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#1
Gaming / From Humble Clicks to Cookie E...
Last post by Rowe - Yesterday at 10:33:44 PMEver found yourself lost in a game that's deceptively simple yet utterly captivating? Where the core mechanic is straightforward, but the strategic depth is surprisingly vast? Welcome to the wonderful world of store management games, and our star example for today: Cookie Clicker. While not a traditional "store" in the retail sense, Cookie Clicker perfectly encapsulates the satisfying loop of building, expanding, and optimizing resources that defines this genre. It's an idle game, yes, but it's also a masterclass in progress and planning.
The Sweet Science of Cookie Production: Understanding the Gameplay
At its heart, Cookie Clicker is incredibly simple: you click a giant cookie. Each click generates one cookie. That's it, initially. But very quickly, you'll accumulate enough cookies to purchase your first upgrade: a "Cursor" that automatically clicks for you. This is where the magic begins.
As you earn more cookies, you unlock a delightful array of cookie-generating "buildings." From grandmas baking in their kitchens to farms growing cookie plants, factories churning out cookie dough, and even portals bringing cookies from other dimensions – the variety is endless and often humorous. Each building has a cost, a cookie-per-second (CPS) production rate, and can be upgraded to become even more efficient.
The core gameplay loop is addictive: earn cookies, buy buildings, watch your CPS skyrocket, earn even more cookies, buy more powerful buildings, and repeat. But it's not just about accumulating. There are also powerful "upgrades" that boost the efficiency of your buildings, special "golden cookies" that appear periodically offering temporary boosts, and even "achievements" that reward you for reaching certain milestones. The game progresses through "ascensions," where you reset your progress but gain powerful "heavenly chips" that permanently boost your cookie production in future playthroughs, leading to even more impressive numbers.
Baking a Better Empire: Tips for Success
To truly experience the joy of Cookie Clicker, here are a few tips to get you started on your path to cookie domination:
Prioritize Grandmas: Early on, Grandmas are incredibly cost-effective. Don't underestimate their collective power!
Embrace Golden Cookies: Always click golden cookies when they appear. The temporary boosts they offer can significantly accelerate your progress, especially early in the game.
Balance Buildings and Upgrades: It's tempting to just buy more buildings, but don't forget your upgrades! They often provide a much greater return on investment for their cost, boosting all your existing production.
Don't Fear Ascensions: While it feels like losing progress, ascending is crucial for long-term growth. The Heavenly Chips you earn make subsequent playthroughs exponentially faster and more rewarding.
Explore the Minigames: As you progress, you'll unlock minigames associated with certain buildings (like the Stock Market or the Pantheon). These offer additional layers of strategy and can provide significant boosts if managed well.
Idle Smartly: While it's an idle game, checking in regularly to click golden cookies and buy new upgrades will maximize your progress.
The Sweet Taste of Success
Cookie Clicker, and store management games like it, offer a unique blend of casual engagement and strategic depth. It's a game about exponential growth, clever optimization, and the sheer satisfaction of watching numbers grow into astronomical figures. Whether you're looking for a relaxing background activity or a surprisingly deep strategic puzzle, diving into the world of cookie production is a delightful journey. So go ahead, give that giant cookie a click, and start building your delicious empire!
The Sweet Science of Cookie Production: Understanding the Gameplay
At its heart, Cookie Clicker is incredibly simple: you click a giant cookie. Each click generates one cookie. That's it, initially. But very quickly, you'll accumulate enough cookies to purchase your first upgrade: a "Cursor" that automatically clicks for you. This is where the magic begins.
As you earn more cookies, you unlock a delightful array of cookie-generating "buildings." From grandmas baking in their kitchens to farms growing cookie plants, factories churning out cookie dough, and even portals bringing cookies from other dimensions – the variety is endless and often humorous. Each building has a cost, a cookie-per-second (CPS) production rate, and can be upgraded to become even more efficient.
The core gameplay loop is addictive: earn cookies, buy buildings, watch your CPS skyrocket, earn even more cookies, buy more powerful buildings, and repeat. But it's not just about accumulating. There are also powerful "upgrades" that boost the efficiency of your buildings, special "golden cookies" that appear periodically offering temporary boosts, and even "achievements" that reward you for reaching certain milestones. The game progresses through "ascensions," where you reset your progress but gain powerful "heavenly chips" that permanently boost your cookie production in future playthroughs, leading to even more impressive numbers.
Baking a Better Empire: Tips for Success
To truly experience the joy of Cookie Clicker, here are a few tips to get you started on your path to cookie domination:
Prioritize Grandmas: Early on, Grandmas are incredibly cost-effective. Don't underestimate their collective power!
Embrace Golden Cookies: Always click golden cookies when they appear. The temporary boosts they offer can significantly accelerate your progress, especially early in the game.
Balance Buildings and Upgrades: It's tempting to just buy more buildings, but don't forget your upgrades! They often provide a much greater return on investment for their cost, boosting all your existing production.
Don't Fear Ascensions: While it feels like losing progress, ascending is crucial for long-term growth. The Heavenly Chips you earn make subsequent playthroughs exponentially faster and more rewarding.
Explore the Minigames: As you progress, you'll unlock minigames associated with certain buildings (like the Stock Market or the Pantheon). These offer additional layers of strategy and can provide significant boosts if managed well.
Idle Smartly: While it's an idle game, checking in regularly to click golden cookies and buy new upgrades will maximize your progress.
The Sweet Taste of Success
Cookie Clicker, and store management games like it, offer a unique blend of casual engagement and strategic depth. It's a game about exponential growth, clever optimization, and the sheer satisfaction of watching numbers grow into astronomical figures. Whether you're looking for a relaxing background activity or a surprisingly deep strategic puzzle, diving into the world of cookie production is a delightful journey. So go ahead, give that giant cookie a click, and start building your delicious empire!
#2
Gaming / Re: Star Fox 64 Remake... AGAI...
Last post by Taylotevenson - Yesterday at 07:20:37 PMI totally get your frustration! It's like how "Monkey Mart" keeps popping up with the same basic premise across different platforms and versions. While it's fun for a quick play, I'd love to see the developers really expand on the concept with new challenges or even a fresh setting instead of just repackaging the same experience.
#3
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
Last post by Cyartog959 - Yesterday at 07:03:23 PMQuote from: JonLeung on June 06, 2026, 09:53:21 AMGeorge s has mapped the twelfth arcade game that I've requested - and it's Spider-Man: The Videogame!
It's a fun four-player beat-em-up that I don't hear many people talking about.
When I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall, there was a cleaning checklist for the arcade machines. Whoever made it listed Spider-Man: The Videogame as "Spider-Man: The Best Game Of All Time" or something, I always thought that was funny. It's a specific memory that probably not many people have, but, there we go, some of my requests are indeed personal. But Spider-Man is popular... right?
Thanks again, George s! You're the best! Especially when it comes to mapping arcade games!
Might as well also point out that until June 14, Gravity Circuit is free to claim on Steam, so if you're a PC gamer, why not go for it? It's an indie game that's 8-bit in style but plays much like Mega Man X. It's free because the sequel was recently announced, so they want to build excitement for it by giving out the original for nothing. Of course I bring it up because it's one of the games on my requests list, in the (long) PC section.
I wonder if one day I should split up the PC section into "retro-style indies" (usually platformers) and "point-and-click adventures" since most games there are one or the other... any thoughts about that?
Good story to share, and I like that Spider-Man arcade game's been mapped out. I haven't heard of it much. Looks real nice as a 4-player beat-em 'up. Wonder if Riot City(yes, its an arcade game, not the TurboGrafx-16 CD port, Riot Zone) may be up for being mapped.
I'd say this, do subsections to clear up clutter PC games and for "Retro-Style Indies". Would that help? There's loads of them, so they should at least have it.
SERIOUS?? Gravity Circuit 2?! Wow! Looks like Domesticated Ant Games really went into it in creating the sequel to that hit Mega Man-inspired robo-fisticuffed game, and it is Cable, the Power Circuit, one of the former renegade Circuits, partnered up with Kai for the adventure? I thought for sure he and the other Rebel Circuits were kaput in the first game. Oh, why worry? They're all robots; of course, they can be rebuilt and reprogrammed to be cleaned of any corrupt coding and influence.
This had me into a brief thought. I had thought that when a game is a success, the company and team responsible for it would take the chance to utilize its momentum to create a sequel, as it was with the case of Ratchet and Clank 2, though, in Gravity Circuit's case, the time was spent doing many updates to smooth things, especially the tiniest of cosmetics.
I mean, I have no problem with them, but its the rather absurd, slow pace of them is what bothers me, and stalling time to create its sequel while the success momentum's still hot and rolling. A few more onboard would've at least kept the pace for updates steady while the sequel gets made.
If anything, I'm still really expecting the sequel's stages to be longer and have actual unique mid-bosses in them, including the opening stage, at least a minimum of one, I have no problem with some having more than one as mid-stage mid-bosses, and they don't have to be fought in one stage more than once with slight difficulty increases in their destined arenas(yes, I do know Mega Man does it in their games; I've been though them, but that doesn't mean Gravity Circuit should do that same bit, and it shouldn't), before facing its end-stage boss, with actual health gauges and battle themes of their own, and its finale not having a set of less than 4 stages, at least. Slightly above 4, maybe. I can handle any great challenge, and lately, I just feel like I want to be challenged on these kind of games, past and present; 2D Sonic, Mega Man Classic, Gunvolt, whichever.
I do remember seeing a Twitter post as a request of the rest of the game's stages needing to have mid-bosses in them, because it only had 2(Trace and Bit's stages, actually), one user, @JunyangLiu_Math, posted that to Domesticated Ant Games' account, but the reply was they unfortunately didn't do so, because it would have taken a bunch of time to retrofit one for each stage that doesn't have them. I formerly thought that would be done by updates, but they do have a point. I felt that would rather be used for the sequel. Hope anyone can send a line about that to them, if given time. I'm all up for thrashing loads more of them.
Here's the reply post's link from Domesticated Ant Games' Twitter account to look at - https://x.com/GravityCircuit/status/1674094880501399553#m
At least, its continuing its own hi-bit pixel art style, but now with more free moving parallax background layers. That's what many games and companies should keep on doing, because pixel art still shares it unique universal appeal to a lot of people, especially us, since we grew up with them. Anyone trying to dissuade, demoralize, and discourage us for it and downplaying that is plainly calling cop-outs, and its a big time-waster on their end.
Unusually, letting the original become free of charge, on Steam? I find it odd for that choice to be made... Actually, its made that for a limited-time, so, yeah. Also, have more people bought that game on consoles besides Steam?
#4
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
Last post by JonLeung - June 13, 2026, 10:45:25 AMGeorge s has mapped the thirteenth arcade game that I've requested - and it's Battletoads!
It's quite different from any of the console/handheld versions. Probably not as remembered, though it is bundled with some other Battletoads and Killer Instinct games in the Killer Instinct Arcade1Up, since they're all by Rare.
Great for this game to be preserved in these maps, too. Thanks again, as always, George s!
It's quite different from any of the console/handheld versions. Probably not as remembered, though it is bundled with some other Battletoads and Killer Instinct games in the Killer Instinct Arcade1Up, since they're all by Rare.
Great for this game to be preserved in these maps, too. Thanks again, as always, George s!
#5
Map Gab / Re: Cobra Triangle, oddities a...
Last post by TerraEsperZ - June 12, 2026, 10:39:00 PMGood find dark_lord_zagato!
When mapping Battletoads (NES), I remember finding the map data for stage 13 (final boss) under the starting screen of stage 11, which is why that map has a dark square to obscure the area.
The Immortal (Apple IIGS) also has multiple stages sharing maps. When inside a room, you see the shapes of the rooms around it and when assembling all of these outlines together, I noticed that for example, stages 1 and 2 share a map, and so do 3 and 4, as well as 5, 6 and 7.
As always, it's something I never made much progress with so I never posted anything.
When mapping Battletoads (NES), I remember finding the map data for stage 13 (final boss) under the starting screen of stage 11, which is why that map has a dark square to obscure the area.
The Immortal (Apple IIGS) also has multiple stages sharing maps. When inside a room, you see the shapes of the rooms around it and when assembling all of these outlines together, I noticed that for example, stages 1 and 2 share a map, and so do 3 and 4, as well as 5, 6 and 7.
As always, it's something I never made much progress with so I never posted anything.
#6
Map Gab / Re: Cobra Triangle, oddities a...
Last post by Cyartog959 - June 11, 2026, 09:24:23 PMVery astute you figured that out. I was astounded about that discovery, I'll admit.
To be honest, upon watching Strafefox's videos about how past video games were made before the vast tech upgrades, the tileset amounts, then-expensive memory amounts for in-house dev workstation computers, and memory bank switching were very minimal and common in their time, and the NES carts were quite minimal in space, even with expansion chips to up its capabilities by notches, never very close to even half of a Gigabyte for a game, it is justifiable to see such bypasses had to be compromised to meet within the very tight limits of the NES then.
Still, your boundary breaking to gather the whole view of the maps in that game were rather impressive.
I can leave such videos for you to watch later, if you want. Maybe you'll learn much about those limits and bypasses people utilized then.
How Video Games Were Made, Part 1: Graphics(revised in 2018) - Narration: Chase McCaskill -
How Video Games Were Made, Part 2: Workflow - Narration: Steven Kelly -
Video Game Development Throughout the 80s - Narration: Steven Kelly -
To be honest, upon watching Strafefox's videos about how past video games were made before the vast tech upgrades, the tileset amounts, then-expensive memory amounts for in-house dev workstation computers, and memory bank switching were very minimal and common in their time, and the NES carts were quite minimal in space, even with expansion chips to up its capabilities by notches, never very close to even half of a Gigabyte for a game, it is justifiable to see such bypasses had to be compromised to meet within the very tight limits of the NES then.
Still, your boundary breaking to gather the whole view of the maps in that game were rather impressive.
I can leave such videos for you to watch later, if you want. Maybe you'll learn much about those limits and bypasses people utilized then.
How Video Games Were Made, Part 1: Graphics(revised in 2018) - Narration: Chase McCaskill -
How Video Games Were Made, Part 2: Workflow - Narration: Steven Kelly -
Video Game Development Throughout the 80s - Narration: Steven Kelly -
#7
Map Gab / Cobra Triangle, oddities and b...
Last post by dark_lord_zagato - June 11, 2026, 10:52:16 AMI found some interesting things while mapping Cobra Triangle. I've set aside some unedited maps to show it off.
This game seems to store the map data for stages 1 and 9 in the same general area inside the ROM. This isn't just a palette swap, it's two different stages in one giant map and they bleed into each other. This led to a fair amount of confusion when I started this project but by the time I was done with stage 9 I knew what was going on.
The stages use different palettes and different tile sets, but you can see how the course is the same. You can also see that i've cleaned up the regular maps quite a bit. This is because the stuff i've cleaned up is WAY out of bounds and looks really bad if left in place.
The NES cartridges don't have a lot of storage and there's a lot of big stages in this game, so perhaps the bigger maps share the same area in the ROM to save space?
Stage 14 contains the map for stages 11 and 18, Shoot The Targets. Yes, these are the same map, but you travel the lower path in 11 and the upper path in 18.
If you've come here from The Cutting Room Floor and want to verify this information for yourself i'll tell you how to boundary break.
My codes:
037D:FF Walk through walls. Toggle this on for a few frames and then turn it back off. You can go outside the normal boundary of the stage but you can't cross the finish line anymore.
0701:?? Set the value to 00 to remove the autopilot in Shoot The Targets. Set the value to 07 to stop the rapids in Reach The Finish and Jump The Waterfall.
0348:?? This is for jump height, but if you set the value to 01 the screen will scroll straight up. If you hit a jump and set the value to F8 you can just fly over everything.
General codes:
00B9:1A Invincible
0714:3B Infinite Time
This game seems to store the map data for stages 1 and 9 in the same general area inside the ROM. This isn't just a palette swap, it's two different stages in one giant map and they bleed into each other. This led to a fair amount of confusion when I started this project but by the time I was done with stage 9 I knew what was going on.
The stages use different palettes and different tile sets, but you can see how the course is the same. You can also see that i've cleaned up the regular maps quite a bit. This is because the stuff i've cleaned up is WAY out of bounds and looks really bad if left in place.
The NES cartridges don't have a lot of storage and there's a lot of big stages in this game, so perhaps the bigger maps share the same area in the ROM to save space?
Stage 14 contains the map for stages 11 and 18, Shoot The Targets. Yes, these are the same map, but you travel the lower path in 11 and the upper path in 18.
If you've come here from The Cutting Room Floor and want to verify this information for yourself i'll tell you how to boundary break.
My codes:
037D:FF Walk through walls. Toggle this on for a few frames and then turn it back off. You can go outside the normal boundary of the stage but you can't cross the finish line anymore.
0701:?? Set the value to 00 to remove the autopilot in Shoot The Targets. Set the value to 07 to stop the rapids in Reach The Finish and Jump The Waterfall.
0348:?? This is for jump height, but if you set the value to 01 the screen will scroll straight up. If you hit a jump and set the value to F8 you can just fly over everything.
General codes:
00B9:1A Invincible
0714:3B Infinite Time
#8
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
Last post by JonLeung - June 10, 2026, 10:01:20 PMzagato blackfist has mapped out Cobra Triangle!
There's something charming about this game. For some reason I never really played much of R.C. Pro-Am, but I think this is sort of like that, but on the water... maybe?
But besides my memories of playing Cobra Triangle, the significance of having this mapped is that we now have maps of all 72 NES games that were published by Nintendo Of America!
zagato blackfist seems intent on ensuring that every NES game will be mapped, but along the way, I think it's neat to see certain subsets get completed. Maybe I should see if any other publisher's games are close to all being mapped... but this is an important one, it's Nintendo (Of America) themselves on the Nintendo Entertainment System, of course!
Thanks, and keep up the good work, zagato... as you are very well aware in your own topic about unmapped NES games, there's still a ways to go yet... but it looks like, for the North American list especially, you've certainly made progress since you first made that topic!
And of course, anyone else can map NES games, zagato blackfist isn't calling dibs on them all just because he made the list...
There's something charming about this game. For some reason I never really played much of R.C. Pro-Am, but I think this is sort of like that, but on the water... maybe?
But besides my memories of playing Cobra Triangle, the significance of having this mapped is that we now have maps of all 72 NES games that were published by Nintendo Of America!
zagato blackfist seems intent on ensuring that every NES game will be mapped, but along the way, I think it's neat to see certain subsets get completed. Maybe I should see if any other publisher's games are close to all being mapped... but this is an important one, it's Nintendo (Of America) themselves on the Nintendo Entertainment System, of course!
Thanks, and keep up the good work, zagato... as you are very well aware in your own topic about unmapped NES games, there's still a ways to go yet... but it looks like, for the North American list especially, you've certainly made progress since you first made that topic!
And of course, anyone else can map NES games, zagato blackfist isn't calling dibs on them all just because he made the list...
#9
Map Requests / Re: JonLeung's Requests
Last post by JonLeung - June 06, 2026, 09:53:21 AMGeorge s has mapped the twelfth arcade game that I've requested - and it's Spider-Man: The Videogame!
It's a fun four-player beat-em-up that I don't hear many people talking about.
When I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall, there was a cleaning checklist for the arcade machines. Whoever made it listed Spider-Man: The Videogame as "Spider-Man: The Best Game Of All Time" or something, I always thought that was funny. It's a specific memory that probably not many people have, but, there we go, some of my requests are indeed personal. But Spider-Man is popular... right?
Thanks again, George s! You're the best! Especially when it comes to mapping arcade games!
Might as well also point out that until June 14, Gravity Circuit is free to claim on Steam, so if you're a PC gamer, why not go for it? It's an indie game that's 8-bit in style but plays much like Mega Man X. It's free because the sequel was recently announced, so they want to build excitement for it by giving out the original for nothing. Of course I bring it up because it's one of the games on my requests list, in the (long) PC section.
I wonder if one day I should split up the PC section into "retro-style indies" (usually platformers) and "point-and-click adventures" since most games there are one or the other... any thoughts about that?
It's a fun four-player beat-em-up that I don't hear many people talking about.
When I worked at Playdium at West Edmonton Mall, there was a cleaning checklist for the arcade machines. Whoever made it listed Spider-Man: The Videogame as "Spider-Man: The Best Game Of All Time" or something, I always thought that was funny. It's a specific memory that probably not many people have, but, there we go, some of my requests are indeed personal. But Spider-Man is popular... right?
Thanks again, George s! You're the best! Especially when it comes to mapping arcade games!
Might as well also point out that until June 14, Gravity Circuit is free to claim on Steam, so if you're a PC gamer, why not go for it? It's an indie game that's 8-bit in style but plays much like Mega Man X. It's free because the sequel was recently announced, so they want to build excitement for it by giving out the original for nothing. Of course I bring it up because it's one of the games on my requests list, in the (long) PC section.
I wonder if one day I should split up the PC section into "retro-style indies" (usually platformers) and "point-and-click adventures" since most games there are one or the other... any thoughts about that?
#10
Gaming / Re: Star Fox 64 Remake... AGAI...
Last post by samlee - June 03, 2026, 12:27:01 AMI've only played a little bit of Zero but wasn't it a remake only in terms of general story etc. It was a reimagining of the same events but with its own gameplay, levels etc. I think people are too quick to throw it in the pile of Starfox 64 remakes - to fit the narrative that Nintendo has kept making and remaking SF64. I'm not defending Zero - I don't like the gameplay and it's disappointing that it is the same story but I wouldn't group it with the 3DS game and this new Switch 2 game, which are actual SF64 remakes.