Candy Box is pretty ancient now, over ten years old. Here is the Metafilter post where we discussed it, which reads like the rantings of crazy people but is also full of spoilers. It was an early entry in the genre of incremental games, sometimes called “clickers,” like Cookie Clicker and Clicker Heroes, and may well have inspired some of them. It’s still online (at a new home), and its still just as playable as it always was, its extremely ASCII presentation now even more appealing now than it was back in 2013.
While it may have helped kicked off the genre, I feel it’s important to point out that there’s actually a lot more going on here than Number Go Up. You go on quests! You have equipment! You have an alternate currency to track, lollipops, with different production characteristics!
Candy Box is a game that’s best experienced going in cold, but since its gleeful hugeness is less of a hilarious shock now that countless other games have done it too, it might help a bit to give you some starting advice. Eating candy isn’t useless: it increases your maximum HP.
Every time you reach what you think is the pinnacle of ridiculousness, some new aspect is introduced. By the end you’ll be mixing up candy potions, using a a candy alchemy system much more detailed than most AAA game’s crafting systems, using only two ingredients.
There’s a sequel too, but let’s save that for tomorrow….
Candy Box’s New Home (github.io)
