Simulator / Clicker in UEFN: Build the Idle-Progression Hit

Simulator and Clicker games are the genre that shouldn't work but absolutely does: you press one thing, a number goes up, you spend that number to make the number go up faster, and somehow you've been playing for two hours. From Roblox simulators to Cookie Clicker to AdVenture Capitalist, this idle-progression loop is one of the most reliably addictive formats in games — and it became a massive Fortnite Creative trend. This Game Modes entry breaks the click-earn-upgrade loop down and builds a compile-verified Verse device that gives each player their own currency, sells an upgrade, and boosts their earn rate.

1. What it is

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The Snowball Effect

A Simulator/Clicker is an incremental progression mode. The whole game is a feedback loop:

• Click / act — interact with something (a button, an object, a mining node) to earn currency.
• Upgrade — spend currency to increase how much each click earns, or to automate it.
• Repeat — the bigger earn rate makes the next upgrade affordable faster — the satisfying snowball.
• Many are AFK-friendly (idle): you keep earning passively, so progress never stops.

There's usually no combat and no losing — just a long, smooth power curve and the dopamine of watching numbers climb.

2. Type of game

3. The loop

The entire genre is one tight loop, deliberately designed to always dangle the next upgrade just within reach.

The craft is the pacing curve: prices and earn rates are tuned so the next upgrade is always tantalizingly close — that 'one more click' pull is the entire product.

4. Why it's fun

• Pure, frictionless reward. Every action gives instant positive feedback — the number always goes up.
• Visible exponential growth. Watching your earn rate snowball from 1/click to thousands/sec is deeply satisfying.
• No skill gate, no failure. Anyone can play; there's no aim, no death, no losing — just progress.
• The 'one more upgrade' hook. The next milestone is always almost affordable, which is irresistible.
• Great idle / second-screen play. AFK earning means you make progress even when you step away — low-commitment, high-retention.

5. Who made the great ones

Clicker/simulator is one of Creative's fastest-growing casual trends:

• mikeymouse — 💵Fortnite Clicker💵 (code 8244-3682-1053): mine Jonesy to earn coins, buy better weapons to earn even more — a tycoon/simulator grind built on the clicker core.
• dylanjf — COOKIE CLICKER (code 5560-1483-2891), a faithful Fortnite take on the genre-defining original.
• rajan — Apple Clicker (code 0995-2894-0281), a clean, pure idle-clicker build.
• NOOEL-GAMING — CLICKER GAME: AFK COMBAT (code 5157-1607-6140), a solo/co-op simulation where you grind achievements toward level 20, blending idle with light combat.

6. Examples / variants

• Pure clicker — one button, click for currency, buy multipliers (Cookie Clicker style).
• Mining/gathering simulator — break nodes for resources, upgrade your tool, unlock new zones (Roblox simulator style).
• Tycoon-clicker hybrid — currency builds an automated money machine (see the Tycoon series entry).
• AFK/idle combat — passive earning while bots fight for you; spend on power.

7. How to make it in UEFN / Verse

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Clicker Economy

The devices you'll place

• Button Device (button_device) — the click. It fires InteractedWithEvent every time a player presses it.
• A second Button (or Conditional Button) — the upgrade shop (buy a higher earn rate).
• HUD / Tracker / Score — to show the player their currency total.
• Player Spawn Pads + a hub with click and upgrade stations.

The Verse mechanic that ties it together

The buttons are device-driven. Verse owns the economy: a per-player currency balance and a per-player earn rate, plus the upgrade transaction. The series staple returns — subscribe to an event, react — on the Button's InteractedWithEvent, and we key everything by the individual agent with [agent]int maps.

# button_device fires InteractedWithEvent : agent on every press.
ClickButton.InteractedWithEvent.Subscribe(OnClick)
UpgradeButton.InteractedWithEvent.Subscribe(OnBuyUpgrade)

Per-player state is two maps keyed by the agent — the same pattern as the FFA scoreboard, doubled:

var Balance  : [agent]int = map{}   # currency each player holds
var EarnRate : [agent]int = map{}   # currency earned per click

The full, compile-verified clicker device

Drop this clicker_device into your project, wire the @editable click and upgrade buttons, and it gives every player their own balance and earn rate, paying out per click and selling an earn-rate upgrade. It's a standalone creative_device, so it compiles on its own.

How it works, line by line

1. Two @editable buttons — one to click for currency, one to buy the upgrade — plus tunable UpgradeCost and UpgradeBonus.
2. Balance and EarnRate are [agent]int maps so each player has fully independent progression (parallel co-op, no shared pool).
3. OnClick reads the player's earn rate (default 1), adds it to their balance, and stores it back. or 1 / or 0 give first-time defaults.
4. OnBuyUpgrade checks the balance can afford UpgradeCost, charges it, then raises that player's EarnRate by UpgradeBonus — the snowball.
5. Every map-set is wrapped in if (...) {} because mutating a map entry is failable in Verse — the same rule as every score map in this series.

Gotchas

• Per-agent maps, not a single counter. Each player must have their own balance; a shared int would pool everyone's money. Use [agent]int.
• Defaults via or. Balance[Player] or 0 and EarnRate[Player] or 1 handle a player who has never clicked — without them the lookup fails.
• Map-set is failable. if (set Balance[Player] = NewBal) {} is mandatory; this trips up everyone new to Verse maps.
• Pacing is the whole game. Tune UpgradeCost growth and UpgradeBonus so the next upgrade always feels close — that curve is the craft, and a flat or punishing curve kills retention.
• Add escalating tiers. A real clicker raises UpgradeCost after each purchase (e.g. cost *= 2). Store a per-player upgrade level in a third [agent]int map to scale it.

Recap

• Simulator/Clicker is incremental idle progression: click to earn, spend to earn faster, snowball forever — no combat, no failure.
• The fun is frictionless reward, visible exponential growth, and the irresistible 'one more upgrade' pull.
• In UEFN Button devices are the click and the shop; Verse owns the per-player economy.
• The Verse pattern is the series staple keyed per player: [agent]int maps for balance and earn rate, incremented on InteractedWithEvent, with a failable map-set and or defaults.
• The pricing/earn-rate curve is the entire product — tune it so the next upgrade is always almost in reach.