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Welcome to !
This wiki is meant to be a central location for all the resources, guides and games related to the incremental games community. Hopefully, overtime it will be the main site to find guides for your favourite games!

Incremental games, also known as a clicker/clicking game (PC), tap game (mobile) as well as the subgenre idle game (PC/mobile), are video games whose core mechanic is clicking/tapping on the screen to accomplish simple tasks and/or earn in game currency. Idling/grinding is also one of the other ways a player earns said in game currency, which may be used to purchase levels, upgrades, unlocking new content and anything else that increases the rate at which this currency is earned. Some games also offer automation as part of their core game (idle game) or as a mechanic that is unlocked later in the game, rendering clicking/tapping obsolete.

History
According to Anthony Pecorella, a speaker at the GDC summit, [1] the origins of idle games can be traced back to Progress Quest (2002) by Eric Fredriksen. Progress Quest cleverly parodies the stats and auto-attack mechanics of MMORPGs. Pecorella suggests that Kongregate, a popular gaming platform, played a significant role in nurturing the genre. One of the earliest examples was Kongregate Chat (July 24, 2007) by John Cooney, [2] where the game practically ran itself while players engaged in chat discussions.

In addition to these pioneering titles, there were also games that parodied the idle game genre itself. Anti-Idle (2009, by tukkun) [1] incorporated both active and idle gameplay elements, offering a complex and content-rich experience that received regular updates, thus contributing to the genre's popularity. Cow Clicker (2010, by Ian Bogost), an idle game on the Facebook platform, gained mainstream media attention. According to the creator, it was "a satire and playable theory of social games circa that era, ... Facebook games distilled to their essence.", and was the first to receive mainstream media attention. [3] AdVenture Capitalist (2015, by Cody Vigue / Hyper Hippo Games), another parody of idle games and capitalism, achieved success as a browser game and later expanded to multiple platforms. It was one of the first games to introduce monetization and offline earning mechanics, which allowed players to make progress even when the game was not actively open in their browser.

While many idle games are known for their infinite nature, some deviate from this formula and incorporate finite endings, offering puzzle-like and exploration-based experiences. Examples include A Dark Room (2013, by Doublespeak Games) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candy_Box! Candy Box!] (2013, by aniwey).

The popularity of incremental games soared in 2013 following the success of Cookie Clicker, [4] although earlier games like Cow Clicker and Candy Box! were based on similar principles. Make It Rain (2014, by Space Inch) marked the first significant mobile idle game success, although its idle elements were limited, requiring check-ins for progression. [1] In 2015, the Steam platform witnessed a proliferation of such games, with titles like Clicker Heroes (2014, by Playsaurus) gaining attention from the gaming press. [5]

Other notable classic idle games include Sandcastle Builder (2013, by Eternal Density), [6] inspired by the xkcd comic 1190: Time, Sharky Clicker (2014, by Cirr), [7] Crank (by FaeDine), [8] and Kittens Game (2014, by Bloodrizer). [9]

As the genre evolved, monetization methods such as advertisements and premium content, along with additional game mechanics, gradually found their way into idle games.

Rough plan
Alright, to be perfectly honest, I am by no means an expert with wiki management, so help will be greatly appreciated. The plan is to first create a massive list of incremental games as a category. Each game should be big enough within the community to have at least one wiki page created after it. Ideally, each game should also have a guide but that's probably not applicable for every game. If a game is particular large and/or has quite a few mods (such as antimatter dimensions) it will be best to create them as a category. I imagine a lot of this will just be copy/pasting from discord and google docs.

As well as having information for the games, it will also be nice to have information for the history of the genre, common mechanics, developers and perhaps even some coding tutorials.

Note that the incremental games list should only contain vanilla games. If it is a mod, it should belong to a category associated with the vanilla game.

Also, I'm thinking of having pages about creators where it just dumps all the social media associated with them. What I'll say is that it's probably best to get consent from the creator before you make the page. (And yes, until I can think of anything better, this will be some kind of public noticeboard).

Links

 * Incrementaldb, a source of incremental games
 * The subreddit
 * The plaza, another source of incremental games
 * The discord server
 * The main list of incremental games
 * Ultimate List of Incremental Games found on r/incremental_games (list is updated periodically)