Some thoughts on if incremental games were big when PC gaming first began.

So I was thinking about these new incremental and clicker games. They are such a big fad right now that everyone and their mother is attempting to cash in on the popularity. I have seen some very terrible attempts of people just trying to throw a "click this" game out there fast. I have also been pleasantly surprised by a few who are far better then I thought they would be.

Anyways, to get to my thought for this discussion..

What do you think an incremental game would have been like if it was made for windows 95, or dos?

Had a thought today while I was working on an old style text adventure game about trying to combine those generas together.

What do you guys think a clicker or incremental game would be like back then?

Maybe they did exist in some form back then, what do you guys think?

maybe a combination of an older style text adventure with an incremental/clicker could be a fun new project to look into?

my main purpose for posing this question/idea on here is to get some feedback about what you think of the idea. If you think it could work, if you think its just garbage, etc.

 

I'm thinking text-based, along the lines of A Dark Room, except built for BBS.

 

ah, yeah I have played that before. That would be an interesting idea. thanks for the thought. This might be a silly question but what do you mean by BBS?

 

Bulletin Board System. It was a precursor to the Internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/14/bbs-version-of-google/

 

lol, here I am thinking about mainframes in the 80's, when gaming was zork and rogue.

It may have actually caused some interesting discussion when compared to roguelikes. One side slowly unwinds its mechanics with the other tosses a ton at the player from day one.

The major issue with these games is that they aren't something you devote you're entire attention to. They usually suck when you give them your undivided attention, and that kind of flies in the face of how people played games back then.

 

Don't forget the exorbitant costs of connecting to any form of online service at the time. Not to mention the modems themselves weren't the extremely cheap price they later became.

 

yeah, may not be a good idea. just one i thought would be fun to discuss a bit.

in my head it was something like.. the dos prompt screen telling you the adventure story and giving you the option to hit "W" to walk West "E" for east and so on. Then you could go to an area and "mine" by tapping "m" or something then moving onto the next area and logging or cooking or fishing or whatever skill you want to do.

would end up being like a text based runescape in the dos prompt screen lol

 

that was a tap or hire someone to do your work so the incremental idle play comes in

 

Interesting concept. I've played games since command prompts and amber screens. I didn't encounter idle games to a year or two ago. Not saying they weren't there, but I never saw one.

I suppose we got our fix on watching numbers slowly go up with loading screens. Complex games could take half an hour to load. And you had to watch the number climbing up on the screen, just in case it froze and needed to be restarted.

The idle game is a cultural by product or today's over stimulated generation. It's the product of being exposed to too much awesome graphics and complex gameplay. And you kids thought the glory days of innovation in computers were over.

 

I always thought these click-fest games were more a product of pure psychology of skinner box conditioning... or is that pavlovian conditioning? Basically the same way that a video lottery machine works.

 

I am not really quiet sure how/if something like this would work out, but its something i am going to tinker with a bit ill post any more specific design outlines i come up with to see what you guys think.

 

Would it help to explore the theories? BF Skinner's work explored the power of a scheduled, semi-random, reward cycle to promote adoption of behaviors. Whereas, Pavlov's idea is that once trained (ex with a Skinner Box), the behavior part of the Cue-Behavior-Reward loop is almost skipped, and the brain begins to trigger the reward cycle, at the first sign of the cue.

I think incremental games take their best inspiration from the Mystery Box (ex. what's next?), progression (ex working towards), and the Zeigarnik Effect (incomplete tasks). And of course, as with all games, once the player enjoys those, the retention comes from habits, as in Cue-Behavior-Reward (see Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit).

Gigi

 

jeeze.. now you make me almost feel bad making games that people will play alot potentially.. makes it sound like im brewing my own herioin or something on the computer hoping to make some money off those poor addicted children of the world.. lol

 

Ignorance is bliss? There's a dark side to what we do. And, there's also a bright side. In fact, games take advantage of fundamental truths about our brain - without which, we would probably die. In addition, 'Why Games Work' connects games to Laws of Learning, such as: Exercise, Effect, and Intensity. Or as Dr Who would say, "Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey, Stuff!"

Gigi

 

love the Dr. who refrence

 

Totally. We are selling a product that will give a person little to no real world gain, and that often has addictive nature. We manipulate people into believing a lie. We make that lie as engaging as possible.

On the other hand we provide joy, entertainment and opportunities for social bonding. We push the limits of what technology can do and this has positive effects that flow throughout the world.

It all depends on how you look at it. And you can do this with any industry.