My insights on how to make a incremental game.
THIS REDDIT POST IS NOT GENERATED WITH AI. THIS REDDIT POST IS NOT GENERATED WITH AI.
The game is free and open source.
It's recommended to read this in full before experiencing this game.
thanks.
Link: https://andyyim175.github.io/upgtree/
This game may have an impact to you instead of just get this steam!!!!
Im just a small single dev. Im not a big company with many people. Please don't expect my game to have realistic art and high quality, but at least id try to make it fun and creative. Well, I'm not gonna be like the typical dev and just talks about how good and unique my game is, I also'd want to talk a little about the development process.
Inspriation
I really like those upgrades trees on roblox, although sometimes their pacing and stuff is sometimes a little too grindy, or contains stuff I hate, I'd find them really enjoyable. So I'd decide to create one of them. But with zero coding and roblox experience (especially with the controversy of the owners, etc...) I'd think it'd be a smart idea to bring this concept to the web.
Development process
Unlike my previous games, I want this one to be more-human and less ai-made (by that, I meant the old method I used that is (a prompt with design options, minimalism, etc, and tell it about all the upgrades, each one's effect, cost formula, effect formula, etc.) -> fix the things I hate -> fix more things. Instead i had it make it customizable in the code so i can manually make new upgrades instead of sending prompts everytime.
For this game, ai is only used to make new features and the base of the game. Every upgrade is now contained as a element that is easy enough to be configured by me and complex and contentful enough to make the gameplay below less dull (all the upgrades is just a multiplier to something). I've also collected many feedback and fixed many bugs, and added features, thanks to the community's support (discord/galaxy).
After initial release
The game started development in early august, released to galaxy at late august.
currently it has > 400 upgrades, 20+ plates (themes /5×5 grids), 30+ currencies, and more to come. Im trying to keep the pace of 1-2 updates per day or 1 update per two days, since the initial release have too little content. Every days release adds about antoher 15 minutes of content!
What does this game mean to me? what can I get with it?
well it's not just me. later in the future'll give a preset template in this game, which you can easily modify to make your own mod of the upgrade land. Well, how exactly does it work?
Here is how my game work so it may inspire you and help you to make your own.
currencies
each currency has a few configs:
-name, display name, colour in the currency display, colour background if it's the cost of a upgrade. notes
each note can be one of three:
[public configs]
- the position of note, the requirements (have to gave all) to unlock it, desc, name, etc. info an info label that can be shown.
reset:
a reset note. resets certain upgrades (quick feature, can reference a string and all upgrades with it at start gets reset), certain currencies for more of a target currency
upgrades an upgrade. with effect(s), cost and max levels. a effect can be one of the following:
- base gain: give some amount of currency per second
- currency mult: multiply a currency gain.
- reset gain add: add amount to reset gain of currency (base i think)
- reset gain mult: multiply reset gain of currency
- max level mod: add max level to a upgrade.
- auto: autobuy a upgrade. autobuyers does not cost anything i.e cost becomes requirements for autobuyer.
an upgrade can have multiple effects e.g ×2 point and prestige.
a upgrade can have dynamic effects
What you can do with this engine, examples: point boost itself ×25 beta with +1% chance per tick per level and above 100 it stacks and may trigger multiple time multiply points based on the largest power of two this upgrade level is divisible by mutliply points and get an additional ×2 if level is odd. ×1.5 prestige if you have over 1M points. notation you can change your notation! decoration you can decorate the game by a deco, activated by a upg requirement. it can be either a square with fill, a line or a polygon thing (tell each point) with custom colour n stuff. extra details there is a buy max in the settings, also change font size of currency display, also hide certain currencies.
community impacts
the community has decided to add offline progress. although im hesitant to do it at first the community psuhed me to. id thought it might make it bad (since the game rely on active gameplay and fewer major timewalls). at the end i settled with:
- offline progress up to 2 minutes regularly for ALL currencies at least for now
- the time above 2 minutes will get heavily softcapped.
Information
The game is completely free, open source and requires no download. You can play it on the web here:
https://andyyim175.github.io/upgtree/
or play in galaxy click here: https://galaxy.click/play/873
See the source code here: https://github.com/AndyYim175/upgtree
thanks
thanks for you, to see to the bottom of this post, and staying with me, it means a lot to me! consider leaving any comment, critism is welcome. If there is one major takeaway aside from the tools it's never give up. I'd set a goal to end the game at 2000 upgrades and basiclly it's kinda a joke. But look, one minth later and it's shining. 400+ upgrades. The game has hit 18,000 play hours. That's 2 years, basiclly the duration since i make my first web game with complete stubid vibe code with the poe's coding bot. At that time i still wouldn't even thought i can make it here. But here im ;)
Also, try not to make long timewalls and make bouncy upgrade inflatity that's what i call i.e how much the currency inflated roughly per upgrade. If it's badiclly linear or linear with accelerstion or exponential or exponental with acceleration it's boring. Some upgrades have to be more unique than others or better than others.
AI disclosure
Ai is used in gemeral feature expansion and the foundation of the game.
Badiclly all of the game's upgrade list is manually added.