The code is for an incremental RPG programming game called Bitburner, which uses a version of JavaScript that has some additional game-specific APIs and restrictions (the game originally ran in a web browser)

This code in particular is a (flawed) solution to the first problem the game throws at you, which is finding a way to hack as much in-game money as possible from in-game servers. (The problem is more complicated than it appears at first glance, and I'll try to elaborate if you ask.)

Urghh, now I must post before I leave...

I've heard that there was a Japanese incremental games community before, but this is the first time I've come across signs of such a community. Now I'm wondering what's going on over there.

This week, I decided to revisit some games I've played in the past but put on hold. There seems to be a drought of new quality incrementals at the moment.

I loaded up my Trimps save after half a year. There seems to be a lot to explore in this game, but damn does it feel tedious. I quickly remembered why I left it for so long. Web, Steam

Unnamed Space Idle is another game I'm playing. I play this one more frequently than Trimps. I don't have much else to say to say about it other than I like it. Itch.io, Steam

Cardboard convinced me to play FairGame again, this time with more interaction with the community. I definitely feel better about this game now than last time. Please don't reduce me, I'm not the dev I swear. Web

Everyone seems to like Super Turtle Idle, so I'm playing it. I don't get the appeal, and I'm playing it in the hopes that it'll click eventually. Web

My bad, was wondering why it was called "recon"... HACK GROW HACK WEAKEN? What on earth is this madness? Did... did you... did you do this on purpose?

Anyways, I think I'm going to write the essay despite no one asking.

Aside from the sources you mentioned, I browse the itch page for games tagged incremental. There's a lot of stuff there which isn't posted on the other channels, although most aren't personally engaging to me. Still, I find some gems once in a while.

Cavernous 2 is a puzzle game with idle and incremental elements. In that game, you can passively gain stats to compensate for your lack of skill (in this case, good routes). However, there is a limit to how high these stats can go which is determined by how good the routes are. This makes it kind of redundant, and adds timewalls for skilled players later on in the game when stat grinding is strictly required. I'd either switch the passive stat gain system to not have an upper limit (making idling much more valuable) or replace it with a system that automatically sets those stats to the upper limits (removing idling altogether, though still incremental).

Speedrun Dimensions is a game made during a game jam which involves repeating short incremental "levels" to grind resources that boost your rate of progress in those levels so you can beat further levels. It can get repetitive though, and I'd rather change the system so that you passively gain metaprogression resources based on your best time and replaying the level only serves to lower that time.

Fundamental is a slow game. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I like it. However, during the quick parts of the game the user interface gets in the way of my speed (and my finger health). It's something I'd want to change, thought I don't know what to change it to.

If you'll notice, the first two issues are similar in nature. I'd imagine most of the changes people will reply with will have something to do with either pacing, the way certain resources are earned, quality-of-life, or how information is conveyed to the player.

Today I'm too lazy to include links. The games should be one search query away anyway.

I've mainly been playing Idle Elemental this past week. This game is grindy in a fun way. There's always this feeling of having something new to unlocked, and each new unlocked thing introduces new aspects to the previously unlocked things. There's a certain beauty to how these elements interact with each other. The one major thing I don't like about the game is that sometimes it feels like it's forcing me into situations that'll make me desire new elements instead of having said situations naturally arise out of the scaling. The biggest example of this is when new elements are suddenly introduced into the costs for upgrades. It's just a pet peeve of mine. By the way, the game is available on the web and Android. I recommend playing it on Android as the web version can lag considerably.

There's a new round in FairGame, and I'm participating in it. It's a very relaxed round. On web.

I've been checking in more on Gooboo. It has nice ideas though the pacing is a bit too idle for my taste. Web.

I'm also playing Unnamed Space Idle. Web + all major desktop platforms.

I really am feeling lazy today. I only wrote a long description for the first game. Anyways, it's kinda quiet here considering the amount of people who have joined. I see a lot of people here now.

This week I've been playing lots of Antimatter Dimensions. I decided to pull a save at 1 Reality and start from there, since I feel the game flows better that way. I don't intend to complete the game, I'll probably end my run as soon as Automator scripts become required.

I've also been playing some mods of that game. Aarex has a collection of mods from before the Reality update. To access all of the mods, you have to go into the "settings" tab, click "load", then click on the "mods" section in the pop-up. I've been playing NG-5, which nerfs you heavily but adds 2 new pre-infinity prestige layers to compensate. I really like this kind of mod, because you get to experience the new content right from the beginning of the game. It's a bit too slow for me, but I'm okay with that. The alternative, which is adding in one of the mods that buffs me, makes the game too fast and prevents me from appreciating the new content.

I tried playing Antimatter Dimensions: Simplified, which aims to make the content of the Reality Update easier to digest. I like what it's trying to do, but my problem with it is that it's too easy - it becomes a test of how quickly I can navigate through the UI. It also doesn't seem to do anything about the Automator being required at some point in the game. Still, I'll keep a save of it just in case.

In other news, I've been trying to learn the Canvas API in order to replicate the grid in CLEANSED. Progress is slow, but I'm getting there. My current task is making sure that the grid will look clean no matter what font I select or what size it is, which (I think) requires the use of TextMetrics.

I've been playing Matter Dimensions this week. It's a really tedious game, and yet I keep playing it for some reason. I feel weird playing it.

This week I've been replaying Algebraic Progression. It's much slower than I remember, and I cheated via the console multiple times to get past parts that I found really slow. I guess I'm just accustomed to Squareixion, which for the most part won't progress unless you actively monitor the game.

I've mostly been scouring itch.io for games to play lately, since I've felt like I've gone through all the GitHub-hosted games. A Dark Forest is a new game inspired by A Dark Room. I didn't get dragged into it, but perhaps you may. It's still in early development though. Evil Incremental is a game that reminds me of Orb of Creation, or at least the first parts of Orb of Creation. Perhaps a bit too much. Note that it was designed with a mobile UI in mind. More Curiosity is a short, micromanage-y incremental game. I think I recommended this a while back, but I'm too lazy to check.

Also, not an incremental but I've been enjoying I Wanna Lockpick since laleyou recommended it to me a few weeks earlier. It's a puzzle game with lots of numbers. I like numbers.

On a personal note: today is my first full day of summer vacation. Hope I don't waste it.

It's not as interesting as I make it seem. At the end of the day, it's just a flat multiplier. It'll take a few weeks or even months of somewhat involved play before you start reaching the point that the completion tokens start noticeably changing the game's pacing. The game itself is not that much fun to play without this system.

I like it for the reason that the dev didn't seem to have accounted for people grinding that bonus after completing all released content - but I'd expect that most people would not feel the same way.

My favorite implementation of a prestige mechanic is actually Ctrl/Cmd-C's completion token system, simple and boring as it may be.

This system gradually makes you build up a multiplier which increases polynomially over the course of your playthrough. It can get big enough to break the game's intended pacing, but you build it up slowly enough that you can see it slowly crumbling. In other games, behavior around prestiging is tightly controlled (this can be seen in the game's chapters). That's still the case here even with absurdly large multipliers but the feeling that you are supposed to do this is less present.

It's a power fantasy in which you feel you are defying the developer's intentions for how the game should be played. Eventually you quit because you have so much power that getting more requires giving the game constant attention (and by that point, a multiplier of 2x doesn't feel like anything anymore).

Hello, I'm one of those young people mentioned in the post and I'm partially responsible for our current topic.

My take is that the distinction between "fun" and "motivational manipulation" is blurry in a lot of forms of entertainment, and this blurriness is significantly more apparent in incremental games compared to other forms of media. As much as I don't like to admit it, I think that most modern games (especially abstract ones such as The Prestige Tree) mostly consist of "motivational manipulation".

That being said, I still think there is still fun to be had in this genre. My personal belief is that the fun in incremental games comes from the organic (or at least not tightly forced) discovery of the intricacies of the mechanical systems these games present. The problem is that very few games manage to handle this discovery well. I've also found interacting with the communities surrounding these games to be an enjoyable experience.

As to the notice, I think it's an okay idea but I don't have any strong preference on any one condition (there are a lot of factors to take into account). My primary doubt is whether the notice will work well since people may be reluctant to seek help and could easily switch to an equally manipulative entertainment outlet that doesn't contain a similar notice.

I did my 3rd singularity in Synergism yesterday. Ascension stage at this point feels so much faster with all the cube bonuses I got.
I've checked back in on the Lich Baby demo, which is a game in the style of Idle Loops. The game was meant to be played on mobile and it shows. There are paid versions on both iOS and Android but I'm broke. I also unlocked the Cryo Lab in Gooboo. Now I am going to wait for a few weeks before touching this game in any meaningful way again. Not actually playing this currently, but I'm thinking of revisiting the Orb of Creation demo Again, there is a paid version on Steam but I am broke.

Now I'm wondering what to do for Holy Week.

Edit: Not that it has any effect on anything at all, but I had initially reversed the positions of [] and () when posting the link for Orb of Creation. Oopsie!

Oh, we're responding to the reddit reposts now? Anyways, here are the games I'm playing:

Cavernous 2: . It's a game where you're stuck in a cave and in a time loop and you have to manage multiple clones of yourself at the same time. I'd say it appeals more to the pure puzzle (whatever that means) audience than to the incremental audience, but it does have idle elements and I like it so I'm posting it here. I'll probably post my full thoughts on the game in its own thread.

Synergism: . Abstract incremental, I'm at the stage (early Singularity) where the pacing is to check on it for a few minutes once or twice a day. I'm just playing this because of inertia.

Gooboo: . I'm not even sure if I'm playing this. The game allows you to idle for weeks on end without you getting FOMO, so that's what I've been doing. I've heard a lot of people play this more actively (read: daily checkups) though.

Pedro Pascal's Triangle of Prestige: . For many this is merely a silly game made for April Fools Day. But for a select few it is more than a game - rather, it is a way of life.

There are two games I've tried between Monday and today. The first is Progress Knight Quest, which I dropped recently and don't recommend that much. I'm currently replaying Array Game. I have yet to make a judgment on it. I'm also still playing the games I listed this Monday, with the exception of Cavernous 2 (if waiting and letting the game make progress on its own counts as playing). I'll return to that game somewhere soon.

On the non-incremental side of things, a lot of my time has been taken by schoolwork and studying since quarterly examinations are less than a week away for me. In my spare time, I've taken to reading through "The Rust Programming Language". I've made it to Chapter 5. I've also installed SWI-Prolog on my computer out of a recommendation by the current developer of Idle Loops, though I haven't done anything with it yet.

And I've taken to trying to write posts and comments here. I'm still not able to articulate my thoughts in an organized manner, but at least I've started.

I've mainly been playing Synergism this week. I've mainly been using the extra time during Holy Week school break to progress through the active parts of Singularities. I've gotten through 2 of them this week. Pretty fast, I'd say.

I'm also playing Download RAM Idle since people on galaxy.click seem to like it.

Other than those two, uhh... nothing! I'm not sure where the time went. Usually I'd say it went to incremental games, but as you can see I haven't been playing many of them lately.

835th playthrough?! You've managed to keep count of the amount of times you've played TPT?

I've had a nice week as far as incrementals are concerned. I've enjoyed two new games released recently, which is a lot.

Emoji Recycling Center is a game I very much enjoy. The game is a bit slow, though there is a charm to the slowness. You can freely ignore its release date I've also played this very short game with poop. This one has a story. I've also unfortunately lost my progress in Pedro Pascal's Triangle of Prestige, and so I am starting the game from the beginning.
I've dropped Synergism, deleting my save as well as the many exported savefiles I've made over the course of my playthrough. It had become a daily chore for me, and I'm relieved I no longer feel compelled to check up on it every day. To new players, I'd recommend considering your first Singularity as the end of the game.

Regarding non-gaming stuff, I've started taking antidepressants to help with my anger issues. They seem to be working.