I have been playing Cookie Clicker for over 350 hours. Actually, it has been running for 350 hours, but I have probably only been actively playing it for 10. It sits open in my web browser; I haven't turned off my computer in 350 hours. I have baked three quadrillion cookies and clicked two-hundred eighty golden cookies. I am hooked.
Here is the game. Click a chocolate chip cookie to produce cookies. When you get enough cookies, spend them to hire a grandma to bake cookies for you. Hire more grandmas. Buy farms, factories, mines, shipments of cookies from outer space, alchemy labs (transmute gold into cookies!), portals to other dimensions to steal their cookies, time machines (which look like the one in H.G. Well's The Time Machine) to retrieve cookies before they were eaten, and antimatter condensers (to condense antimatter into cookies, obviously). Upgrade your grandmas and other units of production. Buy new types of cookies which increase production. Buy cursors which automatically click your cookie. Click the cookie yourself, sometimes furiously, sometimes lazily. Click the randomly occurring golden cookies to get bonuses. Click the cookie while skyping your boyfriend, watching TV, calling your mom.
I think the point of the game is to amass amazing amounts of cookies. I say I think because I am constantly bothered by the nagging sensation that there has to be something more. I know there's a lesson about capitalism and greed in here somewhere, but I don't want to confront it. I want to click cookies.
Instead of confronting my qualms about my greed, I laugh at the jokes built into the game. A 'News' feed constantly updates, and as you purchase new things, new News items begin to appear. The News has hinted that I am employing a large undeclared elderly workforce (Guilty, I have 160 Grandmas working for me), extolled the health benefits of cookie fad diets, warned that towns near portals have been known to disappear, reported on cookie purists who shun alchemy-made cookies, and suggested that my cookie factories are contributing to global warming. The Grandmas say disturbing things like 'You could have stopped it' and 'We rise.' The News is entertaining and depressing. My cookies have taken over this fictional world and its Media. I am back to having to deal with my corporate greed and my insatiable need to produce more cookies faster.
Cookie Clicker Clout Games
ARCADE These games are categorized by two specific traits: either to beat the game you don't have to spend a considerable amount of time, or the game doesn't have an end to it and is based purely on score. Welcome to Cookie Clicker 2, the idle and free online game. Click the cookie on the screen to produce cookies. Each time you click, you get a bulk of additional cookies. When your number of cookies increases, you can buy upgrades for the workforce, which will help you get more cookies each period, even you do not click on the cookie. Unblocked games. part of an inside job. Download Cookie Jam app for Android. Match cookies of the same color to clear the board.
I have been playing Cookie Clicker for over 350 hours. Actually, it has been running for 350 hours, but I have probably only been actively playing it for 10. It sits open in my web browser; I haven't turned off my computer in 350 hours. I have baked three quadrillion cookies and clicked two-hundred eighty golden cookies. I am hooked.
Here is the game. Click a chocolate chip cookie to produce cookies. When you get enough cookies, spend them to hire a grandma to bake cookies for you. Hire more grandmas. Buy farms, factories, mines, shipments of cookies from outer space, alchemy labs (transmute gold into cookies!), portals to other dimensions to steal their cookies, time machines (which look like the one in H.G. Well's The Time Machine) to retrieve cookies before they were eaten, and antimatter condensers (to condense antimatter into cookies, obviously). Upgrade your grandmas and other units of production. Buy new types of cookies which increase production. Buy cursors which automatically click your cookie. Click the cookie yourself, sometimes furiously, sometimes lazily. Click the randomly occurring golden cookies to get bonuses. Click the cookie while skyping your boyfriend, watching TV, calling your mom.
I think the point of the game is to amass amazing amounts of cookies. I say I think because I am constantly bothered by the nagging sensation that there has to be something more. I know there's a lesson about capitalism and greed in here somewhere, but I don't want to confront it. I want to click cookies.
Instead of confronting my qualms about my greed, I laugh at the jokes built into the game. A 'News' feed constantly updates, and as you purchase new things, new News items begin to appear. The News has hinted that I am employing a large undeclared elderly workforce (Guilty, I have 160 Grandmas working for me), extolled the health benefits of cookie fad diets, warned that towns near portals have been known to disappear, reported on cookie purists who shun alchemy-made cookies, and suggested that my cookie factories are contributing to global warming. The Grandmas say disturbing things like 'You could have stopped it' and 'We rise.' The News is entertaining and depressing. My cookies have taken over this fictional world and its Media. I am back to having to deal with my corporate greed and my insatiable need to produce more cookies faster.
Cookie Clicker Clout Games
ARCADE These games are categorized by two specific traits: either to beat the game you don't have to spend a considerable amount of time, or the game doesn't have an end to it and is based purely on score. Welcome to Cookie Clicker 2, the idle and free online game. Click the cookie on the screen to produce cookies. Each time you click, you get a bulk of additional cookies. When your number of cookies increases, you can buy upgrades for the workforce, which will help you get more cookies each period, even you do not click on the cookie. Unblocked games. part of an inside job. Download Cookie Jam app for Android. Match cookies of the same color to clear the board.
Even though it is a fictional world, I feel guilty for ruining it. Miners have died in chocolate mine collapses and floods of chocolate have destroyed towns. My factories have been linked to genetic mutations, and I have a kitten work force. In this world, teens have started sniffing chocolate chips and unsettling creatures are emerging from portals. All because I want the number on my screen to keep increasing.
I am trying to achieve all the achievements. That's a goal besides just amassing huge amounts of cookies, I tell myself. Suspiciously, the number of all time golden cookie clicks is always 16 ahead of me. That achievement is unachievable.
My friend who studies psychology told me that I was sucked into the game because there is a perception of low effort for moderate reward. Extremely low effort. My brain thinks that all I have to do is keep my browser open. What actually happens, however, is that I keep the browser open and my eyes on the browser, constantly looking for golden cookies. My roommates have been caught clicking the cookie when I am out of the room. It is not low effort. It is a stress inducing, constantly on alert effort, and it is negatively impacting my ability to function. I cannot even browse Facebook anymore, because I am so distracted by the prospect of golden cookies going unclicked.
Cookie Clicker Clout Games
Orteil, the creator, is a cool guy on the internet. He is indie, meta, talented, and conceptual, and on the internet, those qualities have clout. His earlier game, Nested, is a super-meta 'simulation of everything,' a series of nested folders which contain universes within universes, universes within black holes, worlds without end, atomic structures which lead to alternate multiverses, and intelligent life. The cookieverse, where Cookie Clicker takes place, can be found in Nested if you look hard enough. Conceptual games are his jam. Cookie Clicker is clean and simple conceptually, and the nerd-jokes hidden in the graphics and the captions are rewarding when you find them.
Nerd-jokes can't be the game's only reward. The only other utility I gain is a small feeling of achievement, watching the numbers go up. But what utility do we ever get from games? I seek distraction from my real-life problems and micro-feelings of achievement; that is why I play games. When I have a bad day, I lop off monster heads, pop balloons, and fight wars. In games, the ratio of risk and reward has been drastically altered from the ratio of real life–the risk is almost non-existent (reset to last save point), and the reward is as great as we can make it.
Cookie Clicker's trivial rewards make me question why I continue to play, 350 hours later. The answer, that I am looking for meaningful achievement in a game even though I know it doesn't exist, makes me ashamed. A game that can force me to confront my gaming problem by being as internet gamey as possible–that's brilliant.
