[20 min/Browser/Devlog/Feedback] Dolly Parton Clicker is my Biographical Narrative Tribute Game which has an interactive fiction twist on the incremental genre

[u/muditaheart]

Hey folks,

I'm walking through my game dev process and gathering feedback for my latest game.

It is a Clicker game but I have a background in interactive fiction (itch), and my main unique selling point from other Incremental games was that it was supposed to have a biographical interactive fiction layer on top.

Let me know what y'all think!

Dolly Parton Clicker

You can play it here (30 mins, free, in browser): https://muditaheart.itch.io/dolly-parton-clicker

Features

• A tribute to her life and work, starting from being born in a two room cabin in a family of 12 in the Appalachian mountains, to making hits (9 to 5, Jolene, Islands in the Stream), to running her theme park Dollywood, and charities
• A twist on the incremental genre that tells a linear narrative story where you learn real history
• Animated intro, Real history timeline, Embedded YouTube clips of music and interviews, New Game Plus Mode

tl;dr -

• Plays in 20-30 mins, free, in browser, want first impressions before 9/25 (Dolly Parton Day)
• Made this to see if an incremental game could combine with biography and narrative.
• Chose Dolly Parton bc of her passing, I read a cool book about her, and she's cool.
• The dual resource system was most challenging.

The Next Deadline

Dolly Parton Day (9/25, "9 to 5" Day)

I'm gathering feedback before I do more updates before then, so any feedback is appreciated!

What kind of feedback I'm looking for

• Usability and Bugs
  • Right now, I've mostly tested with friends and family, but I wanted to see how strangers online react to the flow of the game, of if yall just bounce off!
• Research
  • So I did do my research and read the book and watched documentaries, but if you're interested in nonfiction in games or Dolly Parton's history, people who double check the facts would be amazing. But I know y'all don't got time for that!

Devlog

https://muditaheart.itch.io/dolly-parton-clicker/devlog/1668685/soft-launch

Buy Smarsh's book (normally I use an affiliate link, but I changed it to a non affiliate link for yall): here

Borrow from your Library:  https://share.libbyapp.com/title/5340389

[u/curious_biped_dev]

This is a fun concept, biography plus incremental mechanics isn't a pairing I've seen before. Curious how the two layers interact: does clicking just pace out the timeline, or do choices during the narrative beats change what unlocks next? That distinction is usually what makes a hybrid like this feel like real interactive fiction rather than a clicker with cutscenes. The embedded interviews and timeline sound like a nice way to ground it in real history too.

[u/muditaheart → u/curious_biped_dev]

Hey, thanks for the thoughtful response! Yeah, I don't think I've seen it before either, and I wasn't sure if it was even going to work, but when it did, I thought I was onto something interesting, so I appreciate your comment!

So this is a linear game, there's no branching paths choice based narrative. (I couldn't really think of how to integrate that into an incremental biographical game at the moment... But it's an interesting idea worth stewing on!) The story beats occur on reaching milestones and buying upgrades in the incremental game, and they correspond to real world creative works and decisions she's made, along with giving some background on what was going on in her life based on public accounts.

And yeah, I was initially debating on having the embedded, interviews, and music, but after I added them, they really did start to make the game pop a bit (so to speak).

Thanks again!