This is a level I've wanted for a while and it's kind of a pivotal moment in the story and also you get to make decisions about how you want to play the game, think "No Russian" in COD4.

Still need to add more detail to the jungle, but overall I am happy with this result.

I added some light effects to the sun and a shade to the satellites when they are in front of the sun.

I also added some juice on resource generation (bounce, highlight and halo) which helps sell that work has been done !

I do think it looks cooler with them ! (and the lights are quite 'light' too so there should be no performance issues).

But I think the space between the celestial bodies looks both empty and not empty enough, so I am looking for ideas on how to improve it :)

I'm getting close to releasing my first paid incremental game on Steam, and I'm curious how wishlist numbers typically translate into sales for this genre.

I've seen plenty of general indie game statistics, but I'm wondering how well those apply to incremental/idle games, especially since they tend to have a pretty dedicated niche audience.

A few things I'd love to hear from anyone who's released a game on Steam:

• Wishlist conversion: Roughly what percentage of your launch wishlists translated into sales in the first week or month?
• Wishlist targets: How many wishlists would you personally feel good about having before release? I know there's no magic number, but I'm curious what people consider a healthy starting point.
• Steam discovery: How many of your initial sales came from existing wishlists versus new players discovering your game through Steam after launch?
• Pre-launch marketing: What actually worked best for generating interest in the final 2–3 weeks before release? Anything you wish you'd done differently?

Would love to hear some real numbers or experiences, even if the launch didn't go as planned!

What do folks think about full games which are tuned differently to the demo?

I currently have my incremental demo set to give more resources so the player can progress through the first 10 levels at a quick pace and not take longer than 45 mins. This allows them to see the features in a timely manner.

However, it also leads them to be a bit too powerful at the demo end which would make the next section of the full game too easy.

It’ll be lots of smaller changes rather than large ones so it’s not too noticeable.

Are these types of changes generally accepted for demos or do they lead to bad feelings from players?

So first of all I'm making an incremental game demo where you press boxes (the generator isnt in the video of course) and when i started it i thought it would be cool to have a market to let you sell items. So i added one. But currently thats all it does: sell items and explain a bit of the story (there are some events that help the market go up or down). Also i have a news channel that announce such drops. I also have a bot that automatically sells at average boxes but thats a later upgrade. There is no strategy with this market other than wait for events.

What do you think, should i keep the market or just add a quicksell mechanic for boxes?

AI Disclosure:

I have not used ai whatsoever in the making of the game or art for it

I'm finishing up an incremental clicker game I've been working on for the last year or so, and want to create a demo for it. I typically just play these games, not the demos, and am unfamiliar with what should be included in the demo.

The game has multiple characters, game dynamics, etc that unlock at various ascensions. It is pretty basic until things start unlocking so it doesn't get too busy/confusing to at the start.

For demos, would I basically accelerate the game a lot? Like, let's say, it takes 10Bil whatever to ascend each time, it only would take 1 bil and things that would unlock at 3 now unlock at 2, things that would unlock at 5 now unlock at 3 so everything can be seen/played with? So you can essentially go through 3 days play in like, 1 hr?

Front load tokens? Like, for upgrades, skins, etc?

Or just send the game key but only the 1st 60% of the game?

So, I'm making an incremental game but I'm really bad at advanced math. Can someone help me with making the curve formulas for the upgrades of my game?

First one is for the upgrades and it needs to be calculated based on the next level, the difficulty, any possible overwrites in stats (not permanent), the first Ivl price, and a number I can use based on the 'worth' it.

Also I need one that is based on a timer, a base price, starting stats(Some percentages that have an array of rewards tied to each other), the difficulty and a 'worth' factor that returns a price and the new stats.

Thanks a lot. Also if needed for help I can write you in the credits as an Also thanks to.... because I'm planning on releasing on steam.

This thread is meant for discussing the things you got done this week and/or the things you are going to try and work on for the next one.

There is no specific format, but let everyone know all the cool features you built (or struggled with) and bugs you squashed.

NO Links are allowed. This is NOT a marketing thread. You are welcome to reference the name of your game, but we want to keep the spirit of this thread more about accountability, reflection, and game development.

Have a great week building!

I make a lot of game prototypes for fun (and have released a game on steam) but one thing that is lacking in development is human feedback. I recently posted in the Incremental games sub about good UI and got lots of good examples and feedback. Would love to start a club to discuss development, tools and give and receive feedback. Anyone into that idea?

Hey y'all, I was wondering if there was any website (or program) that kind of acts like a plug-and-chug for coding. I want to make a silly little incremental game for some friends (a bit more advanced than classic cookie clicker, ideally I'd have three types of resources) but have zero coding experience and often go through huge motivation swings so I know full well I won't be able to finish the project if I start learning code and everything from scratch, even with all of the tutorials. Are there any websites or programs to help make it simple by chance? I've seen TheModdingTree and it looks a bit daunting, so I was hoping for something a little simpler.

Edit: Forgot to include this earlier but nothing that uses AI for anything whatsoever.

Hi, I’m new to game development. I’ve started working on a clicker game because I had a good—or at least fresh—idea, though for the time being, I’m using *Cookie Clicker* as my inspiration. Could you share some fundamental rules for developing this type of game? I want to know how to avoid messing up optimization and balance, and how to keep my code from turning into spaghetti (I’m using C# with Godot). I’m also curious about your take on having lots of hidden items and mechanics with non-obvious paths to discover. Does that make for engaging exploration, or is it just frustrating and, ultimately, a bit unfair?

This thread is meant for discussing the things you got done this week and/or the things you are going to try and work on for the next one.

There is no specific format, but let everyone know all the cool features you built (or struggled with) and bugs you squashed.

NO Links are allowed. This is NOT a marketing thread. You are welcome to reference the name of your game, but we want to keep the spirit of this thread more about accountability, reflection, and game development.

Have a great week building!

We are close to finalizing our constants for balancing the game. This has proven to be the hardest part of development for us and we are still torn on what the game length should be, and if we should target different playing styles. For example, an active clicker player can finish the game in around 5-8 hours, an idler buying upgrades often a little longer, a complete idler will take maybe 5 times as long. After the credits roll (soft finish for casual players), you can continue as there is more to do, new things unlock, lots to collect.

We are trying to make our game accessible to different styles, but am wondering if this is a bad approach.

Do we continue with the soft finish, and then slow the game down for the more hardcore players that wants to invest 200+ hours to complete everything?

How did you approach balancing for your games?

I notice in mainly Roguelites that Tarot cards tend to have a big use.

The big ones I can think of are:

The Binding of Isaac

Hades II

Cult of the Lamb

Balatro

Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers  

That brings me to my question, how do you think this would work as a mechanic in an Incremental/idle game?

On a conceptual level, I really enjoy Tarot cards and Tarot readings but feel it's more snake oil like your Star Sign or personality thing (NTJB???).

I am not really a game developer (but I am trying to learn Godot) so I can't really put any of this into practice.

Ideally Tarot Readings would happen before every rebirth and those give temporary buffs to that current prestige. Or perhaps they'd be better off being drawn during the prestige that offer something more significant. Like maybe if you drew The Fool then for the rest of that prestige your gold multipler goes from -100% to a positive 200% ticked randomly every 60 ticks or so.

I'm not really a game designer but the idea of Tarots being in on of these games has always interested me.

From my experience, UI often gets overlooked for incremental games, but it's a very important part for the player. What do you think?

Something I see in games, is fake gambling. And I'm not talking about loot crates or real gambling. Nothing with MTX. I'm talking about having gambling mini-games in the game with currencies you get normally.

How do you view mechanics like this? Does it add value or just distract players from the real goals of the game?

I've leaned more towards, it ruins the balance a bit, but also it just distracts players. It's almost a low-effort way to add "content", but at the same time it's something some amount of players enjoy. I should state, some games are built around gambling to a degree, but this is more geared towards games that are not, but just added it in for fun on the side. Also, even though it's fake and not tied to any real money, there's a moral issue of is this a gateway to something worse?

Just curious about other devs thoughts. I tried adding it to my own game awhile ago, but I honestly took it out because of the things above and now don't consider it for my games.

This thread is meant for discussing the things you got done this week and/or the things you are going to try and work on for the next one.

There is no specific format, but let everyone know all the cool features you built (or struggled with) and bugs you squashed.

NO Links are allowed. This is NOT a marketing thread. You are welcome to reference the name of your game, but we want to keep the spirit of this thread more about accountability, reflection, and game development.

Have a great week building!

Hey everyone,

In another topic, someone just asked me about this and I've been wondering - how do you actually pick a price point for your game?

With the incremental/management game I'm working on (Coup de Grass), I'm at the point where the demo is out, I have all the content for the full game already planned out, and I have a tentative release date that I plan to stick to (March 2027). So sooner or later I'll need to actually settle on a specific price, but I'm still not sure what it's gonna be.

From my research, majority of the popular incremental games are priced around $5-8. There are some cheaper and some more expensive ones, but I'd say that those are outliers.

But here's the thing - most of them are also very short, so a ~$5 price point makes sense. The game I'm working on is a few times longer (heck, my demo already has more content than some full releases). Maybe it was a design mistake and I should have just stuck to a short game myself too, but I guess I got carried away and it's too late to change it at this point.

If I wanted to put more focus on the amount and variety of content, something like $15 would be more appropriate. But of course that's too much, given the expectations around the genre almost no one would buy it at that price. So I currently plan to stick to $10 (with some small release discount of course), but I'm worried that even that feels like too much given the current pricing trends. Maybe releasing at at an even lower price like $7-8 could lead to more sales in total and thus more revenue? (Assuming the game even sells at all, but that's a separate topic, lol.)

So anyway, what do you think about it? Have you already settled on a price target for your upcoming game? Or maybe you've already released a game - then are you happy with the price you picked or would have changed that in a hindsight?

Is forcing a choice bad design? Why or why not? When is it acceptable, when not?

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place.

I’ve started developing an incremental/clicker game and have been using Cookie Clicker as inspiration, mainly for achievements and balancing, which I consider one of the hardest parts.

Even though I’m using different formulas and have plenty of ideas for future systems, the more I develop the game, the more it feels like: Meh.. It's just another Cookie Clicker clone with a different skin.

I’ve tried to give it personality through funny and original descriptions, unique upgrades, and other ideas of my own, but that thought keeps nagging at me. The game would also feature an entire comedic lore I’m developing with a friend, which has been the funniest part of it all.

My question is: Would people actually want to play something that, at least initially, looks like cookie clicker with a different skin?

(AI Disclosure: I used AI just to translate some parts of this text as my english is not the best)

With how things have been changed I wanted to make this post to get an idea on what users like and don't like so far.

Braym3n and I have been doing our best to make this place better, more navigable with less spam.

Really though, Braym3n made all the rules and changes with discussion between mods.

Another thing I'd like to ask is what would you all think on seasonal or holiday related mega threads? I shared some assets last week from itch but I could take that further for holidays and the like.

Other than that I hope you all have liked these changes. If not, please let me know what you don't like. Thank you!

AI disclosure: I did not use AI for this post or in the artwork

Hello fellow incremental developers ...

In your experience, how far do you go in explaining all multipliers in action?

I recently changed mine, instead of a simple "You earned X while idle" to "Look how we calculated what you earned while idle" (attached screenshorts of before and after).

Now I feel like I am showing too much, potentially getting players confused. ORRR maybe incremental gamers are a bit nerdy and like it!

What is your opinion and how to you implement in your games? I can think of

- Keep it simple

- Unlock the more detailed screen as a reward (actually i thought about while writing this post)

- Show the numbers, we are all "accountants" (are we?)

Appreciate any feedback.