Ain’t Nobody Fresher Than My Click: I’m Not Really Getting Better At This, Am I?

Clicker games, or Incremental games to the initiated, are bits of software where you click on a screen and things happen. Popularised by the big daddy of them all Cookie Clicker, they appear to be going through a renaissance of sorts at the moment. As Nathan Grayson off of Kotaku told me this week, an Incremental called Clicker Heroes is super popular on the PC. Almost as popular as Grand Theft Auto V, which I gather is somewhat surprising. Or is it?

Sorcery! On My Phone is Great (And I'm Not Embarrassed to Say So)

Preface

I self-consciously balked at the stuff deemed goofy by my peers. As a kid you listened to Papa Roach, talked about football, watched the late night softcore on Channel 5, ate your end of term lunch at McDonald's, played football, chased girls, skipped homework, watched football and stole booze from your parents. I only actually liked two of those things - the nu metal and the blueys, obviously - and so spent a fair bit of my time pretending to be into the others outside of school, where, conveniently, no one could see me not doing them. I don't think I fooled anyone, but at the time it seemed I just about passed the societal conditions necessary to be a cool kid. For one to maintain this status you couldn't really like more fringe pastimes. Magic cards? Not a chance. Dungeons & Dragons? Ha! Warhammer (40K or otherwise)? The only little figures you were allowed to play with were of the Subbuteo variety (football again). Acknowledging the other kids who liked these things? Big no no. By the age of about fifteen I’d had enough of this sham personality and jumped ship (let's be honest: I was pushed), but I'd already missed out on many an enlightening formative year. It is for this collection of customarily awkward adolescent reasons that I have never sampled a Fighting Fantasy book.

I’m not playing Hearthstone: Doctor Who and Vinnie Mac got me covered (for a 1-2-3)

When I were a young ‘un the Star Wars films were re-released in the cinema. I went with the Beaver Scouts and found myself watching A New Hope, despite actually wanting to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit-aping basketball extravaganza Space Jam. You see: our lovely-yet-rapidly-aging leaders thought a film about a traffic jam in space would be a bit boring for a bunch of eight year olds, which is fair enough, however off-target their interpretations of the conspicuously vehicle-free poster were. At the same time the lovely people at Walkers crisps decided that all the children, regardless of their moviegoing preferences, would benefit from sharing in the great warmth generated by the beloved cinematic series. They started hiding little plastic Pog-like disks in bags of their delicious snacking aids, all of which were emblazoned with a precious image from the hallowed Star Wars history books. I never managed to get a full set of fifty, but that wasn’t really the point; I satiated my internal hunger to seek stability and security for a bit and managed to help a $10billion-plus corporation achieve its lofty profit goals for the year. That’s a win-win all day long in my mind.