I've been obsessed with incremental games since stumbling across Candy Box 2 years ago. That beautiful ASCII art, the way it slowly revealed its depth, the satisfaction of watching numbers go up. Then came Universal Paperclips, a game about making paperclips that somehow became about existential dread and resource optimization. And Kittens Game, which taught me more about exponential growth than any math class ever did.

These games share something special: they start simple, reward attention, and gradually reveal complexity. They're meditative but engaging. Mindless but strategic.

I wanted to make something in that tradition. Something with that Candy Box 2 ASCII aesthetic. Something that felt satisfying to click. Something with actual consequences.

And then I thought: what's more absurd and stressful than optimizing paperclip production? Maintaining a suburban lawn under HOA scrutiny.

Lawn Suit is an incremental clicker game about lawn maintenance. You click to mow. You click to water. Your grass grows relentlessly. Water evaporates constantly. The HOA watches everything.

Clicker Gameplay

• •Mowing reduces lawn height (but cut too short and you will be penalized)
• •Watering increases moisture level
• •Instant feedback - every click matters
• •Spam-click to maintain, but don't scalp your lawn

Consequences

• •Cut your lawn too short? Scalping penalty - growth pauses while the grass recovers
• •Let it grow too tall? Quality tanks and the HOA takes notice
• •Quality drops too low? Violations at end of day
• •Violations cost compliance points and increase grudges

Progression

• •Earn compliance points through diligent lawn care
• •Spend points on upgrades: sharper blades, growth retardant, compliance training
• •Unlock new features as you progress
• •Try to survive without the HOA board showing up at your door

The HOA doesn't mess around. Every day they check your lawn quality. Fall below their standards? Violation. Penalties. Grudges. This isn't just about making numbers go up. It's about meeting arbitrary standards set by people who have nothing better to do than measure your grass.

But the neighborhood is more than just the HOA board. There's the president who's never met a regulation they didn't love. The retired neighbor who spends all day watching everyone's lawns through binoculars. The family down the street whose dog keeps "visiting" your yard. Each neighbor has their own agenda, their own tolerance for your lawn maintenance habits, and their own way of making your life complicated.

Navigate the politics. Build alliances. Manage grudges. Because in the suburbs, your lawn isn't just grass - it's a statement. And everyone has opinions about your statement.

It's absurd. It's stressful. It's weirdly accurate to actual HOA life.

Built with Preact and Preact Signals for reactive state management.

• •Lightweight (3kb) - perfect for a game that's all about numbers going up
• •Signals make reactive state trivial

Following the Candy Box 2 tradition:

• •Fixed 80-character width terminal aesthetic
• •Monospace font rendering
• •Dynamic lawn visualization (grass changes based on height and water)
• •Everything aligns perfectly because I spent way too long on character counting

The game runs at 4 ticks per second, processing player actions, updating lawn growth and water evaporation, calculating quality, and checking for violations. Preact Signals handle all the reactive state updates, so every tick instantly reflects in the UI without manual re-rendering.

Very Early Development

What works:

• •Core clicker mechanics (mow/water)
• •Lawn growth and water evaporation
• •Quality calculation from sub-metrics
• •Scalping penalty system
• •Day/night cycle
• •HOA violations and penalties
• •Basic upgrade shop
• •Save/load system

What's coming:

• •Weeds and lawn pests
• •More meaningful upgrades and progression
• •Prestige system (move to a new house, keep some bonuses)
• •Random events and neighbor interactions
• •Multiple neighborhoods with different HOA rules
• •Deeper resource management and politics

Building this has been a masterclass in game feel:

Instant Feedback Matters

Early versions had multi second delays for each action. It felt terrible. Tedious. Like waiting for a loading screen between every click. The moment I switched to near instant actions, everything changed. Suddenly the game felt responsive. Satisfying. Players want to feel every click, not wait for permission to click again.

Balance Is Everything

Finding the right balance between passive decay and active maintenance is deceptively hard. Too easy and players get bored. Too hard and it feels like work instead of a game. The goal is that sweet spot where you're engaged but not stressed, where clicking feels satisfying but not mandatory every second.

I've tweaked the growth and evaporation rates more times than I care to admit. Changed action effectiveness. Adjusted penalty timers. Each tiny change ripples through the entire experience. That's when I learned: balance isn't about the numbers themselves - it's about how they make the player feel.

Punishment Should Teach

• •Scalping penalty isn't just "you lose" - it's "you cut too short, grass stops growing"
• •Players learn optimal behavior through consequences
• •The HOA isn't random. You know exactly what triggers violations

ASCII Is Hard

• •Spent more time aligning borders than implementing features
• •Worth it for that authentic terminal aesthetic
• •Every character counts (literally)

This game wouldn't exist without:

Candy Box 2 - For showing that ASCII can be beautiful and that browser games can have depth

Universal Paperclips - For proving incremental games can explore themes beyond "number go up"

Kittens Game - For the resource management complexity and long term progression systems

All three taught me that great incremental games respect your time while making you not want to close the tab.

The game is in very early development. Core mechanics work, but there's so much more planned: weeds and pests, deeper upgrade systems, neighbor interactions, random events, prestige mechanics, and eventually different neighborhoods with their own HOA rules and politics.

Mobile support is coming. This should be playable on a phone. Sound effects for that satisfying mower click. Achievements. Maybe even leaderboards to compete for Best Lawn in the neighborhood.

But first: balance the early game, add more meaningful progression, and make sure it's actually fun before showing it to people.

The code will be open source once it's not embarrassing. Currently it's a mix of "this is clean and documented" and "I wrote this at 2 AM and it works so I'm not touching it." You know how it is.

Lawn Suit: Laying Down The Lawn - Coming soon to a browser near you, assuming I can stop tweaking the scalping penalty timer.