Games Like Universal Paperclips That Hide a Second Game
Updated October 2, 2026
The short answer
Universal Paperclips is remembered as a clicker, but what people chase afterwards is the moment it turns into a second game, and later a third. The best single pick for that is Antimatter Dimensions: free, and built entirely out of layers that swallow the one before. If you want the whole arc in a single day instead, play Spaceplan.
The six below are sorted by how the reveal happens: a new place, a new set of rules, or a reset that turns out to be the story.
Updated September 2026.
What made Universal Paperclips work?
An incremental game is a game built around numbers that grow faster than you can spend them: you buy something that makes more of the resource, which buys more of that thing, until the scale changes and new systems appear. There is a longer version of that in what an incremental game is.
Paperclips, Frank Lantz’s free browser game from 2017, is that loop with a trapdoor in it. Wikipedia’s summary lays out the phases: you start with one button that makes one paperclip, then you are running a business with marketing and stock investments, then you release drones and convert the Earth, then the rest of the universe. The interface changes each time. Buttons you relied on disappear, and the number you were watching stops mattering.
That handover is the thing to look for. Plenty of idle games get bigger. Few of them become something else, and fewer still make you feel you caused it. HowLongToBeat puts a main run at 6.6 hours (as of September 2026), so it is also a game with an ending, which narrows the field further.
The six, at a glance
The best single pick is Antimatter Dimensions. Spaceplan is the closest in length and tone. Evolve is the one I would push on a reader who has already played the first two.
| Game | How the second game shows up | Where to play | Price (as of September 2026) | HowLongToBeat main story (as of September 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spaceplan | A new planet, and a new chapter of the story | Steam (Windows, macOS) | $2.99 | 6 hours |
| Kittens Game | New tabs open: science, trade, then space | Browser (free) or Steam | Free, or $7.99 on Steam | Not listed |
| Antimatter Dimensions | Each prestige layer replaces the game before it | Browser or Steam | Free, with in-app purchases | 250 hours |
| Trimps | A portal, then a second universe | Browser or Steam (Windows) | Free, with in-app purchases on Steam | Not listed |
| Increlution | Your character dies, and the death is the mechanic | Steam | $3.99 | 192 hours |
| Evolve | Ending your own civilization is how you move on | Browser | Free | Not listed |
“Not listed” means HowLongToBeat has no main-story time on record for it.
Which games reveal a new place?
Spaceplan
Spaceplan is the one to play if Paperclips’ space phase was your favourite part. You sit on a satellite orbiting a planet and build potato-based probes, and its Steam page promises five planets across two realities and fifteen items to unlock. Each new planet is a new section of a short, silly story, so the reveal is literal: the game zooms out.
It is the only pick here you can finish in a day. HowLongToBeat’s main-story time is 6 hours (as of September 2026), close to Paperclips’ own. It costs $2.99 (as of September 2026) and has no Linux build.
Kittens Game
Kittens Game starts with a field of catnip and ends with your kittens in orbit. It has been a free browser game for years, and a Steam version arrived on 10 February 2026 and costs $7.99 (both as of September 2026). The store page describes it as a village simulation text game with over 30 buildings and 50+ resources, where you craft, trade and research until you “reach the outer space”.
The reveal here is the tab bar. A new tab appearing at the top of the screen is Kittens Game’s version of Paperclips’ interface swap, and each one is a system you did not know was coming. It is slower than Paperclips by a wide margin and it is designed to be played “over a long period of time, in a semi-idle manner”, in the store page’s words.
Which games replace their own rules?
Antimatter Dimensions
If what hooked you was the feeling that the game you were playing was the tutorial for the real one, Antimatter Dimensions does that more times than anything else on this list. You buy dimensions that produce antimatter, until the number gets so large the universe collapses. Its Steam page is blunt about what happens next: “After Infinity the game has just begun.” Infinity leads to Eternity, Eternity eventually to Reality, and each layer turns the old one into something you automate and forget.
It started as a web game in 2016 and is still free in the browser. The Steam version, released 17 December 2022, is free as well, with in-app purchases (as of September 2026). HowLongToBeat puts the main path at 250 hours (as of September 2026). That is nearly forty Paperclips, back to back.
Trimps
Trimps opens on a line that could be the first screen of Paperclips’ third act: you “wake up on a hostile planet with no memory”, per its Steam page. You trap small creatures called Trimps, breed them, and send them into battle. Then you find the Portal, and the game you had been playing becomes the first lap of a much longer one, with two universes and over 50 challenges that each change the rules.
It has been a free browser game since 2015 and the Steam version is Windows only. That store page is upfront that you can buy its premium currency, Bones, and equally upfront that you earn more than enough by playing. What you get over Paperclips is scale. What you lose is an ending: Trimps is still being updated.
Which games make the reset the story?
Increlution
Increlution is the one where the reveal is death. Its Steam page describes a queue of jobs, constructions and explorations that you plan while your health declines “increasingly faster until you’ll eventually die”. Each life leaves instinct levels behind, so the next generation starts stronger, and the story advances by exploring further each time.
For a Paperclips player the appeal is how legible the loop is: you watch a plan fail, you see exactly what carried over, you plan again. It costs $3.99 (as of September 2026) and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. HowLongToBeat lists 192 hours for the main story (as of September 2026), but that figure rests on two submissions, so treat it as a rough size, not a promise.
Evolve
Evolve is the least known pick here, and the one closest to Paperclips’ dark streak. It is a free browser game that its own readme describes as “evolving a civilization from primordial ooze into a space faring empire”. Your first way out, according to the game’s own wiki text, is Mutual Assured Destruction, which unlocks just before the space era and ends your civilization for prestige.
What happens after that reset is the reveal. Religion unlocks, and your next species will “always consider whatever race came before them to be their gods.” A later reset, Bioseed, launches a ship and lets you choose a new planet. It is the most micromanagement-heavy game here, so do not expect Paperclips’ clean single screen.
What about Cookie Clicker and A Dark Room?
Cookie Clicker is the game everyone names first, and it is worth playing, but it answers a different question. Its later systems, from ascension to the Grandmapocalypse, mostly pile onto the same cookie screen instead of handing you a new one. On Steam it costs $4.99 with 93,357 reviews (as of September 2026).
A Dark Room and Candy Box 2 do share Paperclips’ trick of hiding a larger game behind a small one, and they lean harder on story. They get their own list in games like A Dark Room. If the part you want is that Paperclips stops, idle games that actually end sorts the genre by that alone, and the machine-point-of-view angle is covered in games where you play as the AI.
Where our game fits
Our own game, Sam, We Talked About This, sits beside this list rather than on it. It is an idle incremental game: you scrape whatever the internet has, train text, image and video models on it, rack the models to win subscribers, and put the cash into more disks, bigger machines and a bigger crew. Paperclips hides its later games until you earn them; ours names the destination up front: AGI is waiting at the end. It is unreleased, coming to Steam in Q1 2027, so there is nothing to play or point at yet. The Steam page for Sam, We Talked About This is where it will land.
Quick answers
Is Universal Paperclips free? Yes. The browser version at decisionproblem.com has always been free. A paid mobile version was sold later, but you do not need it to play the whole game.
What is the closest game to Universal Paperclips? Antimatter Dimensions, if you mean the layers. Each new stage replaces the rules of the last, the way Paperclips’ drone and space phases do. For length and tone, Spaceplan is closer: a short, funny story that ends.
How long does Universal Paperclips take to finish? About 6.6 hours for the main story on HowLongToBeat (as of September 2026). It is idle for much of that, so an open browser tab over a day or two is a normal way to finish it.
Are there games like Universal Paperclips on Steam? Yes, five of the six here: Spaceplan, Kittens Game, Antimatter Dimensions, Trimps and Increlution. Evolve is browser only. Paperclips itself is not on Steam.
Key takeaways
- Paperclips’ hook is the reveal of a second and third game inside the first, so judge its successors on that, not on clicking.
- Antimatter Dimensions is the best single pick; Spaceplan is the one you finish in a day.
- Evolve, Trimps and Increlution are the less familiar picks, and the ones to try once the first two are done.
- For more on why layered unlocks feel good, see the most satisfying progression systems.
