Just A DVD Incremental: The nostalgia I didn't know I needed
Incremental games have become a bit of a problem for me lately. Not because I don't like them… quite the opposite; my Steam library is full of them, and my Wishlist only holds more to join the family upon release. However, one upcoming incremental game may have stolen my heart in a special way using an incredibly specific kind of nostalgia: the bouncing DVD logo.
Just A DVD Incremental takes the DVD logo we all remember from the early 2000s (and possibly more recently if, like me, you still have physical media lying around) and turns it into a perhaps unsurprisingly passive game. Bounce around the screen, collect money to buy upgrades, and wait for the rare and momentous “corner bounce.”
Simple pleasures
When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, and I was gifted a CRT TV with a built-in DVD player for Christmas 2005, I started falling asleep with a DVD playing every night. Inevitably, I'd wake up at some point and become mesmerized by the “screensaver” featuring the bouncing DVD logo. Whether it was the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, I'd lie in bed and watch that logo bounce around for a while before either drifting off again or getting up for school.
Perhaps the specific scenario is different for everyone, but if you had or have a DVD player, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That's the simple nostalgia that Just A DVD Incremental plays on, and it does it oh so well.
The thing is, Just A DVD Incremental is mostly passive. There's no clicking or interaction with the logo itself; it just bounces around the screen, earning you money every time it hits a side. The only thing you need to even think about is purchasing upgrades when you have the funds, but until then, you're transported back to a simpler time when the only thing you worried about in the moment was whether the logo could get a perfect corner bounce.
The mythical corner bounce
If you weren't there or have never experienced it, it's incredibly hard to describe the excitement that came with that logo landing perfectly in the corner of the screen. It was a rare occurrence, and it always came with a moment of celebration before the bouncing cycle started all over again.
In Just A DVD Incremental, that tiny little rush of dopamine comes a lot more often than it did with the real deal, but that kind of had to happen to cash in on the excitement of it happening in the first place. The celebration of it happening in-game isn't diminished despite it happening more often; partly because it's just exciting, but also because it is accompanied by an even bigger boost: cold hard cash.
Bouncing on the edge of the screen gets you a small amount of money, but landing a perfect corner bounce gives you a huge boost, money-wise. At one point in the demo, I was getting $11 per normal bounce, but $800 for a bounce that lined up perfectly in the corner. And with the rate at which upgrades become more expensive, you desperately need those perfectly aligned moments.
No chaos, no problem
I’ve had the Just A DVD Incremental demo running in the background for a little while now, jumping back in to buy upgrades as and when I have enough funds to do so, and so far this is the least chaotic incremental game I think I’ve ever played. Along with the lack of control from the player, there are also only two upgrades in the demo: speed of travel, and how much a bounce is worth.
However, there’s no telling how that will change when the full game gets released. According to the Steam page, there are “way more upgrades, cosmetics, and features” set to be added between now and then, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I am interested to see where this could go, but on the other, I kind of love the lack of surprises the demo comes with.
The whole point of this nostalgia trip, at least to me, is that it’s a reminder of simpler times, and while making it faster is definitely an improvement on the real-life experience, throwing in impossible upgrades may cheapen the experience. I live to be proven wrong, though, so I’ll be here waiting to see what happens when the game comes out.
Just A DVD Incremental is set to release on December 6, 2026, so we don’t have long to wait to find out what new upgrades and cosmetics will be coming our way. Until then, I’m happy to leave the demo running in place of a screensaver while I reminisce about the times before I had to worry about paying the rent.
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