A new genre of video game!
Criteria: runs in a browser using javascript, innocuously easy entry with a steady complexity curve (usually involving some sort of counter that starts at 0), mandatory time sinks, no social or pay to win features.
The best of these surprise the player and keep her just barely constantly doing something.
- Candy Box
- A Dark Room
- Cookie Clicker
- Gold and Gems
- Candy Box 2
- Particle Clicker
- Swarmism
- Egg Inc (phone)
- Spaceplan
- Stone Story RPG
- Universal Paperclips
- To The Cores
An honorable mention, which doesn’t fit the browser criteria, is Little Inferno.
Updates as more good ones are made.
Update circa 2021:
These games have really picked up in popularity with the rise of people playing on their phones. There are many bad ones that are copies of each other with pay to win mechanics, but new great ones are still being made. I forgot over the years to update this post with some highlights, however will try to do so going forward. Back in the day kongregate was where many of these were hosted, but they essentially shut down. As of today the best way to discover these is via a dedicated subreddit.
categories:
- play
tags:
- webgame