Stimulation Clicker is a pure internet hell mode

Few games have accurately captured the experience of online brain overload Stimulation clickera new free browser game from Neal Agarwal (creator of Infinite craft, The password gameAnd more). This is a clicker style game Banana or Universal paper clipsbut it’s also a parody of clicker games and the whole concept of clicking as a dopamine release.

Stimulation clicker starts off simple enough, with just an enticing button in the middle of your browser screen that says “Click Me.” Clicking on it will earn you one incentive point; clicking it a second time will earn you another incentive point. Once you have 3 points of stimulation you can unlock a DVD logo that bounces around your browser screen. Maybe you remember look at this screen as a mindless way to pass the time as a bored teenager. This is so. But it is also so much more.

Soon, Stimulation clicker transports the player beyond the bored pastime of ’90s kids and into the mindless loop of a modern-day internet scroll feed. The more Incentive Points you earn, the more you can fill your screen with nonsense. This includes (but is not limited to): lo-fi beats for relaxing/studying. Slime videos. ASMR. An audio feed from a true crime podcast about a dead woman who worked as a mermaid at one of those resorts where women wear mermaid tails (except maybe she had real gills too? I’m not sure because I couldn’t hear the rest of the podcast about the other videos I started unlocking).

Stimulation clicker becomes shockingly difficult after a while due to its overstimulation. The more extras you unlock, the harder it is to have the app open at all. Ultimately, not so much a game as a terrifying art project. Congratulations to Agarwal for thoroughly rattling my brain and potentially using up all the dopamine I had reserved for my workday.