Clicker heroes review

The humble clicker will eventually kill productivity here at Push Square Towers. Following in the free-to-play footsteps of AdVenture Capitalist is the kinda crumby Clicker Heroes, a tap-'em-up in which the primary reward loop involves ever-increasing numbers. Its gameplay loop is about as entertaining as punching numbers into a calculator, but like its brethren it's hard to put down.

As with any title in the "incremental" genre, you start out thwacking the square button in order to do damage on fantasy fiends. In this instance, each kills earns you gold which can then be invested into levelling an army of, well, clicker heroes. These brave souls will each do an increasing amount of damage on your behalf, meaning that you don't necessarily need to do any "clicking" of your own.


The game's set up in stages, with ten consecutive kills opening up the next zone. Each five levels you'll encounter a boss, and this is where Playsaurus' attempt at the clicker starts to lose its lustre. The problem is that you'll find yourself constantly hitting brick walls, where you'll have no choice but to let the game grind out gold until you've got enough to level up your heroes and beat the boss.

Clicker heroes is a cool math games, while the game isn't designed to take up all of your time – it plays itself while your PlayStation 4 is turned off – it never offers enough alternate tasks to pad out time while you're grinding, and thus the downtime becomes more of a chore than it is in, say, AdVenture Capitalist. Worse still, the microtransactions represent poor value for money and don't really help you to get ahead.


And yet despite these very obvious flaws we're finding ourselves opening Clicker Heroes each time we power up our PS4. Watching the numbers increase is strangely compelling, and because you'll always return to a large stockpile of gold after taking a break, the temptation to spend it is strong. Honestly, closing the client after you've opened it can take real willpower. Play happy wheels right now!