History VideoGame / KittensGame

** The Relic Station upgrade costs 5000 antimatter. Since antimatter storage is a ''huge'' energy sink, one might be tempted, after building the Relic Station, to disable your containment chambers and get that energy back. To prevent this, having less than 5000 antimatter storage linearly reduces the efficiency of the Relic Station.

** The Relic Station upgrade costs 5000 antimatter. Since antimatter storage is a ''huge'' energy sink, one might be tempted, after building the Relic Station, to disable your containment chambers and get that energy back. To prevent this, having less than 5000 antimatter ''storage'' linearly reduces the efficiency of the Relic Station.

** During the "Black Sky" challenge, the normal method of acquiring titanium for the first time -- trading with zebras -- is impossible until ''much'' later in the game than a normal run. So your first Calciner costs no titanium -- but 11 times more of everything else. Similarly, since starcharts are unavailable until you launch a Satellite, the Orbital Launch and first Satellite cost no star charts and 11 times more of their other resources.

* GameplayAutomation: Eventually you unlock the ability to build Factories, which can each support a single kitten Engineer working on a RefiningResources task. They're significantly slower than just clicking, especially if they're working on a higher-end task, but they can make idling easier.

* AntiPoopSocking: While offline, the game accumulates temporal flux, which can be spent on the Tempus Fugit ability to accelerate resource collection and the passage of time.

* AIIsACrapshoot: The AI core gradually increases in level as it accumulates "gigaflops". While it initially helps giving a bonus to certain space structures, once it reaches AI Level 15 it becomes sentient and evil, periodically destroying a portion of your basic resources. Thankfully, you can reduce its level by overtaxing it and consuming more gigaflops than you make.

** The FlavorText of the AI Core is "[[VideoGame/Portal2 I think we can put our differences behind us. For science.]]"

** During the "Black Sky" challenge, the normal method of acquiring titanium for the first time -- trading with zebras -- is impossible until ''much'' later in the game than a normal run. So your first Calciner costs no titanium -- but 11 times more of everything else.

* ObviousRulePatch: During the "Winter Has Come" ChallengeRun, paragon production bonuses don't apply to catnip, since the entire point of the challenge is to suffer through the reduced catnip production of a permanent winter.

''[[http://kittensgame.com/web/ Kittens Game]]'' is a text-based IdleGame created by "bloodrizer", put online in 2014 and updated many times since. You start by harvesting catnip from the forest to start planting your own fields, and start building homes for other kittens to move into. The game quickly begins adding elements of city simulation games as you assign jobs to your growing population to bring in more resources, and research new technology and upgrades to build up your little village, to the point where your kittens will be exploring space, building moon bases, and even researching metaphysical stuff.

The original web version of the game can be found [[http://bloodrizer.ru/games/kittens/ here]], and there is a wiki [[http://bloodrizer.ru/games/kittens/wiki/index.php?page=Main+page on the same site.]] Mobile versions for Android and iOS have also been released.

''[[http://bloodrizer.ru/games/kittens/ Kittens Game]]'' is a text-based IdleGame created by "bloodrizer", put online in 2014 and updated many times since. You start by harvesting catnip from the forest to start planting your own fields, and start building homes for other kittens to move into. The game quickly begins adding elements of city simulation games as you assign jobs to your growing population to bring in more resources, and research new technology and upgrades to build up your little village, to the point where your kittens will be exploring space, building moon bases, and even researching metaphysical stuff.

** After researching Apocrypha, you can discard your praised faith (which doesn't carry over to NewGamePlus) for a bonus to future praising (which does). If you forget to do this before resetting, it'll be converted anyway at a slight penalty.

* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Many bonuses that boost almost everything will only go so far before hitting diminishing returns, faith and paragon bonuses in particular as they can be easy to build up and up once you know how. Other global bonuses (like most things electricity related) rely on escalating costs to curb them, or don't apply to anything that's space-related.

** Faith Bonuses via Solar Revolution. At first, getting stored Faith is a hassle and it doesn't even provide much of a boost. However, when you sacrifice your stored Faith, it [[MetaPowerup provides an "Apocrypha" boost that increases the amount of faith stored]] per point put in (a 200% apocrypha boost makes each point of faith praised give 3 stored faith), eventually getting to larger percentages. Then once you use Transcendence, it sacrifices part of the the apocrypha boost to make said apocrypha boost grow even further from fewer faith sacrifices. With this, you can gain Faith boosts ''very'' quickly, eventually allowing the boost to surpass that of Magnetos and Reactors (it stacks with them too!), and best of all this apocrypha and transcendence boosts ''carry over from resets''. It does take a good bit of time to do this, and it has been Nerfed such that your maximum faith production bonus is capped at 1000%.

* WingedUnicorn: Alicorns are unlocked by higher-tier religious buildings, and are sent back to their dimension in exchange for crytals that boost your NewGamePlus.

* ChallengeRun: The Adjustment Bureau metaphysics upgrade is all about these.

** Iron Will: The oldest challenge mode, and the only one not locked behind the Adjustments Bureau, Iron Will revolves around progressing without any kittens. The game changes significantly to accommodate for this restriction, enabling some Anti-Frustration Features, unlocking some exclusive mechanics, and allowing you to recruit zebras instead of kittens. There's no direct reward, but if you buy certain metaphysics upgrades, a handful of zebras will stick around after Iron Will ends.
** Winter Has Come: The seasonal cycle is replaced with four winters, making it much harder to produce enough catnip to feed your kittens — and just to be sure, paragon bonuses won't apply to catnip production. If you get to Helios under this challenge, you'll be rewarded with a higher chance of warm weather in future runs.
** Anarchy: Kittens are lazy; they eat more catnip, you can't assign a leader, and only half of them will do a job at all. Building an AI core under this challenge makes kittens in future runs count double towards Karma.

* ChallengeRun: "Iron Will" is the oldest challenge mode, revolving around progressing without any kittens. The game changes significantly to accommodate for this restriction, enabling some AntiFrustrationFeatures, unlocking some exclusive mechanics, and allowing you to recruit zebras instead of kittens (of which a few will stick around after resetting even into normal runs, depending on which metaphysics upgrades you've bought). Later updates added the "Adjustment Bureau" metaphysics upgrade, which unlocks several other challenges, each with their own goal and reward.

* DifficultButAwesome: You may think you've cracked the game once you've bought a lot of Metaphysics perks, and can speed through your city building and reach the outer planets in the space of a day, only to be confronted with even rarer and harder to obtain resources. Building up the basics over and over so you can access crystals, relics, antimatter, and void more reliably is long and arduous process, but the first time you start [[TimeTravelForFunAndProfit abusing temporal mechanics for personal amusement]], it will be worth it.

* ThreateningShark: Subverted. Sharks are one of the races who can trade with you, but they're not hostile.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: After building or mass-crafting, the game gives you 20 seconds to undo it, in case you misclicked. Buildings ''can'' be sold back (at a loss), but crafting can't be undone in any other way except this.

* EasterEgg: Having exactly 420, 666, or 1337 of a resource will cause the number to glow in a different color.

* FlavorText: For the constructs:

** Hut (With only two kittens): The Nation of Two

* ObviousRulePatch: During the "Winter Has Come" ChallengeRun, paragon production bonuses don't apply to catnip. since the entire point of the challenge is to suffer through the reduced catnip production of a permanent winter.

* ObviousRulePatch: During the "Winter Has Come" ChallengeMode, paragon production bonuses don't apply to catnip. since the entire point of the challenge is to suffer through the reduced catnip production of a permanent winter.

* AIIsACrapshoot: The AI core gradually increases in level as time passes by. While it initially helps giving a bonus to certain space structures, once it reaches AI Level 15 it becomes sentient and evil, destroying 1% of your basic resources per year.

* ChallengeMode: "Iron Will" is the oldest challenge mode, revolving around progressing without any kittens. The game changes significantly to accommodate for this restriction, enabling some AntiFrustrationFeatures, unlocking some exclusive mechanics, and allowing you to recruit zebras instead of kittens (of which a few will stick around after resetting even into normal runs, depending on which metaphysics upgrades you've bought). Later updates added the "Adjustment Bureau" metaphysics upgrade, which unlocks several other challenges, each with their own goal and reward.