‘Cookie Clicker’, or Why in God’s Name Am I Still Playing This?

With gaming becoming more and more prevalent and socially acceptable, games have begun popping up everywhere you can possibly imagine and even in a few places you don’t. One such place is that of the browser, in the format of browser-based games like Cookie Clicker. Now, most hardcore gamers worth even an inch of their so-called salt will immediately sneer and pull a face when the topic of such games is broached in their presence, and they can hardly be blamed.

Browser-based games seem to be designed explicitly for the ignorant masses, with the most basic design and the simplest of input commands being their chief attribute of note. If you expect me to tell you that Cookie Clicker  is somehow different from these types of games than you’ve come to the wrong article: Cookie Clicker is arguably the most simple and basic game ever conceived. It consists almost entirely of clicking on a giant cookie with your cursor, and after you’ve been going for even a few minutes, the game begins playing itself, making your participation almost entirely superfluous. And yet, for some odd reason, even knowing all of these facts…I just can’t stop playing it!

Have I gone mad? Have I really spent hours of my life clicking an oversized biscuit and watching the numbers climb up into the millions while I save for my next wizard tower? Yes, there are wizard towers in this game, and as Tommy Wiseau would say: “Don’t even ask.” Too curious to withhold your queries? Okay, fine. There are indeed wizard towers but I’m not going to tell you what they do, but I will give you a hint: it’s something to do with cookies.

I mean, sure, the game starts off simple enough: your first purchase will undoubtedly be the second cursor but after you that, things start to get…a little weird. You’re next optional purchase is a grandma. Yes, a grandma. And I promise within an hour or so, you’ll have yourself a whole god damned fleet of grandmas, all baking their golden years away with no end in sight. Before you know it, you’ve got Cookie Farms, and Cookie Mines. You’ve got a neverending wheel of cursors circling your giant cookie like the restless imps of hell, and you’ve got more cookies than you could ever possibly know what to do with.

Just how many cookies can you make? Well, a mildly dedicated player can amass so many cookies in a single day that they might not even recognize the name of the number at which they’re currently sitting. If you’re not ready for this kind of commitment, then I urge you to put away your glass of milk and ignore this article part and parcel. Fail to heed this warning, dare to go to that fabled and damnable cookie-clicking page, and before long you won’t recognize yourself in the mirror. You won’t even be able to see yourself anymore, for there will be too many cookies stacked between you and your undoubtedly diabetic and obese reflection.

What have I become? My sweetest friend…

By the time you’re through, Mr. Christie will be quaking in fear at your milk chocolate empire, eager girl guides will be knocking on your door, not to sell you cookies, but to buy them. You’ll look out your front door and wonder what’s bringing all those boys to the yard before realizing with shocked horror that they’re here for your cookies. That’s when you’ll notice the blue fur sprouting from your pores, and not so much see, as feel, your eyes growing large and googly.

Still not afraid of Cookie Clicker? Well then, by all means, saunter on over to your doom. The link is two simple paragraphs back, and by now you must be curious as to whether you alone can resist. Well then, go. Go I say! Got to your doom!!! But when you awaken with so many cookies that you can’t even reach your loved ones in the next room, and you haven’t the appetite nor the wherewithal to make to get rid of them, don’t say you weren’t warned!

Cookie Clicker is a free browser-based game that can be found here, and here, and here. It just released it’s the latest update on February 9 and is more addictive than ever. Now go get yourself a wizard tower!