Candies is an ASCII browser game about questing and candy

Fancy a browser game that lets you accumulate candy for nix, build lollipop farms, taunt ASCII merchants and embark on quests in peaceful forests? That actually sounds perfect , doesn't it. Well that's what Candies let's you do. Your currency is candy, and your means of acquiring it is by doing nothing. Eventually, you'll be allowed to throw the candy onto the ground in lots of ten, which will prompt a friendly candy merchant to appear, promising lollipops in exchange for portions of that auto-generating candy lucre.

This could go on forever, and why not? Accumulating virtual ASCII candy isn't exactly unpleasant! But things take a turn when the merchant starts offering you brutal weaponry in exchange for your candy, and a darkness descends: soon you'll be brutalising unspecified enemies / trees in "peaceful forests", an activity that leads to other happenings. Soon you'll be able to grow your own lollipops thanks to your quest triumphs.

Why and what for? I don't know. I currently have over 600 candies, one lollipop, a copper sword and a lollipop farm. Sometimes I click on the merchant again to see if it'll coax him into selling me new varieties of weaponry, but no dice. Sometimes I click on him because he looks annoying. Candy Box is the very epitome of pointless busywork in games: it's Cow Clicker as RPG. But I just can't stop.

Play Candy Box here. Thanks to every single person on Twitter for pointing it out.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.