Have some fun and enjoy yourself. The Cookie Clicker experience.
Take your ideas and take them to fruition, learn from the experience.
Never Stop Learning
So recently I walked past a cube at work and a team had Cookie Clicker going on a TV in their pod, at first, I thought it was some kind of new fancy dashboard showing how their application was functioning, but NO, it was a game; Cookie Clicker. This game sucked me in deeply, wondering what was next, what could be unlocked; how could this be so much fun!? I think the systematic nature of it, the automation, automatic clicking and humurous nature of it hooked me, much like Factorio and the draw it has on me.
Idle Game Maker
I kept seeing mention of the Idle Game Maker (IGM) also built by Orteil. The more I played Cookie Clicker, the more I thought about an idea I had for this same kind of game, one that mimic’d life in which I live in. So down this rabbit hole we go.
Clickity Clack
How do you learn any new language? Easy, copy and paste! The IGM home page provides a pretty thorough example called Bunny Clicker and its source code. From this, along with the help pages (RTFM amiright?), you can get started creating your very own game.
loading your game
This is all well and good, but how do we load our own source code?
- http://orteil.dashnet.org/igm/?g=<pastebin unique id>
- or http://orteil.dashnet.org/igm/?g=<URL>
So for me, I like git version control and we can use gist to have an adhoc place to put some files without a repo. So, I created a gist starting with the bunnyclicker example and started modifying from there. I ended up with: http://orteil.dashnet.org/igm/?g=https://gist.githubusercontent.com/cmeinco/7c49383ca5f5a42d61de95e5f45c7633/raw/clickityclack.txt
use other examples
Peruse the IGM forums, checkout other peoples games and provide them with feedback to help guide where their game is going. Also, many developers are providing feedback and best practices with scaling building costs and using upgrades to get people involved in the game by buying upgrades. This will also help you overcome any game specific problems/formatting you might be trying to accomplish.
layout your game
I love whiteboarding but my whiteboard tends to look like this: https://youtu.be/stYrZYC5038?t=28, but spend some time drawing out what you want your game to look like, what the levels/buildings might be and jot down some notes on creative upgrades for each building.
Never over
I have a lot more things to enhance in the game, creating upgrades, etc. I found I wanted to keep adding and adding and adding to the game; So, I decided to call it what it is, but if you have ideas throw them my way, love to hear the feedback.