Forums → Games → Clicker Heroes -- Popularity

Well that's all about what you think... Some people think its boring, like you, and some its fun or interresting.I don't like the game that much since , as you said, its pointless and long, but i play it because i like that you don't get tired of it like most of the games... It takes like only 15minutes a day and that's biggest reason it doesn't lose players like other games.. That's why its popular.
I don't know much about the game.. but that's just my opinion..

Thanks, Snjezana. I realize that there's going to be a difference of opinion for every game, but I just don't get why this game is so wildly popular. It's not just a matter of some people liking this -- a 93% approval rating, and one of the top four games of the year (so far -- could be #1 in a few days) shows that it's a game that a lot of people really love. Why????

You are right about that. I honestly don't know why is that game poplar that much. I don't say it IS popular.. just that it had a big leap, so everyone tryied to play it .. That is one of the things that get popular for no reason... Lets say like Gangnam style ... By the way i'm not a lot on forums like u see in my post number, so sorry for this long waiting.

The game is extremely fun when you can reach the 1k + levels.

Not to mention the millions of plays considering it was released late in 2014.

Still, that doesn't answer popularity question.

I don't really like this style of game. The must-a-mine game was okay since it at least had mild humor.

It's one of those weird things. People like dumb stuff, science has proven that time and time again. But I'm just kidding. It's all about preference and what is "hot" and what is "not".

For example, the Gemcraft series is literally (in my opinion) one of the most overrated, over played, and over achieved flash game franchises I've every seen. Every game in the series has a certain high quality that appeals to the masses, thus leading to every title I've seen to sit for months in the top rated section, a top runner in game of the year, and (like this year) the overall winner. A poll on why people voted the way they did would be interesting, give us a clear picture on why certain games where in the running.... Fascinating thought.

Hm...well... I have to say I liked both GC:CS and Clicker Heroes(possibly GCCS a little more).

While what xeano321 says is true about "hot", it's kind of an incomplete explanation. Both good and bad things can become "hot"; a "hot" trend is not necessarily bad. Furthermore, good things tend to become more "hot" than bad things - this should be kind of obvious. Quality is causally linked to popularity. A good game is going to be played by everyone at least a single time, just because it's highly rated. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a smart use of your (presumably limited) time.

Now that we've established this point, we can focus a little more on why these games are quality(warning: is quite long).

1. Good devs: Their devs really care. It might not be directly obvious, or relevant, but if you poke around, you can see the hard work they do. This matters. There's been updates, balance fixes, etc.
2. Replay value: There's a lot of content. And not just in a generic boring way. There's unique stuff to do, and you can keep coming back for more.
3. Progression: You feel like your time is spent doing something that matters. In clicker heroes, you get hero souls and ancients. In gemcraft, you get wizard levels and skill points. When you come back to somewhere that you beat, it gets easier, and noticeably so, allowing you to continue pushing on.
4. Anti-grindiness: The games are decently balanced. That is to say, it doesn't feel like a terrible grind fest(ex: must-a-mine, where your minimum run time is 8 hours purely due to animations for cutting through layers). The games might be long, but they don't FEEL long(to most people). The rate of improvement is significant and noticeable.
5. Strategy: There's a sizable element of skill to each game. In CH, if you leave all your souls unspent, or worse, buy crappy ancients, your progress will be slow. In gemcraft, if you don't place your towers or pick your skills well, you can find scenarios fairly difficult. This matters because you get to make decision that matter.
5b. Powers: The abilities in CH, the strike spells in GCCS. Both make a big difference when used carefully. This allows players to cause a sizable impact on the game, without breaking the game.
5c. Randomness: (Not in a bad way). In CH, there's the treasure chests, the candy/ice, the gift packages; in GCCS there's all the flying ones and the special waves. These help break up the monotonous feel, as you can often get ahead if you deal with these.
6. Multi-dimensional: You can advance on multiple fronts, both short-term and long-term. In CH, you can go for new heroes, buy upgrades, or level old heroes to 1k+ in the short term; in the long term you can buy ancients, regild, or stock HS. In gemcraft, you can build towers, trap manafarm, and enhance with amps in the short term; in the long term you can invest in skills, or in talisman fragments/raw xp with shadow cores. This helps in case you get stuck on one of the fronts, there's always more room in another direction.
7. Story: There's a reasonable amount of story. It's not volumes of RPG text like starwish: RPG Shooter(something I recommend) where there's a near book's worth of dialogue, but it's definitely more than: "Here's some monsters, go kill them". It's somewhat less obvious in CH, but if you go and read the upgrades and the buy descriptions, there's quite a bit of story and references to pop culture cleverly hidden within, even if kashoople doesn't think so.
8. Scaling: The games scale pretty well. Sure, you can "break" the game at some point, but for the vast majority of players, things don't get absurdly difficult(ie arcuz 2, where killing the final boss in NG+ takes 3 hours), or absurdly easy
9a. Smooth controls: There's quite a few hotkeys for everything. In CH, you can ctrl, shift, and z click; in GCCS you have all the wonderful hotkeys for combining. The controls aren't jerky, you can pretty easily get where you want. It may not seem like much, but it contributes to the overall game experience(it's kind of related to #1)
9b. Glitch free: (Mostly). I don't recall any gamebreaking ones, and the active devs really help on fixing problems.

I don't know much about the CH or games themselfs, but Randomblah a lot not related games have all that. I'm not saying there's a whole bunch but there must be over 5 (100%). And i don't think any of them are popular like CH,so i don't think that all what you are saying has answer to the question why is it popular.. That only says why it is a little better then average..

Once again guys i'm new here and this is my little opinion so you can tell me if i'm wrong.

I would say that one major factor is that it doesn't require much attention. I have it running in another tab right now, as a matter of fact.

I can't speak for all the games, but for must-a-mine and Save-the-earth:

Must-a-mine(I got 1 ascend + 100k meters in):
Suffers from terrible bonuses for portaling. You actually progress faster by mining artifacts with the Mecha-antzilla, and 1 togenium is a joke. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the game gets HARDER to win every time you ascend(first layer health goes up). It also doesn't handle the balance between clicks and dps very well, and is horribly grindy. There's an artifact upgrading/leveling system, but it's such a joke because you need diamonds(p2w) to open chests, and you'd need comparable level artifacts to even raise something by one level.

Save-the-Earth(went to rank 7 or 8) or so:
The game isn't terrible, but a lot of mouse moving(or clicking around). I'm totally confused by what the soldiers are doing(ie running around). There's no point in not resetting after you promote - that is to say, progress is one dimensional: play until you can buy next rank upgrades, and skedaddle. You also quickly realize that progress will get incrementally slower rather quickly, and there's not much you can do other than rank up more.

Ah, well, I guess it all comes down to preference again. I would argue that the game is terribly grindy, and that the strategy is rather one-dimensional. I can play GemCrafter for hours because the strategy has several levels to it. For Clicker Heroes, the strategy is all in what you buy, not in what you play ... and to play well you need to read how other people have done it. For example, there's nothing in-game to suggest that Vaagur is a crucial Ancient to buy; when such strategy comes from other plays in forums, it doesn't seem to have much in-game depth.

At any rate, my initial question was probably a little naive -- trying to figure out what makes a game popular is futile, it just is. I'll never get why Clicker Heroes is so popular, no matter how much explanation is given.

Well, I saw this and I immediately knew what to add. In the app store for iOS, there's a similar game called tap titans which has gained some huge popularity recently. I guess some people really like the click play thing.

Yes.. some not all.... So that doesn't answer really
I do get that, but i do think that it's over rated.