Fact! for iOS: Smash blocks and learn trivia
Fact! is a game where you smash blocks to learn crazy trivia. Unlock weapons and try to complete the entire collection of facts.
You can get it here in the iOS App Store.
I originally made Fact! over a few weekends in 2015. Inspired by a viral hit at the time: Cookie Clicker– a game where you literally just tap a cookie.
“You literally tap a fucking Cookie…I made them delete the Cookie game.”
- Elon Musk when he discovered his Kids playing cookie clicker.
I’m familiar with grindy games– but Cookie Clicker had no end, no exploration, no central challenge, no story– just clicking. Still, Cookie Clicker was not only compelling but actually addictive and fun. A testament to their great game design. As someone interested in products and how people use them, this was really interesting to me: it’s an app with no core utility that had millions of people clicking a single button for hours and hours on end. So, I made something to try and crystalize some of the thoughts I had around Cookie Clicker.
Some loose notes
- Cookie Clicker has really great progression: every upgrade is sufficiently novel and makes the user feel powerful.
- Experiences are emergent: details add up and when executed well really become more than the sum of their parts.
- Cohesive experiences are a multiplier for engagement and trust.
- If someone can get millions of kids to click a cookie for hours, you can probably get people to use anything– if you’ve made it compelling enough. Execution is everything.
Fact! went through a few revisions, but the result you see now is the result of a few weekends in 2015 and (after remembering I had made such a thing to begin with) a little bit of cleanup time in 2017. It’s an exploration and experiment around a few ideas I got from Cookie Clicker, grindy ass MMOs, and flash games I played as a kid.
It tries to bring a little bit of real world interest in by rewarding you with tidbits about the world- frequent rewards with a set of 151 facts I’ve curated personally and hope you find interesting. Hopefully it’s a bit of fun for anyone that plays.
Enjoy! 👋
