Tidekeeper: your first hour on the reef

Tidekeeper is ggbucks's own idle game. Start it on Play, then come back here: it keeps running in the dock while you read. Pearls are a game resource only. They aren't ggbucks and can't be exchanged for anything.

Minutes 0–5: tap, then let plankton take over

Your first ten pearls come from tapping the clam (click it, or focus it and press Space). Spend them on a Plankton Bloom, which costs 10 and makes 0.4 pearls a second. Buy Pearl Sense (60) as soon as it appears: every tap then also harvests 2% of your production. The game's short guide walks you through these three steps; you can replay it from settings.

Plankton pays for itself in 25 seconds at first, which is why you can buy something every few seconds early on. Each copy costs 15% more than the last, so that changes quickly (the cost curve teardown shows why).

Minutes 5–15: shrimp, kelp and your first real choice

Shrimp Crews (100) and Kelp Gardens (1,200) each pay back more slowly but scale further. At five of a creature its doubler unlocks: Rich Current for plankton (250) and Shift Work for shrimp (2,800).

Once you own kelp, three upgrades compete for the same pearls: Kelp Shelter (shrimp get 3% stronger per kelp, 12,000), Tide Reader (spring tides last 25 s instead of 15 s, 18,000) and Night Watch (the reef works 12 hours while you're away instead of 8, 25,000). If you tend to be away longer than eight hours, Night Watch is the one. If you leave the tab open, Tide Reader pays back every two minutes.

Catching the spring tide

Every two minutes the spring tide rolls in for 15 seconds and triples production. It's tied to the real clock, so reloading won't summon it, and it helps you whether or not you're watching. Spring Timing (60,000) is the upgrade for players who do watch: taps during a tide are worth three times as much.

Milestones are worth saving for

Owning 25, 50, 100, 200, 300 or 400 of a creature doubles its output each time. The shop shows the next threshold on every row. When a creature is two or three copies short of a milestone, finishing it usually beats starting on something new.

When to migrate the reef

Migrating trades your whole reef for moonstones: floor(√(pearls earned this reef ÷ 100,000)). Each moonstone permanently adds 8% to production. The migrate screen shows exactly what you'd get before you confirm.

In our simulated runs, tapping about once a second, the first migration offered +32% after 20 minutes, +80% after 30 and +152% after 40. Because the payout follows a square root, waiting always pays more, but less and less. A good first target is somewhere between 10 and 20 moonstones; your second reef will race through the early game. More on why in why resetting feels like progress.

Leaving and coming back

Close the tab and the reef keeps working at its normal rate (no tides) for up to 8 hours, or 12 and 24 with the watch upgrades. When you return after a minute or more, a card tells you how long you were gone and what you earned. Your save stays in this browser; clearing site data resets it.