History VideoGame / KittensGame

* NintendoHard:
** It's one of the tougher {{Idle Game}}s out there, and it's even likened as "a ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' of incremental gaming".
** Then there's Iron Will mode, which requires that you build a Library without building a Hut, and that you cannot gain any extra kittens (meaning no Huts or residential buildings) or else the "mode" ends, and most buildings that increase job outputs are utterly useless. The only way to get Minerals is via meteors that drop from the sky. You do get Zebras (yes, [[{{Jerkass}} those Zebras]] who hate you for no reason) to help you out with hunting and gold, but the run is still excruciatingly slow even with all this. In fact, the game doesn't give you the [[NoFairCheating "Super Unethical Climax"]] '[[AchievementMockery achievement]]' if you use an Autoclicker in this mode.

** The achievement for having 10 kittens dead is "[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Winter Is Coming]]".

* PlayerNudge: Once the tech tree starts requiring manuscripts, the way the tooltip expands crafted materials can make it look like you need an impossibly high amount of culture -- so the first few of these helpfully point out that you don't need it ''all at once''.

The "stable mainline" release of the game, updated nightly, can be found [[http://kittensgame.com/web here]]. The "stable backup" version (which may lag behind by several months) can be found [[http://bloodrizer.ru/games/kittens/ here]]. A wiki is available [[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.

* NoFairCheating: The "Super Unethical Climax" [[AchievementMockery "Achievement"]] is obtained if you clearly used an autoclicker to click on the "Gather Catnip" button and have had at least one kitten joining.

** Trade Ships are made with scaffolding, plates and starcharts. The first two are refined from wood and iron which can be put to better use elsewhere while starcharts are only automated a long way into the techtree, so why get them at all? Because while only one ship is needed to get access to zebras (and therefore titanium), the amount of titanium traded increases with the amount of ships. Zebras randomly refusing to give you titanium is a lot less important when you can get several hundred with a single successful trade (as opposed to the one or two at the beginning). Add in one upgrade makes them boost storage limits and the fact that they can be manufactured automatically...

** Atheism: The Order of the Sun and all its rewards are unavailable. Finishing this run with at least one working cryochamber will increase the effectiveness of Solar Revolution for each tier of Transcendence. %%repeated runs do something

** Winter Has Come: [[EndlessWinter The seasonal cycle is replaced with four winters]], making it much harder to produce enough catnip to feed your kittens -- and [[ObviousRulePatch 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: [[CatsAreLazy 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.
** Energy: Everything that consumes energy consumes twice as much. Building one of every energy source under this challenge will halve the penalties for energy deficits in future runs.
** Atheism: The Order of the Sun and all its rewards are unavailable. Finishing this run with at least one working cryochamber will increase the effectiveness of Solar Revolution for each tier of Transcendence.
** 1000 Years: Time stops progressing normally once you reach year 500. Reaching year 1000 under this run will cause time crystals to produce half as much chronoheat when shattered.
** Black Sky: Astronomical events don't occur, preventing you from getting starcharts until ''very'' late game. Building a Space Beacon under this challenge causes elders to arrive early in future runs.

** Completing the Black Sky ChallengeRun improves Markers by 10% -- their corruption factor will increase from .00001% to .000011%, and they will increase leviathan energy cap by 5.5 instead of 5. This is explained exactly ''nowhere''. The corruption factor increase is at least reflected in the tooltip, but the energy cap isn't mentioned at all.

* AchievementMockery: Any achievement which has a red-coloured border is essentially a MarkOfShame:

* AchievementMockery:
** The "Super Unethical Climax" achievement is awarded to players who click the catnip-gathering button 2,500 consecutive times without 2.5 seconds ever passing between clicks -- i.e, [[NoFairCheating using an autoclicker]]. The achievement text is even coloured in red to show that it's a MarkOfShame.

** The "Winter Has Come" challenge. In the early game, getting a sufficient catnip production is extremely difficult due to the permanent winter and subsequent catnip production cuts, as well as Paragon bonuses ''not'' applying to catnip production in the challenge. Once you research Aqueducts and better farming tools, all it will take are a few farmers to outgrow the production from catnip fields and offset the catnip demand, pretty much defeating most of the difficulty altogether.

** 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 discourage this, having less than 5000 antimatter storage linearly reduces the efficiency of the Relic Station.

--> '''Tooltip Description''': When active, significantly reduces your Coal production. Does nothing by default, but can do a lot of cool stuff once upgraded.

* SlowTransformation: Once you have built Markers, it will gradually corrupt Alicorns into Necrocorns that can be used to feed Elders or build higher-tier religion buildings. The catch? This process is ''agonizingly slow'', even with dozens of Markers and several relevant upgrades.

* SlowTransformation: Once you have built Markers, it will gradually corrupt Alicorns into Necrocorns that can be used to feed Elders or build higher-tier religion buildings. The catch? This process is ''agonizingly slow'', even with 10 Markers around.