Clicker game

A clicker game is a genre of games where the player needs to click as much as it can to buy upgrades. The first game that popularized this was the browser game Cookie Clicker.

Why Most of Them Suck

 * 1) These games are often pay-to-win, especially the mobile onesː Mobile clicker games mostly have a special currency, usually diamonds, gems, etc. You need to pay them with real money for a rare auto-clicker, premium upgrades, or more coins, or other basic currency. Often the game gets sluggish, forcing you to do a prestige, or lose all your currency and get a little bit better.
 * 2) Barely any interactivity: if you choose not to buy microtransactions to increase the amount of money gain and since some clickers only feature upgrades, most of the time in those games, you have to wait for a long time to get each upgrade, which gets really exhausting over time and lowers their replay values.
 * 3) Some have rebirths, which makes the player lose all of its currency, but makes it gain money faster when performed, making them the whole point for clicker games to be more addictive. This is one of the causes of the issue down below:
 * 4) They mostly use the lollipop technique (coined by Frédéric Molas, known for creating Joueur du Grenier), where developers can pressure players into playing their games by starting with easy sections, only for them to fall into hard, yet impossible ones after a bit of playthrough. Here in clickers, when you start the playthrough you can gain money fast enough to get many upgrades at a time, but as time passes, you get to buy even less upgrades because you are not getting money fast enough to get as many upgrades at a time as before.
 * 5) Some games are the opposite, having forced rebirths.
 * 6) Some upgrades are way too expensive which means that you have to click for an extremely tedious time or buy some microtransactions
 * 7) Some clickers might jump scare the player for no reason. Bee Factory is a good example of this.
 * 8) Sometimes, V.I.P pop ups can appear at random, and cost absurd prices, like $5 to $10 a week.
 * 9) There are too many games that rip off the originals, because of how simple the concept is: just have a sprite of an object for a person to click.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Plenty of good games of this genre exist if you look hard, such as NGU Idle and Clicker Heroes.
 * 2) Some try to be more than just clicking, such as the aforementioned game which has a story, multiple challenges, neat humor and entertaining combat, especially against Titans.

Bad Examples

 * KREW Eats - A soulless cash grab of a YouTuber with a paper-thin story.
 * Bee Factory - A game with a jumpscare that are the bees popping up unexpected. This game is improving, as there are now minigames.
 * Adventure Capitalist - A bunch of loading screens.
 * Idle Streamer- A rip off of a much better idle game.

Good Examples

 * Egg Inc.
 * NGU Idle
 * Clicker Heroes
 * Tap Titans 2
 * Cookie Clicker and Cookie Clicker 2
 * Goomy Clicker (created by Pokémon fans)
 * Tahu Bulat (based on popular Indonesian tofu food)
 * Anti-Idle: The Game