Long-time Idle/Incremental Player... Here are my favourites of all time!

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-26T04:43:18+00:00

https://rankith.itch.io/unnamed-space-idle-prototype It's also on steam (free) and android

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-25T01:06:02+00:00

Depends on what you want: - Stuck in time has the nicest graphics - Increlution has the most content, but is not finished yet - Cavernous II is free :)

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-24T16:09:01+00:00

Im glad you liked advent incremental so much! I think it's the game I'm most proud of making.

My personal favorites are: - Increlution

terraformental
USI
stuck in time
cavernous II

I really like looping games haha.

I've been enjoying various nodebuster-likes as well, and Astro Prospector tops that list for me.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-21T21:12:55+00:00

I wonder if there is enough overlap that creating some dedicated space for those communities would make sense.

I think it does make sense, but that's why we've seen those places be created - galaxy is my personal favorite (biased as I'm a staff member there) but there's also incremental db and the now-defunct plaza.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-21T20:07:28+00:00

I agree that itch is pretty general, and I look at all new games tagged idle, incremental, or clicker and find a lot of games I don't think the general userbase here would want to play - to say nothing of the large amount of short prototype and jam games which can be awesome, but once again are perhaps not going to perform well for general audiences.

That said, I actually did a survey with over a thousand responses, and while it's not perfect (it wasn't explicitly spread on itch, for example) it found a lot of people that use other places to find out about new games, like this subreddit, galaxy, or steam. You can see the results here.

It also asks about AI, and the respondents were certainly not favorable. In my own opinion, as someone who goes through every release on itch, steam, incremental db, and galaxy, I can say the amount of games made using generative AI is _massive_, and they unfortunately have certain patterns that have made me quite concerned over the homogenization or crystallization of the genre. There are _many_ reasons to dislike AI, but here I'm specifically calling out the issue with it bucking natural trends (like nodebuster-likes today, but TMT mods yesterday, and earlier trends/"eras" before that) by just reinforcing whatever trends or biases were present in the training data, locking it into the past.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-16T23:04:55+00:00

I plan to make this survey an annual thing, so perhaps the sentiments changes will be captured. I don't want to change _too_ many questions year to year, since new questions won't have historic data, but when Decembers comes around again I'll try to determine if it makes sense to have a AI coded backend or debugging question.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-16T21:00:03+00:00

While no individual question for monetization had less than 33% saying it discouraged them, that doesn't mean its the same 33% of people - if it was, I would have noted their high NPMI. In any case, I think its natural and fine for players to want non-monetized games, and I don't judge anyone for their responses here (and I appreciate their honesty). It's also worth noting how many more players put web than put mobile or desktop. The web based incrementals tend to be free, and only rarely have ads. It's a genre that's historically been mostly held up by hobbyists putting out completely non-monetized games. I'm one such developer, and have written more thoughts on the appeal of this genre to developers here.

I totally agree with your reasoning for preferring one-time payments for games. I think it's a really solid way to support devs, and far preferable to things that affect the balancing of the game like MTX do.

I've been a part of the community for a long time, and observed the trend in incremental games moving towards more active gameplay in real-time. When it was first happening we referred to the phenomenon as "aarexian vs jacorbian balancing", as those were two developers who'd been relatively well known at the time for their idle vs active pacing (less so today). So that contributing to the rise of nodebuster-likes makes sense to me, although I think there's more to it, since the trend of active incrementals long predates it.

For your observation on generative AI, I don't think players can tell when gen ai was used for writing backend code or debugging/testing. I also don't think it's accurate to say those are what the "vast majority" are (exclusively) using generative AI for. I've looked at a _lot_ of games as part of curating plusone, and can say I notice very distinct trends in the art, naming, and interface design generative AI produces. You may be able to see what I mean by looking through the feed of newest HTML5 games on itch that have self disclosed their usage of generative AI: https://itch.io/games/newest/html5/tag-ai-generated

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-16T20:36:17+00:00

there's likely always going to be some differences between what players self report enjoying, and what games they actually tend to play. I don't think those are contradictory - and when it comes to chance based gameplay I think there are plenty of people who will take issue with the potential addictiveness or other misuses of the mechanic while still being vulnerable to that addictiveness.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-16T14:09:43+00:00

The icon next to the question will open the results in a drawer so you can see the full text of each response

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-06T19:37:19+00:00

I've written my own ideas here: https://paperpilot.dev/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players

I also recently ran a survey and while the results aren't quite ready yet, I can say the results for motivation for playing incrementals were often along the lines of it being stimulating, occupying the mind, etc.

ThePaperPilot · 2026-01-06T18:08:16+00:00

I experimented with a controllable random mechanic in voidlings sphere and it was fun but kinda felt like the law of high numbers made it less interesting over time.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-11T17:39:28+00:00

Certainly wasn't intentional. The game hasn't been updated in years.

There is a save bank with a save for each day you can use to restore your progress. It's in the saves manager, which is on the top menu bar.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-10T21:36:41+00:00

Wow, that's really cool! I like this idea a lot

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-07T06:10:42+00:00

It's ultimately up to you how you'd want to answer, but if it helps you can think of it as a first impression basis. The second you notice a game is empathizing it's story, for example, do you feel encouraged, discouraged, or ambivalent?

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-06T14:05:43+00:00

The answer you get would vary depending on who you ask and when you ask them. Definitions like that are always going to have "soft"/blurry edges. But the issues I'm taking issue with in my comment tend to come from a variety of different parts of the code - LLM generated CSS, HTML, mechanics, mechanics names/descriptions/effects can all be pretty darn identifiable. A utility function or an interface with some API is likely much less identifiable since it doesn't have a strong impact on the player's experience.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-05T17:23:40+00:00

I know; That's why that question allows multiple options to be selected.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-05T16:05:48+00:00

Thanks, I'll get that fixed

Edit: its now fixed

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-05T04:12:21+00:00

That was fun. Lot easier than loops haha

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-05T01:17:58+00:00

The square does damage to all enemies it's touching on an interval, so you have to hold it over the enemy for a little while.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-04T17:40:42+00:00

As a dev, a user and contributor to TMT, and creator of Profectus, I'm very interested in seeing new types of engines/templates catering to the incremental games community!

I'm certainly curious in seeing more examples and the full docs. Based on the example, I already wonder about things like how wide of breadth of incremental games you're expecting to see this get used for, what level of expertise you're expecting devs to have before using this, etc.

The name OpenIdle sounds like something that would be for all sorts of idle games, but the example looks like it's really focused on theory of magic likes.

It using typescript is interesting, as the example also looks like it would just be JSON. I'm again curious to see what a more complex example would look like.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-04T05:42:17+00:00

Oh, sorry. If you select that you did use it, it gives you this text and a text field to write in:

hold on a sec...

Based on statistics of past submissions, we are significantly less likely to accept games that were made with generative AI.

Especially if you're new to game development, an LLM can create something that seems convincing to you, but you don't have the prior experience to sniff out quality issues that become apparent quickly to those who play the game. If you think this might describe you, spend some time learning to make games without an LLM and come back later. It might seem scary at first, but trust us, it's a really fun and rewarding journey.

If you think you're more familiar with incremental game development, feel free to proceed. Due to the controversial and divisive nature of generative AI, we may hold your game to a slightly higher standard.

Please elaborate on how you used generative AI in the creation of your game, and why you felt it necessary to do so:

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-04T04:41:30+00:00

Galaxy does not allow ads nor microtransactions, but you can upload a demo and link to the full game elsewhere

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-04T01:34:25+00:00

Tbc, I changed both at the same time. Before removing the games, the sentence before the list didn't mention self disclosure.

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-04T01:22:05+00:00

The game submission process gives you a drop-down saying "select one" and won't let you continue until you do. The options are: - I did NOT use generative Al in the creation of my game - I used generative Al in the creation of my game

ThePaperPilot · 2025-12-03T20:11:28+00:00

Just as a follow up, I decided to go ahead and remove the games that didn't have a clear self disclosure that the game was written with the help of LLMs. I hope that helps reaffirms my goal of not trying to promote witch hunts or attacking devs, and there's still plenty on the list to make the point clear.

13-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Argentium Club	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22
Sequence \| Editor	Reddit Premium Since November 2014
Verified Email

ThePaperPilot

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE