Cracking the Cookie Clicker Code: A Game Design Deep Dive

Hey guys, welcome to the Indie Game Development Podcast. Here we tackle the challenges of indie game development head on from the technical to the emotional, and talk about the secrets to conquering self-doubt on your journey to crafting games that people will love. Subscribe so you never miss another episode, and if you haven't already done so, give us a rating and review so that this podcast gets shared with more people. We'd really really appreciate it. Ready? Let's go. So there are certain games that I avoid because I'm afraid that I'm gonna get completely addicted to them. I have never played World of Warcraft, I tread very very carefully when I played Diablo, and I've never played Cookie Clicker until very recently. And when I did play, by the next day I had a lot of wrist pain because I couldn't stop playing that game. I did hear about Cookie Clicker when it came out all the way back in 2013. It was the second most searched game that year right behind Grand Theft Auto V, and I avoided it on principle because, and I am sorry to all the fans of the idle or clicker genres out there, but I thought this game is stupid. It's not even a game, it's just a make numbers go higher simulator. And not even in like the RPG sense, there was just, I couldn't see anything that made me want to continue playing, it was just numbers that got higher and higher. So just really quick, if you're not familiar with the game, if you don't know what it is, if you've never seen it, you literally, you just click on a cookie to increase your score so that you can buy things that increase your score faster, so that you can buy more things that increase your score. And that's it, that's the whole gameplay loop. And then I played it so that I could do a tutorial on how to make it, and now I feel like a hypocrite because I instantly got hooked on the game. I was watching The Office with Nicky, except I wasn't actually watching the TV. I was tapping my stupid phone with all five fingers at once so that I could increase my score faster. But the part that got me really hooked was that once you buy the right upgrades, it still increases your score even when your phone is off, hence the genre name, idle game, right? So I played a lot that night and then I dreamt about cookies. And then in the morning, I woke up and Cookie Clicker was the first thought that entered my brain when I got out of bed, well, it was before I got out of bed, I woke up and I thought about Cookie Clicker. I was like, oh, I got to go check on how many cookies I got last night. I bet I can get all sorts of upgrades now. And later that day, I uninstalled it because I didn't want to become completely addicted to this game. But this did get me thinking, right, how in the hell is it possible that a game which literally has no like actual gameplay, right? You know what I mean when I say that it's just a glorified shop system. How can it become one of the world's most searched games? How can it be so addicting? And more importantly, because we're trying to make games, right? What lessons can we take away from this and games like it as game designers? Can we, in an ethical and responsible way, duplicate the level of fun for our games so that our players want to keep coming back for more? Because there's obviously something there. There's a reason that my brain would get hooked on this game. There's a reason that it was the number two most searched game. Not sure what it is at first glance, but let's look into it. So to break down what is appealing about this game, let's sum it up in five quick points. Okay. So number one is it's very simple and it's very memorable. You could ask your friend, Hey, did you check out that game where you click on cookies? Right? That's a really, really short sentence. Yet you just described the essence of the entire game. So it's easy to talk about. It's easy to remember. I'm a very analytical person, so I don't always like the fact, but it is the truth. When things are simple, they stick in people's heads more easily. This is a very important lesson for us to take as game designers. Okay. Number two, you can play it for a few minutes or even just a couple of seconds at a time. The game demands very little from you. And let's just be honest, you know, not gross hopefully, but if you're using your phone, then you'll probably use it when you're in the bathroom and being able to check your progress, buy upgrades, and then turn it off within seconds, makes it really accessible and undemanding, which will make it more likely that you'll pick it up more often. It's always there. It's always in your pocket. You can whip it out real quick, you know, buy an upgrade or two and then shove it back in your pocket and not think about it again for a little bit. Okay. Number three, because it's all numbers driven, you can take screenshots or just share how far you got really, really easily with other players, which might drive people to compete with one another for even higher scores. People are very competitive by nature. So anything that will get that kind of thing stimulated is good for your game. Number four, idle mechanics. And I personally really don't like idle mechanics, but the only reason I don't like them is because I find them addicting and I despise things that I find addicting. I have a lot that I like to get done during my day and addicting things take that time away from me. So idle mechanics do work, especially for mobile games. And when your game is working for you in the background, even when you aren't playing it, it's just that much more likely that you're going to keep on wanting to come back to check on your game. Okay. Number five, the reward structure. I feel like this is an obvious one, but this from cookie clicker, it's really worth studying. And I didn't think about it too much until I made my own version of cookie clicker for a YouTube tutorial. But I had to go through several iterations of the reward system in that game and tiny little tweaks to the reward system made a huge difference in how fun it was to play. And having to tweak that a bunch of times really did make it sink in that there is very much a right way and a wrong way to give rewards to players. Or maybe a better way to describe it is there is an effective way and ineffective ways to give rewards to players. If their score increases too slowly and upgrades are too expensive, they're going to get lazy and they're going to give up. They just won't care. But conversely on the flip side, if the score increases too fast or upgrades are too cheap, somehow this also loses the fun factor and you won't get hooked, which surprised me. But I did go through an iteration with my own tutorial where upgrades were way too easy to get and I got bored within five minutes. So there is this weird fine line that you have to find, but you can find it. And it seems to be when the reward feels just out of reach for people and players have to work just hard enough to get it. And the numbers should be intuitive enough that people can get a good sense of how long it will take them to reach that next level, right? People will think to themselves just a few more minutes and I'll get there and then I'll put my phone away. By the time that they accomplish that goal, all that's going to happen is they're going to have a new goal in mind. The reward system, it's all dopamine driven. It's frequent rewards that scale properly. But I do think there are two factors that manage to keep the game fun because on the surface these five things we just talked about, they're not enough to make the game addicting. Number one is there's a controlled drip of rewards and new upgrades and achievements, right? If you could see every upgrade in the shop all at once, you might feel overwhelmed by your options or overwhelmed by how much there is to do and that might make you want to give up. But the game hooks you, it makes you set a micro goal for yourself. And by the time you reach that goal, it's very likely that a new upgrade has unlocked that you now want to shoot for. So the rate at which you unlock things is controlled and tamed down. It's a carrot on a stick type of thing where the designer is just getting you to take one step after another constantly chasing more rewards. And the second factor is the rate of growth accelerates over time. And what I mean by that is at first you're kind of this worker bee. You're just clicking that cookie constantly, but you will eventually reach a point where time actually gives you a lot more cookies than you tapping that cookie does. And instead of spending all your time clicking on that cookie, you're going to spend more time figuring out which power ups to buy and how best to invest your money. What's going to get you more over time. So you're working less, but you're earning more. It's very similar to what every entrepreneur hopes happen to their businesses. You have to put in all the work at first, but eventually it pays off and you can ease up on the work later on. And eventually you'll be able to afford some of the cheaper auto clickers every couple of seconds. Yet at that point, you're not even going to care because it's so small and insignificant and it's not going to help you get to your new micro goal except right. If you buy enough of those small upgrades, you will get an achievement getting that achievement will then unlock an upgrade, which will make all of your cheap auto clickers that you've already bought much more efficient, which is worth it if you have dozens or hundreds of them. So from every possible angle, there's almost always something for you to look forward to or another reward that's just out of reach. And if you think about it, a lot of games that have done really, really well have a similar reward structure to this. I would not normally compare Stardew Valley to Cookie Clicker, but Stardew doesn't overwhelm you in the beginning. The mines not even open. You run out of energy really fast at the start of that game. You cannot do a whole lot in each day, but you work and you start earning money and you level up, which makes tasks cost less energy, which slowly but surely lets you get further and further from your farm to explore more and more of the game. But whenever I play Stardew, there's always a goal I have in my head. What crops do I need to plant by when I want to get, you know, five levels deeper in the mines or if I'm in the late game, the Skull Cavern, I'm going to get this reward from the community center before the end of the season, whatever it is. And it also follows an accelerated growth model. You make way more money in the late game, but everything you want to buy is also way more expensive, which keeps it from getting boring. I love Diablo. I have not played a whole lot of Diablo 4 yet, so let's talk about Diablo 3 instead. But I have to assume that the same thing applies, at least I hope so. It's a big deal the first time you find a legendary piece of gear in Diablo, but later you'll end up leaving dozens of them on the ground because they become so common and you might be searching for a particular one to help you with your build you're working towards. Accelerated growth, steady drip, feeding of the rewards. If you were an indie dev, Cookie Clicker is worth studying because it strips all the gameplay distractions out of the equation and basically gives you the raw formula for how to keep your players engaged with no complex systems getting in the way. If you want to chime into the conversation or connect with more devs like yourself, you can check out our Discord server. We have an amazing community of indie devs, I will leave a link in the description. And as an indie developer, I feel like it's my duty to tell you to go to Steam and wish list Samurado, the game that my wife and I are currently working on. And that's all I've got. If you loved this episode and you haven't already left a rating and review, please consider doing that now. It really helps the podcast grow and reach more awesome people like yourself. Thanks so much. Bye.