Cookie Clicker Internal Economy Mechanic Deconstruction

Over the past fews weeks I have been working on a simple project. At the moment it is an experimental idle game. Again it is just an experiment and I will be developing it over the next few weeks in order to refine it.

I will start off with a simple deconstruction of the main cookie clicker mechanics and the internal economy. At a later date I will deconstruct it in more depth.

Main Idea:

The main idea is that I would like to experiment more with internal economies. I will deconstruct the mechanics of 'Cookie clicker'. The player has a gigantic cookie on the screen, the player clicks it and they gain a resource called a Cookie. In the game there is a large cookie on the screen. The player clicks this item and gains a single cookie resource. The Large cookie that the player clicks on starts off as a simple entity as it has one purpose and performs only a single function. At the top of the screen above the large cookie is a digital label which shows how many cookie's the player currently has.

Now the cookies the player has obtained can be used to purchase items semi tangible resources from the in game store (a trader). The player can purchase items such as modifiers to obtain more cookies over time, things such as Power clicks, that when the player clicks the cookie once they gain more cookies during a single click.

The player can also purchase other modifiers in order to generate more cookies such as auto clickers and so fourth. These resources automatically generate more cookies for the player over time by 'Auto-clicking' the larger cookie. All of these modifier resources can be used at once and the player can have as many of them (even multiples of the same one) piled up to have a compound effect to gain even more cookies.

The last thing is that with Cookie Clicker it has a thing called 'Stickiness'. A lot of web based games do this and some Facebook game do it. Basically what I mean it that cookie clicker, like other idle games gives the player instant gratification. When the player clicks the cookie, they get a cookie instantly which is the currency tangible resource. The player is instantly rewarded for a simple action 'Clicking'. Balancing the economy for this is an immense task as well, but I will go into this further at a later date.

Another mechanic it has is upgrading the players main ability, "Click power". In Cookie clicker and other such games, the main power is upgradable. For example in Cookie clicker, when the player clicks the massive cookie on screen they can get double the reward for it they could previously for the same a mount of work and even their auto-clicks get a small upgrade. This encourages the player to stay playing for longer because they can gain a higher ward for the same game actions. Also if they are are saving up cookies for a higher auto-click modifier, this will help them get closer slightly faster if they keep manually clicking.

This is where the brilliance of it is. The game has to be well balanced and the inflation correctly implemented because sometimes an item in the game that started out quite cheap, like auto-clicker, can inflate in price depending on how many of them the player buys and how many there are left available. This can lead to it being more expensive than an item in the shop that is more effective, so the player will buy the more effective item. Some times an item will either be double the price or slightly more expensive than a cheaper item. With this in mind the player has to weigh up what they should buy in this situation.

A well balanced game can be the breaking point of a game and decide weather it is successful or not. If it balanced poorly and the expensive items are not worth buying, the player will simply stop and turn off.