Idle games remain one of the more obscure gaming genres, but our love for potato happy SPACEPLAN (2017) continues to know no cosmic bounds. But we can now see where it found its inspirations.
French games dev Julien “Orteil” Thiennot created Cookie Clicker for JavaScript in 2013. It’s an absurd and addictive marvel with one goal—make as many trillions of cookies as humanly possible. Up to it!? Well, huzzah!
Just to note, too, we got our copy on Steam. But you can play it for free online right now! Head over to Oretil’s Cookie Clicker site to get started.
Make Trillions of Snacks (Whilst Destroying the World) in Cookie Clicker
The point of idle games is to generate vast amounts of stuff and then, sort of, abandon the game for long periods of time while the stuff keeps automatically generating.
In SPACEPLAN, you have to generate energy to deploy potatoes after a misunderstanding of one of Stephen Hawking’s physics theories.
In Cookie Clicker, you must farm cookies! Trillions of them. Seriously, there’s a lot of the damn things. Probably best to not play the game on an empty stomach. There’s something stunningly addictive for us to force those numbers ever higher. That’s why we added SPACEPLAN to our best video games for autistic adults guide. It’s totally immersive and appealing.
All to the tune of this ever-evolving elevator music meets cosmic whirlwind score (as composed by Daniel “C418” Rosenfield, who was in his early 20s at the time).
The thing about idle games is the level of complexity talented developers can get out of a simple seeming concept.
This one is mad. Its concept is brilliant, in part as it requires the player to imagine the world you’ve created due to your snack-based business. Your screen setup is minimalistic and you must click the cookie to make more of them and then sell them to the public. The more you have, the more your need for resources to manage this influx of the foodstuff.
So you hire unpaid grandma workers (thousands of them) to bake more. Your cookie business explodes in popularity, so:
- You build farms to farm cookies.
- Mines to mine them.
- Your business empire conquers Earth and you must build temples for human citizens to worship your produce.
- You must also bring in shipments from space to slake the desire for human cookie requirements.
- Bend time and space to transport the stuff in from the past and future.
This all handily builds towards a grand scale finale that’s truly mental (hint—the grandmas get angry because of their slave labour).
Idle games are oddly relaxing and enthralling. We also found this one’s concept highly amusing in a dark, dark kind of way. What’s more is we soon unearthed the community around this title, deeper philosophical discussions about the game’s meaning, and a deep dive into the Grandmapocalypse.
The Hidden Horrors of the Cookie Clicker Experience
The above excellent video from Alt Shift X highlights the berserk nature of the game. You can view it in many ways, but the critique of mass production capitalism seems clear (although maybe we’re biased).
A monopoly taking over the Earth, to the extent a scientist explains if humans stop eating cookies there’ll be an extinction event (all whilst a global obesity epidemic explodes), and we have to head to other planets to mine them for resources?
Yeah, we can see a small critique of capitalism amongst that concept.
In fact, journalist Roisin Kiberd argues the game is a parable for how capitalism will destroy itself. Simply as THERE JUST NEVER IS ENOUGH GROWTH. There always must be more! And no one can ever be satisfied with a trillion cookies when you can have a trillion and one.
Whilst the game is ramped up into absurdity mode, the long-term implications of demented cookie creation (at one point we were creating 2.547 million of them per second) are on a Universe-wide level. There never is enough:
- Success
- Productivity
- Achievement
In the end, you end up whirling around the Universe endlessly forcing type II diabetes onto the population and all with no real reason behind it. Just… sweet biscuits. Because that is the way it has always been.
Of course, until the dystopian element of the narrative arrives.
The, aforementioned, Grandmapocalypse is what the game builds towards. These unpaid slaves gradually mutate and fester, eventually forming a kind of mass unit that overthrows existence.
Notes on the Grandmapocalypse
Many players hesitate before kicking this thing off. There’s an entire community wiki page for the Grandmapocalypse, should you so wish to read it. The page details there are three stages to the process:
- Purchase the One Mind to begin the disaster
- Follow research upgrades to buy the Communal Brainsweep.
- Buy the Elder Pact.
Once you have step three complete, warning messages appear and mayhem awaits. Hurray! And there are varying degrees of how angry grandmas become. Behold!
If you’re never going to play this game and just want to see this in action, then here’s the walkthrough below.
Post-Grandmapocalypse and the game takes on a hellish, blood red environment.
Despite the horror of the whole scenario playing out, it doesn’t mean the end of your game. In fact, it can begin a new era of biscuit-based snack business. It’s also a driving force of the game, ensuring there’s a demented kind of finale to play for to round off a million or so mouse clicks.
Cookie Clicking Verdict!
Okay, our ranting about the game’s wider themes aside, here you’ve got another very addictive clicker that really set new ground for the genre.
They’ve not exactly been many other clickers since then…
The idle game genre is never going to dwarf stuff like GTA 6. However, if you’re intrigued and dip your toe into this world you’ll find hyper addictive games that are very rewarding indeed.
SPACEPLAN may still be our preferred title. It’s more polished, concise, and the soundtrack is just bloody outstanding.
But considering Cookie Clicker is 12 years old now, still packs an addictive punch, and had us laughing and in awe at the ridiculousness of its concept… well, that’s a winner.
We also really do think this concept should be made into a film! It’d be immense. Especially the Grandmapocalypse bit. If you’re a billionaire reading this, you know what to do! Fund our script!!
Erm… Mr. Billionaire, where are you going!?
Oh bloody hell, they’ve gone and started a mass produced cookie company. We’re doomed, I tells ya! Doomed!!
