comments for Incremental Fortress
sort: go backI played this in early development, and if I recall, it has the same main problem - namely, that the hammer multiplier boost makes all other progress seem trivial. So you just sort of sit around waiting for that one.
developer response: I would actually disagree on that one, and I worked a lot on the balance to ensure that this is no longer the case.
In the previous versions everything was incredibly slow. You could prestige for the first time in like a day. And so hammer boosts was the only thing that propelled you forward.
In this version waiting for the hammer will not get you very far. Instead, everything is done in a way that you can prestige frequently. In fact, the prices are done in such a way that when you unlock a new area, by the time you explore it, you have already accumulated enough mana to prestige and unlock the next big thing.
And this way the rare hammer boost is just that - a rare bonus that's actually no longer even necessary in the game.
Just make sure to take advantage of the stuff you open. Get items, many of which will add lots of boosts, especially those that provide cool combos like Owl/Frog Rain and Casswary/Thunder. Those can be obtained from normal Cave or Dicebox easily and give you massive boosts.
Cave and Dicebox themselves give you massive time boosts, if that's what you want. You can routinely win 10/20 minute boosts, and at Cave you can sometimes get a 1 hour boost.
You can essentially beat the whole game in 2-3 days if you're playing actively and engaging with stuff. The hammer is not required at all.
Seems incredibly slow. I agree with Mantus that the only progress is hammer boosts, until I found some cannibals. Took me 22 hours to get to the first prestige, and I'm not like...bad at these games. It almost makes me wonder if maybe an old version was uploaded or something?
I also thought I unlocked a bunch of spells when I did my first prestige, but I don't see any spells anywhere and seem to just be doing the same slow climb again without any noticeable improvement. Maybe I'm misunderstanding this game?
developer response: Spells are additional upgrades that you get for units. The first volley of upgrades turns Weaklings into the most powerful unit. A second volley makes Humans the strongest.
Rare louigi verona game, not moving for at least an hour
developer response: Yas! I hope you enjoy
how do the they do better when drunk
developer response: I guess their mood improves :D
Let bro cook!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
no offline progress? :(
developer response: There is offline progress, but it's gotten through prestige upgrades (very early on)
You might be thinking it would be cool to craft 16 packs of thunders, and then craft 16 cassowaries, and then spawn 1000 BLTs to make the treasury bonus go wild, but the game can't seem to handle having a 1000 BLTs in the inventory and lags to a stop. Items definitely need to be stackable, sortable, and managed in the back end better. Items also really shouldn't have a use cost that scales with best income. It's kind of silly that an item that I dropped early in a prestige is dirt cheap and then that same item dropped when all my bonuses have been set up and I'm pushing for the next prestige costs more than 100x what I generate per second. I have a feeling the unique costs is what is stopping items from being stackable, so maybe it's an overall good thing to ditch it.
developer response: Good point about stacking, I can think about how to better organize items (perhaps, similar to how I deal with ingredients).
The items cost does go down dramatically with prestige upgrades, and there are a bunch of items that lower it (like Strange and Stranger bottles). Also, use Daggers and Swords.
Once prestige upgrades are applied, items are way more accessible. I am also open to making it cheaper still and working with the balance.
Latest update (2025/02/08) is fantastic. Thanks Louigi.
developer response: Thank you so much! <3
Accidently equipped Devil's Exhale, and now I can't unequip it and it carries over every prestige. Anyway to get around this?
developer response: Yes, you have to riot! Give wine to, say, dwarves!
I guess I've hit a wall at the hunt for 9m Mana. Either I wait for a Hammer to drop or hatch more Breathers?
Still not sure what aviary does. It says permanent birds, but I bought aviary and it seems to have changed nothing. Does it just mean that when you prestige you keep all the bird items?
developer response: You have to add bird items to it, and as you do, it provides a permanent multiplier. It will keep all the bird items between prestiges, but! Only if you collect all of them during the run.
You can also use fortifications to increase the aviary effect by x9 with each fortification, making it a very formidable contribution to your rate!
Very Cool game, how do I get rid of Devil's exhale after unlocking the keep equiped item unlock
developer response: You need to give wine to the mortals so that they riot. Pick dwarves or weaklings!
Addicted immediately. Took a few days which was an enjoyable amount of time. I played almost entirely active, there was always a new milestone just within reach at any given moment and it just kept happening and I was hooked. New multipliers at every turn, fantastic stuff. And by far the most fun I had was . They have context and indication so figuring some out felt like being rewarded for good detective work, I loved it.
Opinions/Suggestions: Dev, if you're going to keep updating (which I would enjoy), I would have liked a "buy 50" or maybe a "buy next rank/hiring bonus". It would have made the milestone chasing even better. I would have liked to see many more outer wall stones. I would have loved to see more things happening at the , it felt too slow to enjoy engaging with, it was kind of a chore, although I understand its importance. I'd love to see have more effects, I only and only a few times with no incentive to the others.
I partially agree with others that the , however I still always had something else I could do and so I don't think it should be changed much, if at all.
Here's an FYI, maybe it'll give dev some insight for updates, or players a strategy to work with if they feel stuck.
developer response: Massive thanks for this kind comment!
"I played almost entirely active, there was always a new milestone just within reach at any given moment and it just kept happening and I was hooked"
This makes me very happy! This was exactly how I balanced the prices and exactly how I wanted the game to feel :)
"I'd love to see tower reinforcements have more effects"
I absolutely plan to add more, agreed
"buy next rank/hiring bonus"
Great idea! Won't comment on other suggestions, all sound great, some of 'em I have on my list already!
Since I see that this time the game is doing better, I will then definitely be considering a new version. Apart from improvements, I plan to add enemies: the fortress will occasionally have enemies attack it, and there will be different kinds that can be killed more easily either with certain items or when a certain item is equipped, things like that.
Again, massive thanks for the kind comment, this made my day! <3
For evidence on the hammer boost: My last one gave me 30x my per second production per click. With an autoclicker running at 50 clicks per second for 10 seconds, That's over 4 hours of production. Nothing else comes close. Certainly not gambling for a 5-10 minute boost, if I'm lucky. I've gotten past the first hump into some of the cool content, and this game is definitely good. It just struggles with the common weakness of balancing clicks with passive production. I'm a broken record on this, but if an autoclicker gives meaningful progress (say, more than half your passive production), then players will use one. If it doesn't, then players will stop clicking entirely. Taken together, why include a clicking element at all?
developer response: First of all, do understand that I am an independent developer and I don't have anyone to play test this for me. I am grateful for the feedback and I am not saying it's not legit, I am saying that this version has definitely reduced this problem significantly. And at least in part by making messengers more frequent (after prestige messengers start with the first upgrade already applied). So even if the hammer is so disruptive, well hey, it does appear fairly frequently just by the time you need to grind.
There are a couple of options of dealing with this that I might try in the next version.
1. Simply make the hammer boosts rarer, especially the scholar one. In which case you wouldn't be able to rely on it, it will be just a very rare bonus.
2. Nerf the boost.
But also, if you are using an autoclicker and your argument is that players will just use that, then hey, you can just go into the browser console and give yourself any amount of money, any amount of items and any upgrades. A quick perusal of the code will allow you to do all of these things with just one line.
The game wasn't designed to be played with autoclicker. You're free to use it, but it just wasn't designed for it.
Is there a way to not carry an item between transmigrations after getting the upgrade?
developer response: Ooh, interesting question. I don't think so, unless you equip an item that you can then get out, like Minting Machine. Be mindful of what you prestige with, for sure!
doing great! keep it up!
developer response: Thank you!
I wonder why no offline progress. The game seems to be ok to have one.
It will surely raise the retention
developer response: There is offline progress, but it's gotten through prestige upgrades (very early on)
@Mantus: to be fair, calling an active boost insane when you're using a 50 per second autoclicker is an issue on your end (assuming the game even registers all those clicks). When I use an autoclicker it's about 6 per second. I don't need an insane boost, just don't want to do all those dull clicks myself. If I wanted to I could click faster manually but that'd defeat the point.
But I do agree that in the early game the hammer beats all other available boosts by dozens of miles, and possibly later too but I haven't seen those yet.
Just reached 10 trillion, which is apparently a milestone where you get to choose to unlock 2 out of 3 (random?) things. Got the Raids and Cannibals.
Cannibals... show up in a lit box, as if buyable like other units, but without a cost and clicking them does nothing. No indication of what they're supposed to do either. Underwhelming and lacking clarity, would've chosen the gambling thing if I'd known these wouldn't even work without something else.
The raids, apparently and annoyingly, take away weaklings and only return part of them without adjusting the cost of buying another weakling. They reduce the number of a unit which forms a cornerstone of boosting a lot of your other units' income. This feels awful at this point in time.
developer response: When you unlock Cannibals, they appear with an item. You cannot buy Cannibals, you can only get them through items.
I was hoping that this makes it clear. I will consider making it even clearer, although, to be fair, I am not getting many questions about cannibals.
the sounds THE SOUNDSSS I LOVE THEM
developer response: Ooh, thank you! Spent a lot of time finding and editing sounds, super glad you like them!