. Last tended to <ahref='https://code.incremental.social/thepaperpilot/pages/commit/557c67175ae0470a075bfcfc6f5fa325ea94615a'title='Sun Nov 24 01:36:02 2024 -0600'><timeclass='dt-updated'datetime='Sun Nov 24 01:36:02 2024 -0600'>2024-11-24</time></a>
.</span></p><hr><details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><ahref="/garden/incremental-social/index.md">Incremental Social</a><ahref="/garden/kronos/index.md">Kronos</a></details><p>This is something that has been discussed and analyzed by many people, and to some extent, I feel like everything that can be said on the topic already has. However, a lot of these analyses are from the perspective of those with not as much experience and involvement within the genre as I'd argue would be necessary for a fully contextualized answer. I'm interested in ludology and part of that includes interpreting games as art, and to that end what constitutes a game, let alone a "good game". Incremental games are oft criticized, unfairly in my biased opinion, of not even constituting games, such as was posited by <ahref="https://www.polygon.com/2013/9/30/4786780/the-cult-of-the-cookie-clicker-when-is-a-game-not-a-game"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">this polygon article</a>.</p><h2id="numbers-going-up"tabindex="-1">Numbers Going Up <aclass="header-anchor"href="#numbers-going-up"aria-label="Permalink to "Numbers Going Up""></a></h2><p>This is a very common response to why people enjoy incremental games, although it's not one I find compels me personally, and I suspect it might be a stand-in for <ahref="/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/#665ceed1-704e-4cd0-8263-9a1756b09f4a">progression</a>) or <ahref="/garden/guide-to-incrementals/what-is-content/">Guide to Incrementals/What is Content?</a>. But reportedly, some people do just like <em>seeing</em> big numbers. I must reiterate I suspect the actual cause is seeing big numbers <em>in context</em> though - if you start at 1e1000 of a currency and get to 1e1001, that isn't going to feel as satisfying as going from 1e10 to 1e100, and in any case, I don't think a button that just adds a zero to your number will feel quite satisfying - I believe its the sense of having made progress, and comparing where you are to where you started and feeling like you've earned your way here that is enjoyable.</p><p><spanid="665ceed1-704e-4cd0-8263-9a1756b09f4a"><h2>Progression</h2></span></p><p>I think a strong sense of progression is seen as very enjoyable to many players of all sorts of genres - engine builder board games, RPGs, rogue_lites_, etc. Incremental games tend to have an extremely exaggerated sense of progression, which makes them very appealing.</p><p>Meta-progression is when games have some sort of progression that persists when other progress gets lost - for example, upgrades that persist between runs of a roguelite game. These are common mechanics in incremental games - in fact, its not uncommon to have multiple of these reset mechanics nested on top of each other, each with their own meta-progression. These are satisfying to players, although they can be a bit controversial. These mechanics can often be seen as an optional crutch, and in roguelite games, players often challenge themselves to win without any meta progression. Essentially these challenges argue that meta-progression de-emphasizes player skill by replacing it with time served. Incremental games, through their exaggerated progression, eschew that possibility though - they make it impossible to beat without the meta progression systems, as the meta-progression becomes an entire chapter of the gameplay. I'd argue this does not detract from the game, however, and is actually a part of what makes incremental games, and roguelikes, enjoyable to many players: meta-progression <em>augments</em> the increases in skill the player is naturally gaining as they play. In effect, it's not <em>replacing</em> the skill increase, but <em>exaggerating</em> it to make it feel more real to the player.</p><h2id="effortlessness"tabindex="-1">Effortlessness <aclass="header-anchor"href="#effortlessness"aria-label="Permalink to "Effortlessness""></a></h2><p>Incremental games are so easy, a lot of them even have you progress while you're not playing! Part of
