So you want to make an Incremental Game?

Comments · 67

• SC

  @scott-f7u1n · 5 months ago (edited)

  Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the community.

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• TH

  @Theburninbeaver · 5 months ago

  I think a big incremental requirement is no negative/failure states. The most popular incrementals are all about forward progress and dopamine. Moving backwards, losing, or having to start over (without a benefit like a prestige system) does not work in these games. Avoid negatives. If you give something to the player, do not take it away and do not slow down its progress(typically). E.g. you have a timed debuff that you went from 100/second to 50/second. Instead reverse it and the default is 50/s but there is a timed buff of 100/sec. Always think about pushing forward and rewarding the player

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• VA

  @Varii_igtap · 5 months ago

  this is the kind of advice our market needs. Way too many people flocking to this genre seem to think incremental games are just NGU + upgrade tree, when really those two aspects fall flat without support.

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• GE

  @gergotothmihaly2307 · 5 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-JsFaJhs88&amp;t=913">15:13</a> Possessed by Chris (Zukowski) for a few seconds.

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• NO

  @Nowinty · 5 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-JsFaJhs88&amp;t=460">7:40</a> &quot;rubbing up and down so it ends up feeling pretty good&quot; got it

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• IR

  @Ironroc · 5 months ago

  Perfect timing for this one. Thanks!

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• OA

  @OandCoGames · 4 months ago

  I flagged this video to watch later once the dust settled on TetherGeist&apos;s release. Finally got around to watching it, and dude this is some fantastic secret sauce. As always, huge props to you for how transparent and candid you are!

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• BR

  @brokenhdd9291 · 5 months ago

  Something that I wish we could see more of is the process of tuning the games, in particular progression tuning seems really vague. I&apos;d love to see a video on tuning strategies, bucketing player progression over time, etc.

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• MI

  @MINIMAN10000 · 3 months ago (edited)

  Clicking mechanic is something you also have the option of &quot;push and pull&quot; mechanic, there&apos;s nothing wrong with allowing a player to click. Look at Microcivilization, they only allow you to click so much before the game starts punishing you. But because of that you are able to use clicking as a resource that you can spend. Push and pull style growth is a fantastic way to conceptualize how you want a player to play a game. Push and pull is what generates both activity and fun. It changes up what a player is doing and how they do it. You can push and pull what activity they do, how much they do it, just as much as the progression systems. I guess you kinda went into it just after I wrote this, because yes exactly it&apos;s a balance between active and passive. That&apos;s the difference between an incremental and an idle game. I play games because I want to feel like I&apos;m a part of it, I want to feel like I&apos;m actively involved.

• AN

  @angparodi · 5 months ago

  Great tips! Thanks Andy

• JO

  @jordyadan · 5 months ago

  Great vid. I took inspiration from the hovering mechanic from a game about feeding a black hole to make my latest demo, booster pack heroes, and the reception is going well. Now I got to play keep on mining and take some notes...

• AN

  @ANlevant · 5 months ago

  Hey! I got to know your wo-creator on stream today! Nice to see you guys had a lot of success!