Sandcastle Builder - Better than Cookie Clicker..?!

[L.B.D.D]

Link to game: http://castle.chirpingmustard.com/castle.html

Link to startup/indepth guide: http://www.reddit.com/r/incremental_...astle_builder/

Link to wikia & list of boosts with explanations: http://xkcd-time.wikia.com/wiki/Boosts


[excerpts below are taken from a stickied frontpage guide from reddit]

Sandcastle Builder is the Dwarf Fortress of idle games; it's rumored to be incredibly deep and awesome, but you try it and it just confuses the fuck out of you. This guide aims to remedy that.

Why play Sandcastle Builder?

Sandcastle Builder really is, hands-down, THE deepest idle game out there, both in mechanics and in scale.

Mechanically, the game has so many different things to do and I haven't even scraped the surface yet. The best way I can describe it is the way it was described to me; this game is built around paradigm shifts. Remember how much more cookies you got when you learnt to use golden cookies in Cookie Clicker? Remember how the game changed when your lollipop farm exploded in Candy Box? This game is BUILT around moments like these, which also can make it very frustrating when you can't reach these moments!

Scale-wise, I'll say this. In this game, you start by earning a handful of castles every half hour. I'm currently earning over a trillion per half hour, and I'm still in the early game. Believe it or not, it is possible to progress to a literally infinite amount of sand and castles, and the game still does not end there. The game "goes infinite" at around e308. That's 308 digits, guys. I'm not even fucking kidding you. I haven't gotten there, but someday I will.

So how do we play the thing?

Note: This is not a complete guide, or even an authoritative one. I'm not an expert on this game, I'm still a beginner myself. Any additions or corrections are gladly accepted.

The first thing we obviously need to do is load the game up. http://castle.chirpingmustard.com/castle.html

Next, we want to zoom out a bit. We want to be able to see our entire screen. I go to 67% on Chrome, to be able to see the picture, the stuff to the right of the picture, all the Tools, and the Boosts. (Upgrades) You'll get used to the small text.

Finally, to complete our preparations, we'll want to paste this script onto the page. http://pastebin.com/HSUJVBiE

For Google Chrome or Firefox, you'll want to right-click the page, and click Inspect Element. (You can also do Alt+Shift+J to bring up the console on Chrome.)

From there, go to Console, and paste it in. What this script will then do is ask you for a number. That number, between 0 and 100, is the percentage of Redundakitties (i.e, golden cookie analogues) the script will auto-click for you. You don't have to have the script do this, but the script also comes with a timer. This timer is highly recommended. Redundakitties in the early game of Sandcastle Builder are like Frenzy + Lucky chains in the end-game of Cookie Clicker. The difference is night and day, and you REALLY want to start clicking these things as soon as possible. Even if you don't auto-click, you still want the timer. (Note: The timer's counter decreases every 1.8 seconds, not every second. You'll see why later.)

Why do you want the timer?

1) A few Redundakitties early will greatly increase your speed through the very earliest stages of the game.

2) Lifetime Redundakitties clicked are important, at least early on. Certain upgrades are only gained when you've clicked a certain amount of them, and these upgrades are critical to have in order to progress.

3) This is a slow game. Without Redundakitties, things only happen early every half hour or so. Do you really want to stare at a screen for half an hour waiting for a Redundakitty (Which spawns every 6-8 minutes early, I believe) to give you that critical early game boost?
It's not compulsory to have this script, but again, I really do recommend having it. It's probably best to put it at 0 to start with, as it feels less cheap and gives you a more natural introduction to the game. 0 will ensure that the game doesn't auto-click for you, but still gives you the timer.



... and there's a WHOLE bunch more. There is endgame to the game.. but it's pretty impossible to reach right now. It's an infinitely progressing game (yes, you reach "infinite" sands and castles per mNP towards the end,) and there are really interesting mechanics.

It's not instantly gratifying like Cookie Clicker, but it really is - in the sense an IDLE game.



Sample image of the game.. it's where I am after about 50 hours of idling. ;_; This isn't even midgame, it's like super earlygame.

[L.B.D.D]

Quick tips & Info

1) The game advances 1 NewPix (OGN) / timeframe every 30 minutes I believe. Time is measured in NewPix, and you want to get to NewPix 3 before Molyping down (basically soft resetting), because this unlocks Time Travel. You NEED Time Travel or else you're going to have a hard time.

TL;DR --> Get to 3 NewPix by idling for about an hour and a half, then Molpy Down (soft reset) in the Options list to gain access to Time Travel. THEN the real game begins.

2) Start by getting some SAND for CASTLES (sand required to make 1 castle goes up in a Fibonacci sequence, so after 15 or so it'll become pretty impossible to manually click for them.)

3) Get some NEWPIXBOTS - buy them with the castles you've earned.

4) There are 5 types of sand and castle generating tools. You can slowly build up as time goes on - but focus on the Castle ones first.

The rest should be explained in depth on the reddit guide

[EzExZeRo7497]

Why am I a sucker to games like this

[L.B.D.D]

it's really insane how in this game, you truly have to not play the game in order to advance.. (minus going back & forth in time to get duplicate bots)

i've really been enjoying checking back every few hours (to get some boosts), the progress is slow but it's definitely there
as opposed to cookie clicker, you can't sit & buy boosts every like 5 minutes

[Wayward Vagabond]

You had me at xkcd

[L.B.D.D]

ah yes, i forgot to mention that the game is based off of the xkcd comic that ran for a few months, 'Time'

[Tarrik]

just bought my first wave and have access to time travel, wat do

[EzExZeRo7497]

This game seriously pushes the definition of an "idle" game, jesus

EDIT: So I soft reset at frame 3... why don't I have the time machine yet?

[Tarrik]

its a upgrade that pops up, you gotta wait

[L.B.D.D]

Originally Posted by Tarrik

just bought my first wave and have access to time travel, wat do

you should have 20-25 NPB's at this point

keep time travellling back and forth between frame 1 and 2 because whenever you travel BACKWARDS in time, one of your NPBs can become duplicated (thereby giving you free castles basically)

what you wanna do is then get 14 of each sand/castle tool, since whenever you reach 14 of something, a new upgrade pops up that doubles NPB production and quadruples that tool's production

from there on out you need to get glass chip upgrades, and hope for redundakitties & boosts from the DORD (this is unlocked after 32, 64, and 250 redundakitty clicks)

[L.B.D.D]

oh and you can only have 30 duplicate NPBs (so if you had 25, the max you can have is 55)

if you have sufficient castles you can sell off the 30 duplicates then buy a few more, then repeat the process to get more NPBs

or if you need to activate judgment dip, you have to travel back to your original time frame (keep travelling forward until it says time travel reverted or something)

judgment dip is kinda like the grandmapocalypse, except it's actually scary since your NPBs start destroying your castles, but it also gives you insanely useful boosts if you reach certain levels of it

i recommend traveling forward in time to reach judgment dip level 12+ so you can unlock importnat boosts later on (it'll show up in your badges) and then travelling back to frame 1/2

[Tarrik]

Okay,thanks !

[Tarrik]

Fuck, I'm hooked.

I couldn't get into it 2 weeks ago when i found it because i didn't know what i was doing..Now i'm well into the beginning lmao

[L.B.D.D]

game's got me hooked as well, lasting way longer than cookie clicker for me

[Tarrik]

Yeah, CC ended up running out of the sense of achievement for me.

Everything was just too fast and was no real end game. This.. This will keep me going.



FOREVER


Also, those kitties are now 75 seconds apart. That upgrade for 2.5M sand and 4.4k castles was freakin worth. I'm shitting out castles now.

[L.B.D.D]

those kitties can go down to 25 seconds apart iirc, but that boost is kinda expensive

[L.B.D.D]

also get the DORD (department of redundacy) as that will get you factory automation

factory automation gives you all the kitty boosts every time NPBs activate

[Tarrik]

Holy shit, will do.

Oh, i have that. Saving for the Factory Automation now.

Okay, got it.

It did it's thing.

[hill people tech]
Blast Furnace Buy Price: 8.8M Sand + 28.6K Castles

Gives the Department of Redundancy Department the ability to make Castles from Sand

Sounds good :O

[Tarrik]

Oh fuck me, was the double or nothing castles only a one time thing? LOL

[L.B.D.D]

it is indeed a one time thing

X_X



e) all boosts that aren't on the Toggle list are 1 time use/buy only