What Is Particle Clicker?

Updated

Particle Clicker is a free browser-based incremental game about particle physics, built during the CERN Webfest 2014 and openly inspired by Cookie Clicker. You play by clicking a detector to generate events, then spend the resulting data and funding on research, staff, and upgrades that push your lab through a historic journey across modern particle physics. It is best suited to people who want a short, low-pressure clicker with a physics theme rather than a deep simulation.

What you actually do

The core loop is simple and follows the standard incremental pattern:

  1. Click your detector to generate events, which produce data.
  2. Spend data on research — each research item yields reputation and has a data cost.
  3. Hire staff (HR) — workers produce a set amount of data per second and cost funding.
  4. Buy upgrades — upgrades modify your output and cost funding.
  5. Track progress through achievements and statistics screens.

The page presents three running totals: Data, Reputation, and Funding. Research items show as ????? until you reach their level, so part of the experience is unlocking the physics story as you go.

Key mechanics at a glance

Element What it does Cost / output
Detector clicks Generate events and data Manual input
Research Yields reputation; advances the physics narrative Costs data
Workers (HR) Produce data automatically Cost funding; produce data per second
Upgrades Change your output Cost funding
Achievements Track milestones with timestamps No cost
Statistics Clicks, data spent vs. collected, money spent vs. gathered No cost

The game also saves automatically — the interface shows a "Saved" timestamp and a Save now button, plus a Restart option.

Practical things to know before you start

  • Play in landscape orientation. The game states it can only be played on mobile in landscape, and it runs best in landscape generally.
  • It is a pre-release (version 0.9). The authors ask that bugs be reported via GitHub issues.
  • Performance depends on your hardware. The event display may be demanding on weaker devices.
  • It is a browser game. No install is described; you open the site and play.
  • Source and contact are public. The code is on GitHub under an MIT license, and the authors list a group email and GitHub as contact channels.

Who made it and why it matters

Particle Clicker was created by Gabor Biro, Igor Babuschkin, Kevin Dungs, Tadej Novak, and Jiannan Zhang during CERN Webfest 2014. It is built with AngularJS, Bootstrap, Fontawesome, jQuery, retina.js, and fastclick.js. Its value is mostly educational and playful: it turns the history of modern particle physics into a progression system you unlock by clicking, which makes it a friendly entry point for newcomers and a small piece of CERN web culture for everyone else.

If you want a quick, free clicker with a real physics theme and don't mind a pre-release build, open the site and start clicking the detector. If you need a polished, content-complete game, treat this as a short curiosity rather than a long-term commitment.