Cookie Clicker is the ultimate granddaddy of the incremental (or idle) game genre. Released in 2013 by French programmer Julien Orteil Thiennot, it’s a game that starts with a simple premise and quickly descends into chaotic, addictive absurdity.How It WorksThe gameplay loop is deceptively simple:The Click: You start by clicking a giant cookie on the screen. Each click gives you one cookie.The Investment: You use those cookies to buy assets that bake cookies for you—starting with extra fingers and Grandmas, then moving up to cookie farms and mines.The Escalation: Eventually, you’re buying Alchemy Labs to turn gold into cookies, Portals to the Cookieverse, and Time Machines to bring cookies from the past before they were even eaten.