Incremental Games
9 games available — play free, no download
Incremental games are the spreadsheet branch of the genre family. Where a clicker asks you to press a button and an idle game asks you to wait, an incremental asks you to optimise a system that resets — and to enjoy the reset.
The defining mechanic is the soft reset: you give up your progress on purpose, and in exchange the next run is permanently faster. Once you internalise that, every big number becomes a resource to spend.
Soft reset vs. hard reset
A soft reset (prestige) keeps a meta-currency and throws away the run. A hard reset throws away everything, including prestige, and is almost always a trap unless the game is explicitly built around it. If you are unsure which one you are about to do, stop and read the confirmation text.
Reading an exponential curve
Incrementals escalate by orders of magnitude, not by percentages. A useful habit is to think in doubling time: how long until my output doubles? When that number starts shrinking, you are in the part of the game that matters.
The three shapes of incremental
Some are idle-first (the machine runs without you), some are manual-first (active play multiplies everything), and some are puzzle-first (the fun is in the build order). Knowing which shape you enjoy saves you from bouncing off a game that is technically excellent but paced for someone else.
