More clicky clickerness this week!
We're really clicking with some clicker games.
Last week was Idler Fest and I noticed two things:
I really love idler games (I kind of already knew that); and
I enjoy having a specific game type for the whole week.
So, we’re trying that again! And we’re sticking to the same vibe for a little longer. Idlers and clickers aren’t that different. In the broad sense of the term, they’re both incremental games and follow roughly the same concept.
To me, the distinction is in the activeness of the gameplay.
A game like IdleOn or Cookie Clicker, you can leave alone and when you get back, things have happened, resources have been gained, progress has been made. Those, in my opinion, are the true idler games.
Clicker games, on the other hand, follow the same incrementality, but don’t do much when you leave them alone. They idle well, in the sense that you can pause at any time, there’s no time pressure or you won’t die by enemy spawn as you afk, but you don’t gain anything from idling, either. Those are the games I want to focus on this week.
Click Mage
I initially bought this game solely because of the image above.
Look at those adorable pixel resources and tell me that doesn’t attract you.
You can’t.
Click Mage is a super chill, no-pressure clicker game with an interesting sense of exploration. Instead of controlling a character to run around, you use your cursor to interact with the world—gathering resources, unlocking recipes, and building up your little island piece by piece. The mechanics are refreshingly simple (left-click to interact, right-click to pick up, space to drop), making the whole experience smooth and intuitive.
The gameplay loop is exactly what you'd want from a cosy clicker: collect, craft, build, repeat—always unlocking something new without any stress or time limits. It's pure comfy progress, perfect for zoning out and enjoying the ride.
👍 If you're looking for a relaxing, no-fuss clicker in a gorgeous setting with a satisfying upgrade loop and a unique exploration twist, Click Mage is absolutely worth checking out!
Insaniquarium Deluxe
When I wrote about Chillquarium last week, someone on Discord suggested that I play Insaniquarium next. One look and I instantly bought the game to play this week.
Now, to preface the horrible graphics quality: Insaniquarium is a 24 year old game. I was twelve when it came out. I remember seeing it before, but I never played it and then forgot about it until last week. It is certified geriatric for a game. It has not been remastered or optimised, it really is a just a straight port of an old game, and it shows. When you alt-tab, the game crashes. So don’t buy it for the quality, obviously.
But the gameplay. Oh my god, the gameplay. You get a tank. You get a fish. You feed the fish. The fish grows. The fish drops coins. You need coins to buy more fish food, better fish food, and more fish. Then suddenly, there’s a carnivorous fish you can buy. This one drops diamonds. Diamonds are more money, so more fish food and more fish.
You advance levels by saving up enough to buy a piece of an egg . Collect enough pieces, and the egg hatches into a pet! A pet is another aquatic animal that helps you out with your fish tank maintenance. One pet will help you collect coins, the other will pop out new guppies, yet another will spawn a pearl for money, another one will help you feed your fish - long story short, more cute pets for your aquarium!
This cosy loop repeats itself for a while. You get into a rhythm. Get fish. Feed fish. Grow fish. Collect coins. Buy more fish. Until suddenly…
ALIENS!
Yes, aliens! An alien invasion! Nobody knows why exactly they attack your aquarium and what specifically their purpose is in killing your fish, but they do! And suddenly, your cosy fish tank simulator becomes a shooting simulator! Pew pew pew, kill the alien! Upgrade your weapon to kill the alien HARDER. Get a pet to help attack the alien!
And then it’s cosy again, for a little while.
👍 This game has all the cosiness of Chillquarium 0on steroids, and developed by someone with ADHD. Clicky clicky fishy fishy fishy ALIEN AAAAAH clicky clicky fishy fishy.
Fruit Stand Fortune
Fruit Stand Fortune is meant to be a mobile game, which you can tell by its initial verticality. So before playing, know that there is a portrait mode setting to turn off that makes this much more playable on PC.
The premise of the game is simple: there’s a slot machine, you click it and if you win, you get a cherry. There’s a queue of bears asking for cherries. The fruit drops down into a bagatelle, and if it reaches the bottom without getting stuck in a cloud, the bear in front gets a cherry, is happy and… goes away, rather than maul you to death, I assume. It even gives you some coin!
So initially, it’s cherries, bears, and clicking. Get enough coins, and you can add an auto-clicker, which is nice! Now we don’t have to do anything except reap in the dopamine! After a while, you can make it go faster. Yay! Should you be lucky enough to hit a jackpot, there’s even MORE dopamine in it for you! And more cherries, for the bears, too!
Feed enough bears, and other animals join the queue. They might want other things than cherries, so… unlock other things! Hurray!
It sounds incredibly simple because it is. That’s not a bad thing, quite the contrary. The game thrives in its simplicity. It has all the things a good clicker has: incrementality, speeding up, automation, and it comes with incredibly cute animals and a slots mechanic to give that extra lucky feeling.
👍 Definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the concept of clicker games but can’t easily get into the more slow-starting, boring types.
Poop Clicker
Don’t get me wrong - I giggle at poop just as much as the rest of you.
Poop in video games can have something very aesthetic. Take for example the poop in Garden Paws. It inspired me enough to make a whole Poop Fest mod.
So believe me when I say that I don’t dislike Poop Clicker for its concept.
My issue with this game is that it strives to be a very simple, straight-forward clicker game: you click the poop, you get a poop, you collect some poops, exchange the poops for an autoclicker, collect more poops, exchange them for an upgrade, etc. The concept is there, but the execution is severely lacking.
It forgoes all kinds of Quality of Life or user-friendly UI. Where most clicker games have everything in one place so you can just click, click and click some more, Poop Clicker has a shop where you buy your initial thingamajigs like ‘Quick Tap’ and ‘Need for Speed’ - things that aren’t explained anywhere, so it’s unclear what they actually do. These things can be upgraded, but the upgrades are in a different shop, so you’re mostly just tabbing between the “buy new thing” and “upgrade existing thing” shops, which is frustrating enough on its own. There’s no interactivity whatsoever in terms of “escape closer the window”. You have to hover over buttons and wait a little to see their cost, again going against the established baseline for clicker games.
In addition, the game has tried to be very “flashy” in terms of menu animations, visual vibrations and little sound bits when you click, open a menu, close a menu, buy an upgrade, etc. but they are (and this is of course personal preference) too sensory-heavy for me, with no accessibility options to turn any of these things off.
👎 Altogether, Poop Clicker just fails to deliver on what should have been a simple, basic yet fun clicker game.
Voodoo Garden
Voodoo Garden is a clicker game that doesn't stick to the formula but somehow still works.
There are no words in this game, no tutorials, no explanations, everything is meant to intuitive which it pulls off rather nicely.
It's a very atmospheric game. The music and aesthetics give it a very cute witchy, spoopy, gothic vibe, much like what you’d find in Cozy Grove, Wylde Flowers or Potion Craft. It has bats and all kinds of witchy-looking plants. Visually, this game is an absolute treat!
The concept is quite simple: wait for a plant to grow, click it, harvest it. The produce goes into your inventory. There are recipes that automatically get crafted and sold when you have the necessary resources in your inventory. Earn enough coins, buy a new plant that drops news resources, unlock more recipes, earn more money and expand your garden.
This game doesn't delve into the automation aspect most clicker games do, but it honestly doesn't need that. It's very cosy and relaxing to just get into the flow of clicking everything, adding new plants, fattening up a chicken and turn it into a ghost - what? Yes, that too.
👍 If you enjoy cosy clickers with a unique atmosphere, no pressure, and a touch of the bizarre, Voodoo Garden is absolutely worth your time!
This week was such a hoot! It had a sploosh of nostalgia, some cosy witchy vibes, some gambling dopamine - all wrapped up in a lot of clicking.
I’m going to grant Insaniquarium Deluxe the title of ⚙️ Best Mechanics ⚙️, solely for the fact that it kept me on my toes in a way that absolutely satisfied my brain. The way it switches between monotonous, cosy fish feeding and fast-paced shooter action kept me playing for “just one more round”.
It was Fruit Stand Fortune that surprised me the most. It’s a simple premise, a literal fruit-giving fruit machine, but it kept me rolling until I 100%ed it in one go. That’s why it wholeheartedly deserves 🔥 Most Addictive 🔥.
And last but not least, Voodoo Garden gets 🌍 Most Immersive 🌍. The atmosphere is just that good, you just want to stay in that garden, hang out, cosy up, read a book, craft some magic potions, pet a ghost rabbit, live your life as a witch in her garden.
Want to tackle your backlog as well? Or just want to chat about mine?
Click here to join the Steam group to share and discuss all of these games!
Not sure yet and want to see how I keep it up first? That’s fair, too.