pages/assets/garden_guide-to-incrementals_appeal-to-players_index.md.BtS-sAfk.js

import{d as i}from"./chunks/git.data.pqelWCHe.js";import{u as n,c as o,j as e,a as s,k as t,a5 as r,o as l}from"./chunks/framework.BIC8H_hJ.js";const h=e("h1",{class:"p-name"},"Guide to Incrementals/Appeal to Players",-1),m=["innerHTML"],g=r('<hr><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&#39;d argue would be necessary for a fully contextualized answer. I recently watched a video about Vampire Survivors, which has since been taken down due to drawing negative attention, which made me think about some interesting arguments about what games <em>are</em>, and what makes them <em>good</em>. The video&#39;s argument that &quot;Vampire Survivors is not a video game&quot; mirrors a claim by the developer of Cookie Clicker that his games are <a href="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">&quot;non-games&quot;</a>. Using Vampire Survivors and the video made on it as a framework, I&#39;ll be answering why incremental games appeal to players. Since the video has been taken down, I&#39;ll do my best to contextualize and generalize the arguments of the video without requiring the reader to watch it. For what it&#39;s worth, while I disagreed with the video I actually liked a lot of the way it went about thinking about games, and I consider this a continuation of that discussion.</p><h2 id="numbers-going-up" tabindex="-1">Numbers Going Up <a class="header-anchor" href="#numbers-going-up" aria-label="Permalink to &quot;Numbers Going Up&quot;">​</a></h2><p>This is a very common response to why people enjoy incremental games, although it&#39;s not one I find compels me personally, and I suspect it might be a stand-in for <a href="/garden/guide-to-incrementals/appeal-to-players/#665ceed1-704e-4cd0-8263-9a1756b09f4a">progression</a>) or <a href="/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&#39;t going to feel as satisfying as going from 1e10 to 1e100, and in any case, I don&#39;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&#39;ve earned your way here that is enjoyable.</p><p><span id="665ceed1-704e-4cd0-8263-9a1756b09f4a"><h2>Progression</h2></span></p><p>Vampire Survivors can be argued to have a comparatively low depth to its combat compared to many other games. I&#39;d argue it has <em>sufficient</em> depth and more than someone might expect who has only played the game for a short while, but it still definitely gets beat out by many other combat-focused games. Instead, a lot of the progression in Vampire Survivors comes from a meta-progression system by which base stats are increased by spending a currency that persists between runs. While it is technically possible to win without this meta-progression system, and indeed in many roguelikes players like to challenge themselves by beating the game without any meta-progression, the criticism can be made that meta-progression de-emphasizes player skill by making it less important to have to beat the game. Certainly, in incremental games, it is often literally impossible to complete a game without taking advantage of the meta-progression systems. I&#39;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&#39;s n