So uhh…there was this one time in my history class, and I was sat pretty much in the middle whilst this other kid was sat at the very front. Now this kid had a laptop because his handwriting was awful and the teachers had agreed to give him a laptop so he could write better. Now this kid loved to use the laptop in history, and any chance he got you would bet that he would be doing something that he shouldn’t be on it. It wasn’t anything horrid or crude, it was just what any normal young kid with a laptop would do: either play games, watch YouTube videos or just mess around on Microsoft paint. But this one lesson, we were learning about history in dissection. Personally anything to do with surgery always makes me feel sick and I tried to find any sort of way to distract myself from the lesson this one time. Thankfully the kid who was in front of me with his laptop was playing a game: cookie clicker. The kid slowly worked himself up, he got more and more auto clickers, he increased his building levels and buildings. The more and more he played the more I got mesmerised and eventually I was probably more glued to his screen than he was. Eventually the kid clicked on that I was watching him play the game, and slowly but surely he started flexing his ability. He got even more factory’s, even more auto clickers, and got achievement after achievement. Eventually after it all, he had reached the end. The game asked him if he wanted to ascend and just when he was about to click yes…the lesson had ended. We both got up, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. I’m sure to anyone looking we looked like madmen, but in the end it was probably the funniest thing I’d ever slightly been apart of.

Good time waster, chill music, funny ideas, grannies

Cookie Clicker is not really a game, but more so an interesting case study on how games can tap into humans extrinsic motivation through gameplay mechanics, no matter how repetitive and dull that may be. It's only natural that people will feel some sense of reward to see big numbers go up, even if what they did was not challenging or interesting in the slightest, they just helped the gears turned. While we lament trashy low-effort work like this, the reality is that every game has a form of Cookie Clicker baked into it to exploit that extrinsic motivation we all have, it just does a better job masking that cookie smell.

It's horrible
One little evening alone home
End up with carpal tunnel syndrome
And here I am, known for giving heavy back aches
Grown and living off of Little Debbie snack cakes
Supposed to be checking e-mails
All I got is messages from ass naked females

I don't know a Jenny
She said it's free and I won't owe her a penny
And that's the last time I saw her
But thousands of more horror and on-line Gomorra
And Sodom, they got 'em with they curls out
And they got a better sales pitch than the Girl Scouts
I wonder what I owe her for a whole box of caramel coconut Samoa

Uh, okay honey, sweet dreams
Now it's time to get serious like Peek Freans
A metal handful, wipe it on the quilt
Wife wakes up and I'm kill't over spilled milk
Locked in looking at your picture
Fully clothed winter and I'm right there with ya
Thinking about the last time I split your wishbone
A man could only wish you could do the same till he get home

Fat chance, at least he get snacks
That'd have to do till a brother get back
Untill then smack One-Eyed Jack
And hope one of his peoples can hook him with a tri-pack
That's three different flavors
Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry wafers
Acting all hard, 'bout to get beat up
I'll show him what time it is once I get this sheet up
As soon as he fell off his beat down
All I hear is, "13th cell put the sheet down"

Damn C.O
What the hell do she know?
Besides the fact that she wanna get dug out on the d-low
A workaholic with a fountain in the ink pen
Out in the mountains and I stop drinking again
In the wee hours, he's gotten farther
Needing three showers, being hot and bothered
The wiz with her legs bent pregnant
God bless the day she wondered where her egg went
I need a L but it's hard to drink with out it
And could use some kookies but trying not to think about it
Watching "BET" on jazz for knowledge on file
Every other commercial, college hoes gone wild
Soft batch, I prefer the other bunch
Like we got for lunch, chocolate fudge butter crunch

You don't mess with the Ritz Bitz
Wheat Thins, Saltines or Triscuits
Matzos or Cheez-Its
Catch sugar fits every time that he sees
Chips Ahoy, double chocolate chunk
Something with the bubble and the junk in the trunk
Even the Oreos, no matter what the weather
Always kept 'em dipped in milk and stuck together

In the game he's shameless
Even uses a code name: Famous Amos
Cheaper than a short stay at the Days Inn
And good like 25 cent oatmeal raisin
Give a hand to who invented the camera
Skip past the graham, animal and Grandma's
Shh, make sure she don't wake from her dream chill
Or get caught with a handful of cream fill

-get sucked into an idle game for a few days and check it constantly
-eventually get to the point where you prestige and start over with new benefits
-immediately lose all interest because youre back at the beginning

Many such cases!

Prior to its release on steam, I assumed Cookie Clicker was one of those exploitative Facebook games. In reality, it was a parody game that kind of got out of hand. The $5 Steam pricetag could be considered a sort of one-off donation to the developer, as the web original is still freely accessible and updated in tandem.

Rather than manipulating players into real money transactions, it actually encourages tampering to the extent that there are even achievements for both modding the game and directly manipulating your number of cookies via the javascript console.

With Disgaea 6 and now this, I'm getting more and more interested in games that mimic traditional genres but abstract away smaller repetitive actions and instead emphasize programming, modding, and other kinds of customization.

The numbers must go up.

To my fellow ‘up-numbers’ enthusiasts, if you have not given Cookie Clicker a shot, I am imploring you to obtain this number ascension simulator and try it for yourself. The numbers indeed go up. The journey is simply incredible.

From the first moments of clicking on the giant cookie, creating some of the first chocolately foundations of your cookie empire, you may think to yourself that it’s not complex or very satisfying. But you’ll stick to it. After all, the numbers indeed go up, and that is satisfying.

The longer you leave the game open, the more space it will occupy in your mind. It may start as a funny little program running alongside your work. Then your work becomes the funny little program running alongside your cookie production. What buildings come next? How will my cookie empire expand? What will the news ticker say? How does my uncountable mass of cookies affect the world, the universe, and even the multi-verse? These questions need answers, and all it requires is more cookies.

Your cookies become crops. Your cookies become currency. Stocks. Magic is real and its purpose is to conjure more cookies. Science is also real and its sole purpose is to further the reach of cookies. Will your empire call upon eldritch horrors beyond your comprehension because of the mass of your baked goods empire? Or perhaps from your negligence?

It’s easy to get lost in the micro-games of cookie clicker. Whether you’re breeding plants, attempting to be the wolf of cookie street for mega millions, or creating nigh unfathomable amounts of cookies through downright horrendous combos, the purpose is all the same: We NEED more cookies. Continue to create them. This is a hyper-dimensional threat. Do not stop.

Eventually you’ll feel progress falter. They aren’t being made as fast as they used to be. ASCEND my cookie clicking brethren, ASCEND and rewind time. Take the gains, a hefty percentage increase at base, and upgrades from ascendent cookies. Then begin anew. Create cookies faster. Let no one stop you. Produce more than ever before, faster than you could ever imagine.

The numbers continue to go up. Seconds after late game ascensions can lead you straight into unfathomably huge numbers. What do they even mean anymore. Now that I can’t quantify the volume of them I have become numb to my own success. But the numbers must go up. There must be more cookies. I must game the stocks. I must cross breed the plants. I must… I must…

A year passes and with it comes about 300 of the passive material that generates in real time over 24 or so hours. I am back in the cookie grind. I generate cookies at the beginning of the day and close the shop in the evening. Which is more real? The pain and suffering of life itself, or the god-being chef, ruler of worlds, who can generate sextillions of cookies per second? Who am I really?

I lie awake at night. The grandmatriarchs aren’t pleased. The wrinklers gnaw at my cookies in the edges of my dreams. What further optimizations could be made? What further unholy unions could be contracted to further scale my cookie production into every crumb of the universe? All questions for another day, another time, another ascension… another cookie.

Ultimately Cookie Clicker is the king of numbers going up. The Steam version allowing easy access to mods is also there for those who want their numbers to go up in a different way. But this is truly an excellent way to watch numbers go up, and I don’t know if or when I will ever stop. The cookies are endless. The cookies are forever. Long live Cookie Clicker.

la experiencia inicial, digamos desde que abris el juego hasta que empezas a hacer unos cuantos millones es bastante satisfactoria, es un crecimiento exponencial, pero cuando ya estas haciendo un pijollon de galletitas por segundo, tenes 500 de cada edificio y hay que esperar como 1 semana para upgradear algo por un 1% más, te estancas, y el juego se cae a pedacinhos y me dio paja seguir abriendolo.
No es que sea malo o no tenga nada para hacer ya, osea el juego tiene un sistema de bolsa de acciones que apenas toqué y otras giladas pero no son features de los que soy fanatico la verdad. en algunos aspectos me recuerda al plantas vs zombis, pero a nivel personal digo, jugue PvZ cuando salio y estaba enganchadisimo porque queria descubrir todo lo que el juego tenia para ofrecer y con cookie clicker volvi a sentir lo mismo en algunos momentos, supongo que en su epoca habrá sido una especie de fenomeno en internet o algo asi, seguro que si los pibitos de ahora no estuvieran tan ocupados siendo adoctrinados en tiktok para transformar su cuerpo entero en tokens no fungibles estarian jugando cooky clicer, entienden lo que digo? me explico???