By the nature of incremental games, you’re looking at games that move at a lot slower pace. These games are most notably clickers and upgrading games. Upfront, you’ll do a lot more clicking, but as you get more upgrades, it’ll slowly automate with little intervention.
Usually, these games keep things fresh by having you lose your progress and start back at zero with an incentive of being able to build yourself back up quicker. After some time, you’ll be able to restart your progress and quickly get back to where you were and push past the point where you were plateauing.
Honestly, this game type is fairly old at this point. Clickers were a popular browser-based game genre, and we saw a ton of them hit the web. Most of you may remember playing Cookie Clicker when it first came out back in 2013. I can happily report that it has been ported to Steam and is included in this list with some improvements.
As for the list itself, I feel like these three games represent three very different types of incremental games. One of them is a tried and true that relies on the slower progress, one branches out into several different frames of incremental upgrading to keep things fresh, and the last is for those who don’t want to wait around with a sped up version to completion.
3 incremental games that you can try for free!
Cookie Clicker
Cookie Clicker is tried and true. Most of us have probably been forged in the flames of this cookie hellscape. It started as a browser game, but has since been added to the Steam library. I find this one to be the slowest of this list, and it will require you to have more patience. Back in ye olden times, it was pretty straightforward, but now there are a few new bells and whistles that feel a bit intimidating, but the nostalgia is strong with this one. The Steam version is $5 and has 637 achievements to earn. However, you can still play the browser version for free. Steam | Browser
Cell to Singularity
Cell to Singularity is a bit older, and you may know it already. But if you’re not familiar, you’re in for a treat. This is probably my favorite clicker because there are 4 different versions to play. You have your main simulation where you build things up, but you have a dinosaur simulation, a space simulation, and revolving simulations that change out every 3 days. Each of these versions is independent of the other and plays slightly differently. So, if you’re stalled in one area, jump over to a different one! If you’re on the fence about trying these types of games, start here!
Steam | Browser
Lhama Clicker: Prologue
Lhama Clicker: Prologue is adorable and the barest of bones. It’s incremental and has the option to reset progress, but you really won’t need it. You can get all of the achievements in one playthrough. This makes it perfect for someone who wants to play and win in one sitting, introduce kids to the game type, or wants an easy way to nab Steam achievements. It’s charming, silly, and a great way to spend an hour. Since this is a “prologue”, it seems like a bigger version is coming, but it’s not out just yet. Happily, while looking into it, I learned this started as a browser game too! So, if you want to see what the full steam version will be like, it’ll likely be very similar to the browser version.
Steam | Browser
I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize that all of these games had browser versions until I started to work on each entry. Personally, this just further supports the idea that these are foundations of early oughts gaming. They’re simple, but so satisfying to build up, and they’re the perfect games to slow down with.
You can technically binge-play them, but it’s kind of hard to do. I find they’re best just up and running in the background and checking in on them whenever you remember they exist.
I’d recommend playing them all on Steam over the browser games because you’re guaranteed to have your progress saved and will be rewarded with Steam achievements. However, Cookie Clicker doesn’t have a free Steam version, so if you’re not looking to spend money, you’ll have to make do with the browser.
Honestly, you’ll enjoy that just as much. I spent many, many hours on the browser version, and you can cheat that one… Just sayin’.
If none of these games tickle your fancy, you may find some titles that you’re interested in from our other lists. Two of our latest lists are games where you work with plants and games where you work with 4/20 plants.
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