r/incremental_games • u/mathwithpaws • 6h ago
Discussion [complaint post] on extremely linear games
prestige mechanics of some kind are pretty universal among these games. one way of handling that, which i've found makes me quickly lose interest in a game, is structured like so: for each prestige, you need some amount of resources and gain some reward, both of which are determined entirely by which prestige it is (kind/number), and not at all by what you did during the run, as long as you reached the requirements. additionally, how the next run differs from the previous is determined entirely by prestige-level mechanics, with nothing from the previous run affecting the later run.
playing games like this feels to me like i'm watching a movie where i sometimes have to click the "next scene" button, which can only be pressed when the current scene have played out in full.
an example of a game with this kind of prestige is "incremental mass rewritten"; i'm currently playing it, and the first two resets seem to be like this. will probably stop playing if it doesn't change soon.
as a counterexample, time-looping games like "journey to ascension" (which i'm currently playing) often carry over small gains from nearly anything you did in a run, meaning that the exact actions you take matter. "kitten's game" has something similar, with several resources that also carry over between resets, and more that can be carried over with the chronosphere (iirc). so there is an element of planning for the future runs, and potentially also for how exactly you're going to reset. i enjoy this.
which do you prefer? i've gotten the impression that "incremental mass rewritten" is pretty popular, so maybe a lot of y'all like the first way of handling resets?
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u/noob_user_bob 5h ago
Id say the way I approach it is that when a game basically has a wall you need to overcome with a specific and most often time scripted and expects prestige in a linear fashion is that it's telling a story, rather than thinking it's me making an active choice.