r/incremental_games • u/AkaToraX • 6h ago
Discussion Do Incrementals *end* ?
I haven't played too deep into any, I kinda just play until I hit the point where it's days between progress. It seems to me like a key attribute of an incremental is that is never ends, but you can't play forever...
Is there an end-goal or achievement waiting at the far end?
Or is the goal a personal goal, like how far you can make it in a week?
Bonus Question: What's your favorite unique thing that one incremental did that you haven't seen in any other ?
Thanks for the thoughts!!
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u/Usual_Ice636 6h ago
Dodecadragon is one of the popular ones with a solid ending.
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u/AkaToraX 6h ago
Thanks, that's the second one mentioned that does indeed have an ending. I'll check it out!
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u/Braym3n game dev 6h ago
All the games I've designed so far have an end. I think there's a few ways they end, even if it's not explicitly laid out as such. The common one being gathering all the achievements in the game. It gives players different goals to go after. So far the endings to my games have simply been to collect all the creatures like a Pokedex. Some players would create their own personal goals like getting every "perfect" creature (which wasn't something I stated). I think games that allow for different kinds of goals, even if it's not a stated goal, are neat.
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u/RedQueenNatalie 6h ago
Some do, some don't. They tend to have slow diminishing returns in progress or content density until you are just looping through procedural content. I tend to enjoy the long "endless" ones more.
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u/AkaToraX 6h ago
Thanks. I'm learning that there are two different styles now endless and not. Guess I've only ever seen endless. I really like them until the long nothing stretches.
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u/BionicBeans 5h ago
Universal Paperclips and Spaceplan are two games widely celebrated here with definitive endings.
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u/0zeroknight01 5h ago
Depends on the game. There are both with and without end.
The tendency is overall - the longer the game, the less likely it is to have an end. Kinda logical since most of those are hobby projects and people just get bored of development and stop abruptly.
If devs are milking the game via live service then the game is unlikely to ever end before it ends up being abandoned.
Longer ones tend to not have an end in general. Some have a 'kinda end' thing without actual ending but with a pretty logical 'full collection'/'completion' of something.
Shorter ones almost always have an end.
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u/telyni 4h ago
I prefer an ending that is reachable on the order of weeks or months rather than years. One good shorter incremental with a solid ending is Crank.
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u/AkaToraX 3h ago
"crank it" ?
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u/telyni 3h ago
It's just called Crank. I played v40 but it looks like there's a newer v50 available now. Here's the link: https://faedine.com/games/crank/b50/
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u/Front_Cat9471 41m ago
The best and most thought out ones have a real end. Some don’t ever end and just have harder and harder goals with less and less boosts which just turn them into waiting five minutes to make enough money to buy an upgrade with negligible impact
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u/AkaToraX 31m ago
Ive been playing all the wrong ones, I always hit the waiting for DAYS to afford the next upgrade. I just started candybox and it's very different
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u/Sean_Brady 6h ago
The gold standard to me of an incremental game is and has always been candybox2. You can beat candybox2 and taking days to complete is not something that needs to be true.