Sakura Clicker

The Good
Another free download from Steam. I don't understand these 'clicker' games - by which I mean I don't understand why I like them so much. I logged over two thousand hours on Spiral Clicker and way more than that on Adventure Capitalist yet every so often I pick up a new one meaning to give it a try and end up losing hours to it. This is such a case. I tried it last night just for a few minutes and the next thing I know is that it is half past two in the morning.

The game is simple to grasp. The player's character is on the right of the screen and enemies appear on the left. By clicking on the enemies the player defeats them and scores points. The more points are scored the more the player can level up or hire assistants and level them up. This quickly becomes more and more expensive. All characters receive bonus attributes as they level up including one handy bonus, at level four hundred I think, which generates mega points for twenty seconds then needs ten minutes to recharge. Other bonuses need between five and fifteen minutes to recharge. To buy weapons you need to collect spirits and to do that you need to get your main character up to level four hundred and fifty, trash your game and start over, spirits are awarded on restart.

So it's easy to pick up and play. The music is resolutely cheerful, bouncy generic game music, it's OK but it gets a bit wearing after a while. There is voice acting but it is limited to a few phrases and squeals in Japanese.

The Bad
The player's character is customisable. The skin colour, hair colour and length and a few tweaks can be made with this game but to add a new outfit or add a weapon, well that costs money. Apart from rewarding/thanking the developers I don't see the point.

The Bottom Line
These games are my kryptonite. I tried to get a couple of screenshots while writing this and lost another hour.

Simple, free and fun.