FLICKER
A small crystal hums under your hand. It has been waiting a long time.
FLICKER is a quiet idle game about gathering mana from a single luminous stone — and slowly discovering that the stone is gathering something from you in return. Kindle it, build the small structures that tend it while you rest, and let fragments of a story surface in their own time. There is no urgency here. The stone is patient. The game is, too.
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### What it is
- An idle/clicker in a contemplative key — closer to A Dark Room and Universal Paperclips than to most of the genre.
- Aetherpunk / magitech in tone. Imagine Hollow Knight's hush wrapped around a desk-sized fable.
- A short complete arc — about an hour to reach the first ending; longer if you walk with one of the five Patrons through their own Age.
- Saves quietly to your browser. Come back tomorrow; the stones will still be working.
### What you do
You kindle the crystal. You raise small structures that gather while you are away. You read fragments that appear in the journal.
You listen to Kyrin, who has been here longer than you. After the first Age, five Voices offer themselves as Patrons — each changes how the crystal answers, and each rewards a different way of being with the work.
### Why it might be for you
If you like games that respect your attention and your time. If you like writing more than spreadsheets. If you have ever left a tab open just to come back later. If you have ever wanted an idle game that actually says something.
### Notes
- A first run takes around an hour. Subsequent Patron Eras add roughly 30–60 minutes each, depending on how much of the writing you want to read.
- Sound is a soft chord progression; toggleable in Settings. Defaults to off on first launch — turn it on whenever you like.
- Built as a single HTML file. Plays in the browser. Save data lives in your browser; clearing it will reset the game.
### Made by
SidSummons — solo.
Feedback, bug reports, or quiet appreciations are all welcome via the comments below.
Development log
- v0.6.5 — small things between Ages79 days ago
- v0.6.4 — your progress, where you can keep it80 days ago
- v0.6.3 — fixing a confusing modal under Patron Eras80 days ago
- v0.6.2 — a few asks from the comments81 days ago
- v0.6.1 — a way out of the second Age, and a few smaller things81 days ago
- FLICKER is out — a small idle game about a patient crystal82 days ago
Comments
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Nice aesthetic. It’d be cool if this worked on mobile - right now I can’t see most of the screen, so can’t access any insights.
I have enjoyed this game, but I am stuck in the second age with the ritual for under the mirror where you wait for a whisper. I saw in the comments that the whisper is the text in the bottom middle, but no matter what I try, clicking the crystal restarts the ritual. Am I doing something wrong or is my game not working correctly?
You need to wait for a second line of text appearing at the bottom. These are the whispers from the patrons. The “normal” lines are just quotes by Kyrin. I hope that helps.
I ran into that issue with some people already, but after a patch i tried it again and it worked for me.
I've run into a game-ending bug - I've done a run under all 5 patrons, and now when I try to start a new run all 5 options are greyed out and I can't select any of them to actually start the run.
Hi there! Yes, I figured that out already and will be fixed with some sort of “Endscreen”. But congratulations on making it this far! Thank you for taking your time!
hey Im running " under the dark " now and Ive got my singing geyser(x3)
also I had done the ritual much much earlier than my geysers I dunno if thats what prevents completing this age ? (I have the option to walk to the next voice from the echoes tab but seems it does not clear this dark age if I do that)
Hi melo melo, normally you can complete ages by completing the ritual and buy one singing geyser. you should be able to walk to the next voice and completed ages shouldn’t be clickable anymore. But I will run some more tests. I also need to add some sort of “endscreen”, when you get through every age.
Thank you for taking your time and write a comment. I’ll definitely have a look at that.
finished only " the nameless " before this one if it helps you ...
not sure if you changed something ... anyways picking another age in echoes apparently did activate the clear on under dark
also the whisper mechanic is just annoying and should be removed
crystals you have completed bonus should carry over to the next
the cap on mana makes it very hard to ever look away and slow down like you seem to want the player to do. It's a hard task to fight against ones mind and becomes harder with every barrier requiring a hurdle. If you want a player like me to slow down having a system that requires me to focus in order to not "miss out" feels wrong.
Hi Triglycerides, thank you for taking your time and giving feedback :) I’m happy that people actually try the game and write something about it! If you’re at the mana cap, you don’t miss anything. You still gather Mana but with a slower pace (10% of you current mana per second).
If you have any recommendations or suggestions let me know.
I think this game arrived at a moment I really needed it to, and I'm enjoying the philosophical tone of the writing. I look forward to seeing where it goes!
Thank you for your kind words!
what is the completion flag, I have been in the second age with the traveller for a good while, but its unclear what to do to complete the age
Hi ragnorinki, the goal is like in the first age, but additionally you need to complete the ritual of the active patron as well.
I said it in the comment below, i will add some indicators to make clear the way forward. Thank you for playing this far and telling me :)
Ah I had already passed the mark by far but the ui to move to the next didnt appear until i refreshed the page. Now I'm under mirror but im struggling because the whispers are coming <1/10min so am i really supposed to stare at the screen for an hour to complete this ritual?
Yup, I patched that you can now go on with the next eras :) And the Whispers should appear every 75s after looking it up again in the code..
they unfortunately are not, I've waited over 10 minutes and not one has come
Try to refresh your page. I updated to v.0.6.3 with hopefully fixing this.
Let me know if it works now.
I just found a bug that prevented whispers from appearing after a text pop up occurs. Working on a fix!
how do i perform the ritual i dont know what a whisper is
It is really annoying.
Hi Idyaceina, a whisper is an additional line of text at the bottom which will be seen every 75 seconds.
I will add an indicator to the game to make things clear. Thank you for mentioning it!
Slop
I like the look and feel, but it gets tiring that the only thing you can do is upgrade dripstone until you have enough total mana for an insight and then you're back on the dripstone. Even with mana well, I don't know where I'm going. Is it just waiting for idle to fill the bar to have a marginal upgrade and an insight that doesn't really do anything?
Thanks Schatt for sharing your thoughts. :) The original idea was to guide through a kind of story, but of course balancing of buildings is also important, that’s why I appreciate every bit of of every comment here. There is also a note where I write everything mentioned here and by playtesters who write me elsewhere.
You get Insights which will boost your mana wells as well. We just need to be a bit more patient. But as mentioned before, I will have a look at the balancing and adjust some things in future patches.
Thank you again for your time! :)
i'd rather not have text than have the game stop me every minute with paragraphs of ai vomited garbage that holds no value at all
Thank you for your feedback. This game actually is not about just pulling of an auto-clicker and burst through this. It tells you a story, if you’d take your time to read. It was a decision that was made to slow people down and take their time. No hardcore grind.
The mana well, which should be an upgrade, is less powerful than the dripstone. That doesn't make sense at all.
I think the mana well needs a better description. I see what it's doing. It's massively increasing the amount of mana that should be the ceiling, i.e., the 'y' value.
But as I said already, your 'y' value ceiling is broken.
I got an upgrade that suddenly made the mana wells feel worth it.
It definitely needs a better description. Because it feels so broken for a very long time. I'm sure you didn't mean for this to be played with an autoclicker so I'm able to tell that a normal player will feel the game is really broken and abandon it.
Thank you for your mentions. Since this is v0.6 I have a lot to “fix”/adjust I guess. I did a lot of testing and for me the way forward was always clear. That’s why I posted it to let others experience this in their ways and give me Feedback.
I’ll collect the feedback and put it together to be considered in a future patch. :)
It looks like your mana meter has a broken ceiling. Even when you hit your max capacity (the 'y' value), the system doesn’t stop 'x' from increasing. This "over-clicking" allows you to stockpile infinite resources far beyond what the UI suggests is possible.
When combined with an auto-clicker, this completely breaks the game economy. Since you can accumulate massive amounts of mana in seconds, the cost of upgrades becomes irrelevant, allowing you to buy out the entire shop instantly. Effectively, the resource cap is purely visual and provides no actual limit on your purchasing power.
The point of the cap (y value) is as a softcap for your automatic production, as automatic production slows down significantly once you hit it, not an absolute cap for progress
Thank you for taking your time to test and give some feedbeack. :) As jonnynolegs already mentioned the bar is just a softcap so you can keep the tab open, but won’t farm this huge amounts of mana to insta-buy everything after a while. You still have 100% of your click-power tho.
Is johnnynolegs a co-developer?
Something I learned by making many mods and mod packs for Minecraft as well as various forms of shareware starting in 1992 with the Amiga computer: When I defended my programs and apps, I tended to get less and less feedback, and eventually I would lose interest in my own projects. But when I was appreciative of the feedback without defending my stance on my projects, I found myself increasingly engrossed in the development of the apps in question.
Every bit of feedback is someone offering you insight to improve; you don’t have to accept any of it, but you don’t need to defend your stance either, as none of it’s an attack.
However, someone hating on it because you used a hammer instead of a screwdriver—that’s not feedback, it’s pure criticism.
AI has a place in society, and it’s here to stay. It was inevitable; what does one do with massive computer resources anyway? Maybe use it to better our lives, and what are lives but a myriad of many things? Some of it is enhanced by hammers, screwdrivers, chickens, grassland, foods, relationships, etc., to include applications.
What we do with AI now determines its usefulness in the future.
Hey Kreezxil, appretiate you keeping this conversation alive. No they are no co-devs haha. And I am also sorry if you understood my explanation as some sort of defending my idea of how things could work. Since it’s v0.6 I’m always open for feedback and ideas. Otherwise this project wood get stuck very soon.
I don’t really get your last two paragraphs, but i think since I (think i did) got your message everything should be fine in the future :)