Click

Is this a game? Well, you make cookies by clicking. Sort of.

A few clicks in, you begin to notice that you do not even have to click to make cookies. It was all a lie after all. And yet, you still have to click, to improve the automaton you are destined to create.

A click to buy cursors.
A click to upgrade those cursors.
A click to buy better upgrades so you can make even more cookies.
A click to buy farms, mines, factories, banks, time machines…

Even a click to erase all progress and begin again, stronger than before.

Cookie Clicker is what we now call an incremental game or an idle game (not exactly the same thing). An incremental game is about reaching ever-larger numbers—in this case, baked cookies. An idle game allows this progress to continue even when you are doing absolutely nothing.

But if the numbers keep growing without you doing anything at all, where is the game?

The answer is simple: speed. The need for speed!

It is not about getting bigger numbers; it is about getting them faster. And you cannot do that by simply letting the game play itself. At least not for long.

Phase One: Innocence

At the beginning, you click. You buy upgrades. You click some more, without much thought. It is a fun experiment. Thousands of cookies turn into millions very quickly, and you smile. Your brain lights up (dopamine based on the anticipation, prediction…), releasing the “good chemicals” we always crave.

But this phase does not last.

This is probably where most players stop. Only about 39% of players have obtained at least one of every building. The game stops being cute and starts asking something more of you.

Phase Two: Optimisation

A few casual clicks are no longer enough. Now you have to think. You begin to calculate which building is more efficient, whether it is better to invest in an upgrade or save for something bigger. You experiment with magic, with the pantheon, with the stock market, and, inevitably, with the Garden, the more interesting of all.

You realise something uncomfortable: clicking without thinking is not very different from letting the game idle. But there is another problem: efficiency alone will not save you.

Phase Three: Mastery (or Madness)

Now you must learn the Garden. All the plants. All the mutations. Sugar lumps, those precious resources that appear every 22 hours or so, become vital. You begin to summon magical cookies: Frenzies, multipliers, golden moments of absurd power.

If you are lucky, everything aligns. A frenzy overlaps with another boost, and suddenly you have a few seconds, only a few, where each click is worth hours of passive production.

You click like a demon.
You are not saving time; you are creating it.
You are not making cookies; you are cookies.
You are a god.

And then the grandmas revolt.

Wrinklers appear. They eat your cookies. Disaster.

But wait, because you can kill them. And when you do, they give back even more cookies than they consumed. At this point, the game has abandoned all pretense of logic.

Hours pass. You watch the clock. You wait for the next opportunity. You search the web and discover that the “random” magic outcomes are not random at all. Ascension after ascension, you restart the game, stronger every time.

Phase Four: Completion

Then you look at your achievements. More objectives. An ending, perhaps? Surely, when you get all the achievements, the game must be over. It has to be.

I have played this game for nearly 2,000 hours. It has been running on my computer for years. I need an end.

But there is none. Or rather, there is, but it is unreachable. There is a secret achievement that requires cheating. Cheated cookies taste awful. Some heroes continued anyway. I did not.

In a moment of rage, months ago, I used cheats on another computer when I had lost part my progress. Yesterday, after almost a year, I opened the game again in the original computer.

Every achievement unlocked instantly.

I had defeated Cookie Clicker.

Or maybe it had defeated me.

Phase Five: Despair

Perhaps this is the final phase: looking for another idle incremental game. I need a coockie.