Cookie Clicker

Cookie Clicker is a game about clicking a cookie. You always click the cookie, even when you are not there to click the cookie. The cookie must always be clicked and you must always be clicking it, even when you can’t. Click the cookie to produce cookies to produce more ways to produce more cookies. The more clicks; the more cookies. As your customers consume cookies, the cookies consume everything, until eventually, there is nothing else left in the vast cookie filled universe than cookies. No planets, no people, no space, only cookies. Let’s get into it.

Gameplay

So, this is an idle game. You click on the cookie, which creates more cookies. Click it a few more times and you can buy a cursor that clicks for you. Then more, then you buy some grandmas who can produce more cookies. Then things quickly go off the rails as you increase your cookie clicking empire to a realm that doesn’t make any real sense. You create an economy where its sole purpose is to create more cookies. There is no good or evil, no right or wrong, only cookie production. This is, for all intents and purposes, the entire purpose of the game. Just to strip back the realm of possibility and turn it into a cookie production machine.

It’s a really simple game that isn’t designed for you to actively play. You have it on in the background while you work, sleep or do other things, and the cookie production multiplies exponentially. Once you get closer to the endgame, its better that you make a bit more of an active effort to produce the cookies and make a few important decisions. This game does have points where it still needs you to decide what direction its going in and I found that to be pretty great, wouldn’t be much of a game if I never needed to play it.

Like many idle games like Idle Heroes or Egg, Inc., the game just requires you make a decision every now and again and watch it all come together.

Visuals

The visuals of the game are simple enough. You don’t spend a tremendous amount of time really looking at the user interface, but the one it provides is perfectly serviceable and clearly shows everything that you are able to do. The grandmas are well rendered and the icons are nicely designed, but its important that it be specified; this is mostly an idle game. For chunks of time, you wont even be looking at it. It has a nice aesthetic that ticks on in the background and doesn’t produce too much visual stimuli.

Addictive

Cookie Clicker is one of those games where it becomes incredibly addictive, incredibly quickly. There’s something rewarding about its pacing, something amusing about its design and before you know it, you’ve sunk nearly 1,000 hours into it. That is no exaggeration. This game has mastered the effect it has, and although there is no real danger, it does take up a lot of your time, even without meaning to. Play is recommended only to the strong willed.

Pros

• Great visuals
• Excellent progression
• Brilliant humor

Cons

• Can be a real time consumer