The worst game of all time is Cookie Clicker
When the Internet is buzzing about a game that hasn't been heavily advertised, it usually means the game is good. That's what happened with the original Portal, and Braid, and Edgy McEdgerson's Hedge Edger. And so it was that I decided to try Cookie Clicker.
Right from the start, the game was a mess. I went to CookieClicker.com to buy the game, and there was nothing there except some sponsored search results for cookie delivery. No demo, no link to buy the full game, no developer blog, not even a screenshot.
I googled "cookie clicker" and finally found the real Cookie Clicker website. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a free online game. I started clicking the big cookie, and soon I had amassed a double-digit score.
By the time my score passed ten thousand, my hand started to hurt, so I took a break and checked out some Cookie Clicker fan forums. Immediately I knew that something was wrong. I was clicking once per second, but the people in one forum were talking about hundreds of millions of CPS.
Clearly these pro players were much better clickers than me. I couldn't be competitive through brute force alone. It was time for strategy! I drank twelve cans of Mountain Dew, and soon I reached four clicks per second. I was still far behind the rate of the pros on the forum, but if I could quadruple my clicking rate once, sure I could quadruple it ten more times. I bought some coffee beans, ground them up, and snorted them. The pain was almost blinding, but I channeled it into a focused rage and clicked my mouse faster than I'd ever clicked before. Ten clicks per second, then twelve, then fifteen, then everything went dark.
When I woke up three days later, I decided to try a new strategy. Rather than turning my body into a clicking machine, I'd build a real clicking machine. I put my mouse in a bowl and poured in just enough water to barely cover the mouse. Then I bought one of those drinking bird toys, positioned its nose just over the mouse's left button, and let it do the clicking. It worked! But then it stopped working, and an error message on the screen said that my mouse had stopped working. After some more googling, I bought a new mouse, and some distilled water, and I tried again. This time it worked reliably. I had to replace the water occasionally, and the bird wasn't a very fast clicker, but the system worked.
I bought ten more mice, ten more bowls, ten more drinking birds, and a USB hub. Soon I had a menagerie of automatons all clicking cookies on my behalf. I was still far below the CPS of the pro players, so I computed how many more mice and drinking birds I'd need to match their speed. The result made me shudder. Becoming competitive in Cookie Clicker would cost more money than I earned in a year. And then it hit me. This wasn't a free game. It was a "free to play" game. It was one of those games where winning didn't come from skill, it came from money.
So I closed the Cookie Clicker browser tab, and I'm never going back. I work hard for my money, and I'm only going to spend it on necessities. Like a new hat for my Pyro.
Worst game ever? You tell me.
- Slack Mesa
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Re: Worst game ever? You tell me.
This thread is awesome.
Do a Pivot Table!
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Re: Worst game ever? You tell me.
You sir are an absolute legend.
"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not it after all."
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Re: Worst game ever? You tell me.
The worst game of all time is Pong
I've always liked "room escape" games. They're fun little diversions, perfect for a fifteen minute break. Find the hidden objects, uncover the secret codes, obtain the key, and walk triumphantly out the door. So I couldn't contain my enthusiasm when I saw Pong: a room escape game with a retro, 8-bit aesthetic.
Right from the start, the game showed some promising innovation by moving the genre into 3rd person perspective. I was disappointed that my character was just a tiny square, but I assumed that was part of the developers' retro charm: simplifying the graphics to emphasize the gameplay.
The room appeared to be completely empty, except for two giant paddles. There was no visible door. That was definitely a surprise, but I couldn't wait to figure out this first puzzle to unlock more of the game. In addition, my character was auto-running. Not what I expected in a room escape game, but I had to give the developers credit for blending in ideas from other genres.
Unfortunately, it was all ruined by the terrible controls. I couldn't change my character's direction at all, so I just kept running straight into walls. The game displayed a counter of how many times I ran into each wall, as if to taunt me. It was motivating at first, but it quickly became so tiresome that I ragequit. I swallowed my pride and found a walkthrough online. It said the directional controls moved one of the paddles, not my character. That seemed like a fresh and creative puzzle mechanic, so I decided to give the game another chance. After a few hours of experimentation, I finally mastered the weird controls well enough to move the paddle into my character's path so I wouldn't run into the wall. I ran full speed into the paddle and...bounced right off of it. Nothing changed in the game environment. No new objects appeared in the empty room, no secret doors opened, nothing. I tried repeating the move: still nothing.
I'm really good at room escape games, so I started to think maybe the problem wasn't me. I watched some playthroughs, and every one of them was stuck in that same first puzzle. That confirmed it: I'd been wasting my time playing a broken game.
The only good thing that came out of the experience was that I found a link to the developer's next game, Breakout. That one had a similar concept: third person perspective, auto-running character, and the controls moved a giant paddle (what's the developer's fascination with paddles?). But this time there were lots of items to pick up. They were all in plain sight, and there wasn't any need to use or combine items after picking them up. But after picking up the last of them, I escaped to a second room. It wasn't exactly the most sophisticated puzzle design, but compared to Pong it was brilliant.
I've always liked "room escape" games. They're fun little diversions, perfect for a fifteen minute break. Find the hidden objects, uncover the secret codes, obtain the key, and walk triumphantly out the door. So I couldn't contain my enthusiasm when I saw Pong: a room escape game with a retro, 8-bit aesthetic.
Right from the start, the game showed some promising innovation by moving the genre into 3rd person perspective. I was disappointed that my character was just a tiny square, but I assumed that was part of the developers' retro charm: simplifying the graphics to emphasize the gameplay.
The room appeared to be completely empty, except for two giant paddles. There was no visible door. That was definitely a surprise, but I couldn't wait to figure out this first puzzle to unlock more of the game. In addition, my character was auto-running. Not what I expected in a room escape game, but I had to give the developers credit for blending in ideas from other genres.
Unfortunately, it was all ruined by the terrible controls. I couldn't change my character's direction at all, so I just kept running straight into walls. The game displayed a counter of how many times I ran into each wall, as if to taunt me. It was motivating at first, but it quickly became so tiresome that I ragequit. I swallowed my pride and found a walkthrough online. It said the directional controls moved one of the paddles, not my character. That seemed like a fresh and creative puzzle mechanic, so I decided to give the game another chance. After a few hours of experimentation, I finally mastered the weird controls well enough to move the paddle into my character's path so I wouldn't run into the wall. I ran full speed into the paddle and...bounced right off of it. Nothing changed in the game environment. No new objects appeared in the empty room, no secret doors opened, nothing. I tried repeating the move: still nothing.
I'm really good at room escape games, so I started to think maybe the problem wasn't me. I watched some playthroughs, and every one of them was stuck in that same first puzzle. That confirmed it: I'd been wasting my time playing a broken game.
The only good thing that came out of the experience was that I found a link to the developer's next game, Breakout. That one had a similar concept: third person perspective, auto-running character, and the controls moved a giant paddle (what's the developer's fascination with paddles?). But this time there were lots of items to pick up. They were all in plain sight, and there wasn't any need to use or combine items after picking them up. But after picking up the last of them, I escaped to a second room. It wasn't exactly the most sophisticated puzzle design, but compared to Pong it was brilliant.
- Elomin Sha
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Re: Worst game ever? You tell me.
I was ready to slit your throat for saying that Pong is the worst game ever, then I noticed the humour in your text. Well played.
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Re: Worst game ever? You tell me.
Welcome back, Slack.
Your presence always cheers us and makes the forums a better place.
Your presence always cheers us and makes the forums a better place.
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