The Great Machine

The Great Machine
Because it is hosted on a private server, itch.io does not properly redirect to the host machine. Navigate to http://lab.kylessideprojects.com to play the most recent version.

A massively-multiplayer incremental software toy created for the OneLoneCoder CodeJam 2020: "The Great Machine" in a little under a week. Created using a fully-functional web stack: Elixir, Phoenix Framework, and Elm. The repository is completely open source and free (gratis and libertis) at https://github.com/kroucis/the_great_machine

The design philosophy is to be an "incremental" or "unfolding" game similar to Candy Box! or Cookie Clicker, but instead of unlocking "automatic" features, players can recruit more players to interact with the machine and increase their resources. Some of the elements have very specific execution requirements, which means players must coordinate to understand and properly utilize these more complex widgets, but are also awarded with more resources than just mashing the easier elements.

In addition to this player interaction design philosophy, the game/toy is intended to have a lot of inter-connections and complexities that can be discovered through careful experimentation. None of these interactions are meant to be explicitly conveyed to the players: they must observe and coordinate carefully.