Introduction:

Cookie clicker is a fantastic game but to really appreciate its complex nature we must look at each aspect individually and understand what really ties this generation defining game together.


Gameplay:

The gameplay goals are relatively simple. More cookies…make more cookies! You start with an empty glass and no milk or cookies. Each click gives you a cookie, a process I wish was true of real life. Eventually, you will click your way to your first upgraded idle clicker. The more cookies you can stock up on the more upgrades you can purchase from the store. Before you know it, you will have ascended that solum 1 cookie per click to farms, baking you thousands if not millions within a reasonably short amount of time. You can also invest your cookies into power-ups. Such as your cookie farm becoming twice as effective or an increased percentage per click.

As you continue to build your cookie balance you can buy more and more upgrades increasing your idle cookies per second. Once you eventually get to the next available balance milestone you will unlock the next upgradeable. Some of the earlier upgrades consist of; Grandma, Farm, Mine, and factory. The rest, you will have to find out for yourself.

There is also a Legacy section where you will be set a goal, the first being to bake a trillion cookies. Once you have hit this milestone you can then prestige if you wish or continue to gain levels by baking more cookies to spend more points on permanent upgrades. This will set you back to the very start of your journey but with powerful and permanent boosters to aid you. While playing make sure to keep an eye out for the golden cookies! Once activated these provide a powerful temporary boost such as a frenzy mode doubling your cookie production, or maybe you will receive a large injection of extra cookies to top up your balance.

There are also Sugar lumps. This is shown next to your cookie balance and takes a very long time to build/ mature. Once you have collected your sugar lump you can use this to level up your upgrades. Level 0 grants +0% CPS and each level after grants an increase to your CPS. Some buildings can give special perks such as temples allowing you to choose pantheons to give buffs to various attributes of the game, or wizard towers which give you access to powerful spells with a 15% chance of a backfire and a negative effect, or even upgrading the bank allowing you to access an in game stock market. Truly amazing.


Story:

Surprisingly the story in cookie clicker is vast and engaging with natural passing and unexpected turns. the story follows a simple concept of you the player opening a cookie store and expanding your baking empire. You will learn to increase production by taking advantage of investment opportunities by buying upgrades and buildings starting from the humble grandmas and eventually investing in full blown time machines and antimatter condensers. Unfortunately, things take a turn for you the young capitalist when you upgrade grandmas for means of production in complete negligence to all ethics, exploiting slave labour you use your power force hundreds of grandmas to work in these buildings including gruelling tasks on the farm and digging in the mines as the world around you bends towards your will creating an economy based on cookies while controlling a monopoly on all cookie suppliers. The news feed will attempt to warn you of these heinous deeds to insist to commit while you ignore every word and watch the cookies roll in. While keeping them grandmas cooped up in a retirement home they hatch an evil plan while communing with the demons beyond portals to gain their powers and take over the world as a rise of freedom from your oppression, sending worms to hijack your production and turning golden cookies into wrath cookies with chances of negative effects.
The portrayal of capitalism and working party embargo creates remarkable depiction of what society could be like given the opportunity of extreme capitalism going out of hand without hindering the game experience to make these political undertones a hindrance by shoving propaganda disguised as a game in your face. Overall very impressive and inspiring.


Graphics and Audio:

Graphically the game isn’t very intense. It is, however very pleasing, even more so on the upgraded graphics given by steam. There are a number of small animations such as the moving background and the movement of the milk in the glass as well as a tabloid news feed hinting at potential foreshadowing of the story as well as flavour text which keep your attention well however aren't too distracting at the same time. The audio was very nice. The in-game music is soothing and relaxing thanks to the help of the fantastic work of c418 while little audio cues keep you aware of what is happening with a satisfying click keeps you engaged. There are also a lot of customisation options available in-game to tailor the experience to your own requirements.

the graphics develop drastically as you progress through the story, in the beginning as you just open a new corner side local cookie shop the graphics reflect that with pleasing to the eye blue and light blue vertical stripes with an extremely wholesome feel. As you progress and earn more you start to notice small cookies raining in the glass increasing exponentially. During the grandmapocalypse, an in-game event that begins after a long chain of upgrades these graphic changes become less subtle as the before wholesome cookie shop walls slowly turns into a dystopian love-craftion horror depiction of the harsh reality of capitalism within todays society with large flesh amorthic grandma blobs and horrific parasites that eat away at your cookie production. Luckily for the more faint hearted of you, the game has implemented an option that makes all these horrific changes redundant and gives the parasites googly eyes.


Longevity:

The Longevity of the game could be somewhat questionable. While it is not likely to be a game that you will be itching to play daily. It is a great game for relaxing or multitasking. If you enjoy a challenge there is over 600+ Upgrades and over 500+ achievements to work towards including many secrets and easter eggs in the form as shadow achievements. Including minigames such as growing farms and investing in stocks its unlikely for you to grow bored any time soon, and should the time arise where you have nothing left to do, leave the game running come back later and enjoy the fruits of your afk labour by investing a large sum of generated cookies you so rightfully earned. It is likely you may find yourself with hundreds of hours in the game however due to the nature of afk games the actual playtime can be left somewhat debated.


Conclusion:

Overall, I really enjoy the experience I receive playing Cookie Clicker. I found it peaceful and relaxing at night but also laid back enough to play while watching TV/ YouTube. I’ve also heard that it could be a great option for those long meetings at work if you’re still working from home. With the expansive story and ludicrous amounts of achievements and goals to achieve, I can’t see myself putting down the game anytime soon. With full modding support from the steam workshop to come and more updates up the developers sleeves I am optimistic in cookie clickers future.


Overall, I would rate cookie clicker a solid,
who gives a ♥♥♥♥? why are you even reading this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ review / 10