So I've found the SECOND most addicting game to exist on the internet. No, really.
 

So you thought Cookie Clicker was bad?

I give you.... Trimps.

It's been three whole days and I've been running this game on there all that time, ongoing. And I've only seemed to breach the surface. It's one LONG game and seems to have a LOT of content. Even after three whole days I'm seeing new content unlock. It's a very interesting and intriguing game. I'd liken it to A Dark Room, if you like that one...only bigger and on a more massive scale.

Actually, I can't take credit for finding this one. Zyanthia mentioned it in my Cookie Clicker topic. I clicked on it, started...and I haven't been able to stop since.

Have you gotten to your first portal yet? Just wait until you get 5 portals under your belt and you start unlocking heirloom equipment!

It is pretty addicting. Seems like a lot is going on, but it is fairly simple. Good thread!

There is a WIKI page for it. Trimps WIKI. There are a couple good new player guides on it if you have questions.

I have sorta just dived on in. After I put in my two weeks here at this job, they sort of just need me to be here, so that someone is here, but there isn't anything to do!

So this is actually a life saver!

I played that a couple months ago and found it becoming quite repetitive after a few days. Maybe they have added content since, maybe it just isn't progressing at the right pace for me.

One that I haven't seen mentioned on these boards is Shark-a-Lark. Fast-paced with a good balance between clicking and idling. It too becomes repetitive after you have explored some of the different worlds though.

Thanks for this. It's truly a game of making sure you have no idle moments.

I wonder if a famous person started calling it Drimpfs would that name catch on?

Question - seems like I have Trimps breeding faster than I can house them, employ them, or send them to battle. Is there any way to shift the ratio of breeders to producers at all?

That will become a non-issue after a few hours of gametime. Traps are my limited resource now at like level 8+

How? The combat casualty rate becomes higher?

I did. Just yesterday. I don't quite get how they work yet, it won't reset my game, will it?

You want them to breed and max out, trust me. Eventually you won't HAVE enough trimps on hand to do anything. You'll be wishing you had max amounts.

Yes, a bit, but more so, you will start sending more trimps into battle at the same time. I don't want to spoil much, so I'll just say that. Right now you are only sending ONE out to fight each time. Later..uh...that number grows due to storylines.

Ohmigod the Trimps. They've got me too! And I have to say I think they ARE worse than the cookies. There are just so many little ways it can draw you back in when you are honestly trying to go do your work, or switch over the laundry, or get to the bathroom in time . . .

But, wait! only 37 seconds until I can buy this aggerdagger upgrade and then I'll be able to - well, just thirty seconds more and then I can get buy my Trimps a Super-agger-dagger before I go so they don't all die while I'm . . . DARN! this is taking way too long, I've got to build a house and put more Trimps on mining detail . . . and it looks like the loggers need help too but . . .


These idle games remind me of a quote from C.S. Lewis, in "The Screwtape Letters." He's teaching his young apprentice how to slowly draw a human "patient" off his course and down to Hell. This is how he knows when it's working:
_____________________________________________________________________

...you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life doing in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
__________________________________________________________________


Yep, Wormwood's got me all right . . . :smack:

Idle Thoughts, the last time I listened to you on such topics, you ruined my life. Due to an unexpected release of the latest corporate image, I've been free, FREE of cookie clicker for the last couple months. Now you want me to dive into something that is just as bad!? I try to get out and you keep pulling me back in! I'll see if I can pretend to be busy with something else for one more week before I try this...this...thing.

Portals are the soft reset. You will start back over at zone 1, but you will be able to spend the helium you gained in perks. Spending the Helium properly will allow you to advance through the game faster and get a bit farther before you portal again.

Alright. So I want to get more gems, so I need to clear levels faster, which means I need more attack equipment, but I'm not making metal fast enough, which means I don't have enough workers, and to get more workers I need more resorts, which I can't fookin build because I don't have enough fookin gems.

I'm not hooked on this thing, mind, I'm just academically looking at the game mechanics and wondering how one would solve this hideous trap.

Go to maps. Make one in the sea depths. Hit [repeat on]. Go have dinner.

When you get back you'll have all the gems you need.

BUT IS IT SEA OR IS IT DEPTHS? They're different, you know.

j/k the docs tell me that depths yield the most gems. What I was pointing out is an apparent cyclic dependency that's driving me apeshit. Ultimately I need gems to get gems.

Not really my favorite. I kind of dislike how incremental games sort of slowly devolved into glorified versions of Progress Quest after Cookie Clicker got big.

I really prefer A Dark Room and Crank. Also some of the old ones like Candy Box (2).

Cookie Clicker was neat, and I like how it slowly got more insane, but I really appreciated the earlier incremental games because of how they expanded their systems.

Admittedly I didn't get too far in trimps, but after getting a few maps in on the battle thing I felt like it was just unlocking meters to get more meters to get a line of text a few hours down the line.

Just started Trimps a couple days ago. I like that you can close the game but your resources keep building anyway.

Made it to level 31 without using He for the Underachiever award. Portaled today and things are going faster.

Traps seem useless to me. Checking traps helps build your Trimps back up for battle, but it doesn't save all that much time.

I'm alwaaaays low on Block.

You will also, eventually, unlock an building that will collect gems for you.

Build tons of Gyms and put trimps on the Trainer job when you unlock both. I think those both contribute huge toward blocking.

Also, once you get level three shield or higher, it only gives you higher and higher blocking skill, IIRC. It can get pretty high if/when you have a level six shield.

I like it, but I think this game would really benefit from some graphics.

I'm lvl 15, but I haven't found Helium or Portals yet.

I eventually got the ability to make Trimp Explorers. They generate Fragments for you so you can make tons more maps. You only need a couple. Then you can find more books and upgrade like cah-razy.

Yeah, Gyms, Trainers and upgrading the shield are about all I can do. I'll just have to prioritize buying more. I learned the hard way not to upgrade the shield too much though. I had it up to close to lvl 10 and when I bought the next prestige my block dropped in half. I try not to upgrade it past lvl 5 now.

You'll get one of those special red maps at lvl 20, Dimension of Anger. Complete it, and you'll get access to the portal & He. That map is hard though, I finished lvls 21 & 22 and then went back to it.

Ha. It's addictive enough as it is. My wife saw this and said "you're like, playing a... spreadsheet?"

Seriously I wonder how people come up with this. It's like BF Skinner on acid.

I'm lvl 15, but I haven't found Helium or Portals yet.

I eventually got the ability to make Trimp Explorers. They generate Fragments for you so you can make tons more maps. You only need a couple. Then you can find more books and upgrade like cah-razy.

I also found the Auto-trap feature. It automatically generates traps when you're not building anything else, then stops building traps when you send the order to buid something else, then resumes making traps. I went to lunch for a half hour and trapped over 2K Trimps! When you're behind on equipment, just keep zerging Trimps until you run low.

I don't know what level I am in, but I am in zone 20. I am having a blast, and feel like I have sunken far to much time- Oh look an upgrade!

So when leaving it idle for a while / overnight (where food/wood/metal will cap out), what is the best option to leave your production button on? Last night I had it on science since it doesn't seem to have a cap, and now I have a huge surplus of science. Now I have auto-fight and auto-trap on, so I'm wondering if I should just leave it on build or leave it on trap?

Auto-trap, so you'll have a huge reserve of Trimps to zerg your way through the maps.

Yeah, I have auto-trap on. I meant which button to leave your personal production on. Last night I left it on build to help out the foremen making the autotraps, but now I have such a large amount of traps I might just leave it on trapping in order to keep them pushing through with auto-fight.

How do you build up foremen? Is that something at higher levels? I get one new foreman per zone.

I read somewhere to leave the scientist button on because "you" do a lot more science than the scientists do. You don't really need many scientists.

The foremen are usually prizes in the next-to-last levels of the world zones.

I finally completed Zone of Anger and got a reset. Things are slightly different. The helium counter is gone, but I guess it will return later.

Yeah, everytime you reset/portal, you have to make it back to zone 20 and do Zone of Anger again.

This time I didn't click the Portal and kept on with the regular world map. I got through level 25, then it repeated. I guess I have no choice. Guess I'll spend the Helium now.

Weird, I thought you could just keep going and going. Never heard you had to stop at any point until it just gets too time consuming to get to a new level.

It was addicting the first run-through, but now on my second run-through it's not so much. I can just build up my storage and come back the next day and spend on lots of upgrades, burn through a couple levels and leave it again 'til the next day. It seems to be requiring more Trimps now though.

I have to keep my playtime short anyway, or my laptop overheats and shuts down. Like Cookie Clicker, no way I can just leave it running.

You can use the Helium to enhance Trimp abilities before your next reset. You can also choose a setting that gives you a slight disadvantage but a new perk when you finish. Didn't choose that option, because I only want to swallow one hook at a time.

I figured out that my slow battle progress was because I was trying to maximize employment and technological progress. When I boosted the population and left them idle to reproduce, I had a lot of extra cannon fodder to expend in the name of battlefield gains.

Unfortunately the game is now too depressing to play.

It kind of develops spurts. Sometimes an upgrade will lead to a better weapon or armor that is cheap to produce, so you buy buy buy and dominate. Then things level off, and you discover something like superhuts, so you buy buy buy, then zerg zerg zerg. Like the tooltip says, the trimps understand.

I'm on my second run, zone 33. I have plenty of block now, but low on damage and always low on Trimps. I've got two Coordination upgrades I have to make but don't have the Trimps for it yet.

Has anyone done the Metal challenge? I gather you can't mine. Seems like it would be a hard challenge.

No, but I am trying out the training challenge. So far, it's not so bad. I'm not running through the zone as fast as before, but I should be able to develop more resources before the crunch period, where you can only play a few minutes then wait a half hour before making anything new.

It's not too bad, you can use the Mine button and since your own output doubles every level you can still do all the weapon research.

All I can say is fuck.

I ran sandcastle builder for about 12 months, manually playing at least a little bit every day, some days for more time than I'd like to admit. I forced myself to stop early this year, although I kept the save file.

This is reminiscent of that, although more straightforward.

Just. Fuck.

It's pretty tough, but the perk it unlocks is well worth it for reducing the ridiculous/unattainable costs of the higher level weapon & armor upgrades.

I forgot about the button. Cool. I'm on level 34 or 35 now, and things have gotten really slow, so I think it's time to portal and start my third run-through.

Yeah, zone 36 has been like a brick wall for me so far since I can't keep up with Coordination research. Last game I even focused on Trumps and housing and was still short a good 2,500 trimps when I got there.

Trying out No Miners now. This is going to take a while, but I think I'll get to the point where I can block any attack. :-)

I'm doing the Size challenge and it hurts even more than I had expected because with the work force halved you still need the same amount of trainers to block effectively.