Hey r/incremental_games!
I discovered the genre with Lollipop Quest 2 back in university, ~15 years ago, and fell hard. Cookie Clicker, Clicker Heroes, Trimps you name it — not a day went by without me checking Kongregate for new releases. I always wanted to make my own, but I couldn't code at all. So I started with what I could do: building a universe. Physics, cosmogenesis, peoples, fauna, flora — I've been shaping that world for over 10 years now.
Along the way, I switched my studies from philosophy to computer science, learned Unity, made a small idle prototype as a student project (Lima, still on itch but it's bad haha !), then led a team building an accessibility-focused game… that got cancelled weeks before completion, for reasons entirely outside our control. That one hurt. After months of rebuilding, my girlfriend and I decided to start a project we would actually finish — and, for the first time, set it in the universe I'd been protecting all these years.
That game is Pebble for a Queen, and as of today, it's out on Steam — 20% off for launch week.
The story: you play Goguz, a Xantul (think crab/scorpion-ish creature), hopelessly in love. Xantul courtship works like this: you offer your beloved a pebble. So off you go, breaking rocks around your nest to find THE perfect stone — and little by little, through exploration, XP and skill trees, you end up shattering enormous boulders across the world.
What makes it different from most incrementals:
It's active, not idle. You explore and break every rock yourself. No offline progress bars.
A meaningful skill tree — not a lazy one. 1,500+ nodes, and choices genuinely matter. At one point you'll pick your elemental path, and each has a real identity: Earth is economy (+ an AoE armor shred), Fire is energy (+ an AoE damage-over-time), Wind is speed (+ moderate damage over huge areas), Water is raw power (+ heavy chain damage). A well-planned build outperforms a careless one. I know it can look intimidating and not super casual-friendly — I've tried hard to balance it so every type of player finds their fun.
Quests gate your progress. This is my favorite part, and probably the most divisive: scattered through the tree are quests and challenges of varying difficulty. Complete them to unlock the next nodes. They give the whole run rhythm and purpose.
A world to explore: 5 zones and 4 biomes, each with its own rocks, look and quirks. Hand-drawn cartoon art, and an amazing sound artist joined us along the way to make all the music and SFX.
A full first run should take around 10 hours, and going for all achievements roughly doubles that — you'll tell me! When I try to speedrun it, I do it in more than 5 hours but I'm sure you can beat me !
The practical stuff: it's on Windows, Linux and macOS (full honesty: the Mac build made it in just in time and we couldn't test it on Apple Silicon ourselves, nor on Steam Deck — if you're on either, I'd genuinely love to hear how it runs). Playable in 11 languages. Controller, keyboard, mouse, or any mix — and if you want the chillest experience, mouse + autocast is lovely. I personnaly prefer Controller as I like to optimize everything !
This is the first time I've ever taken a game all the way to release. I'm equal parts excited and terrified. I'll be here all day answering questions and taking notes on everything — I know I still have a lot to learn.
Steam page : https://store.steampowered.com/app/4915590/Pebble_For_A_Queen/
AI Disclosure : Ai was used for translation from English+French ! Of course, Ai assist my code, but it's not vibecoded or telling AI : DO A GAME, it was more like an assistant and a StackOverflow++. Not that it's a shame to use it, it's just to be clear, design pattern are my own for the best and the worst hahaha !
