your mouse finger to eventually put itself out of a job.

There’s no intricate story or moral dilemma. Just pure, unfiltered progression—numbers rising, damage increasing, and enemies exploding into digital gold coins at an ever-accelerating pace.

The Gameplay Loop That Eats Time Like a Snack

You start with nothing but a sword and ambition (and probably Cheeto dust on your fingers). You click monsters to slay them. They drop coins. You buy a hero. That hero clicks for you. You buy more heroes. They click harder. Suddenly, you’re doing millions—then billions—of DPS. A few hours later? You’re watching your monitor in awe as a floating samurai robot called Samurai the Cleaner does trillions of damage while you munch noodles like some deranged overlord.

This game doesn’t reward strategic planning. It rewards your ability to:

Relentlessly click like a caffeinated squirrel.

Maximize passive DPS by hiring and upgrading heroes.

Know when to “ascend” (reset your game for permanent bonuses like Hero Souls).

Walk away... then come back and bathe in the rewards.

Why Is This So Addicting?!

As a game developer myself, I recognize the genius at work here. Clicker Heroes is a masterclass in incremental game design. It tricks your brain into celebrating tiny wins every few seconds. That’s not gameplay—it’s digital confetti in a feedback loop.

You feel powerful because the numbers never stop going up. Even when you’re not online, your heroes keep chugging along like loyal minions. Come back after a nap? Boom—millions of gold. Leave it running while you’re stuck in a Zoom call? Bam—another level boss falls.

You don’t play Clicker Heroes, you supervise it like a lazy CEO who occasionally boosts productivity by yelling “CLICK!” at the screen.

Art & Sound: More Chill Than You’d Expect

Graphically, it’s nothing revolutionary, but that’s part of the charm. The enemies range from slime blobs to weird flower monsters to floating eyeballs that look like they escaped from someone’s first Photoshop class. Heroes have amusing designs and names like “Treebeast” and “Amenhotep”—it’s like the developers threw darts at a fantasy encyclopedia, and I’m here for it.

The soundtrack? Low-key chill. It doesn’t intrude. It doesn’t blast your eardrums. It’s like ambient elevator music... if the elevator were on its way to Mount Olympus.

The Rise Game Freaks Takeaway

As someone who writes code, slays bugs (literal and figurative), and tries to squeeze a personal life in between, Clicker Heroes is both a curse and a cure.

On one hand, it’s the perfect background game. You can write a blog post, compile your Unity project, and still “play” the game. It’s productivity theater in game form. It lets you feel like you're progressing—even if you're just letting your computer do the work.

On the other hand... I spent four hours upgrading an imaginary samurai to level 1000. I don't even regret it. I just regret not ascending sooner.

Who Should Play This?

You enjoy games that respect your lack of time and attention span.

You like numbers going up. That’s it. That’s the review.

You secretly wish RPGs had no plot and only loot.

You’re a Rise Game Freaks kind of person—someone who games ironically and unironically at the same time.

Final Words (Before I Ascend Again)

Clicker Heroes is like eating a whole bag of chips when you swore you’d stop at one. It’s pure, guilt-laced, snack-sized fun.

Will it change your life? No. Will it make you question your relationship with idle entertainment? Maybe. Will you click “play” just to see what happens? Absolutely.

And when you do… I’ll be there. In medieval armor. Laughing maniacally. Clicking alongside you.

Because this, my fellow game freaks, is how we rise.

🛡️⚔️ — Rise Game Freaks, still clicking after all these years

[gamertogamedeveloper]

I'm making an aquarium simulator you can resize and place anywhere on your desktop called Peacequarium.

[tenth-sentence]

The basic technological package endured, though with incremental improvements like the watermill, the stirrup, and the moldboard plow.

"Plagues Upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History" - Kyle Harper

[essaywritting12]

How Incremental Plagiarism Can Ruin Your Academic Career and Ways to Prevent It we’ll explore incremental plagiarism in detail, providing practical strategies to recognise and avoid it.