Grandmapocalypse Guide Cookie Clicker

At a certain point in Cookie Clicker, you come across something known as the Grandmapocalypse. This is an event that makes your Grandmas way better at baking cookies, at a certain cost. In this Cookie Clicker guide to the Grandmapocalypse, I will be explaining how it works as well as answering a bunch of questions you might have, like whether or not the Grandamapocalypse is even worth it.

The Grandmapocalypse is one of the most interesting parts of Cookie Clicker and definitely a part that you shouldn’t ignore. If you’ve already started it, I recommend checking out the table of contents for this guide as I provide as much information as I could.

I will be keeping this Grandmapocalypse guide updated with new versions of Cookie Clicker as well. Also, this all works with the Steam version!

Make sure to check out our Ascension guide as well! You’ll need it, winky face.

What is the Grandmapocalypse?

The Grandmapocalypse is an event in Cookie Clicker that has three tiers, each level of the event being tied to Grandma upgrades. On the first upgrade, your Grandma buildings start looking different and receive a buff to their cookies per second (.02 CPS per Grandma). After that, you will notice Golden Cookies are sometimes red. These are what are called Wrath Cookies.

Wrath Cookies are explained in a different section, but just know that they can have both positive or negative effects.

Alongside Wrath Cookies, there will sometimes be Wrinklers, which spawn around your giant cookie (the one that you click). These Wrinklers eat some of your CPS and will release it once they have been broken open (by clicking them).

Once you upgrade your Grandmas again (enter stage 2 of Grandmapocalypse) your Grandmas start looking even more ghastly and receive another large buff to their CPS. Wrath Cookies and Wrinklers appear more often now.

The final stage of the Grandmapocalypse has the Grandmas looking like a cthulhu like creature and another buff to their cookies per second. Now, only Wrath Cookies spawn and Wrinklers appear almost instantly.

You will have an option to “appease” the Grandmas and restore things to normal, albeit temporarily.

And that is the explanation behind the Grandmapocalypse. This is all very basic stuff and doesn’t go deep into the mechanics of the Grandmapocalypse. I recommend you read the rest of the Grandmapocalpyse guide to truly understand what is happening.

How to Start the Grandmapocalypse

To start the Grandmapocalypse you need to unlock the Grandma upgrade One Mind. This is the very beginning stage of the Grandmapocalypse and takes a few hours to get if it is your first time playing Cookie Clicker.

To get One Mind, you first need 7 types of Grandmas (see the next section). After which, you will unlock the Bingo Research Center. The Bingo Research center takes roughly 30 minutes per upgrade and costs 1 quadrillion cookies to start. You have four upgrades before One Mind shows up.

In other words, you need to wait at minimum (because the research won’t start again until you purchase the previous upgrade) about two hours before you can start the Grandmapocalypse. There is no way of doing this any quicker.

Getting 7 Types of Grandmas

Alright, so you want to start the Grandmapocalypse but you have no idea what 7 types of Grandmas means. Well, to put it simply, the 7 types of Grandmas just means having 7 different buildings with at least 15 total buildings.

Once you have 15 of a certain building, you will unlock the upgrade which will double the efficiency of Grandmas and increase CPS of the building with the amount of Grandmas you own. Do this 7 times to unlock the Bingo Center.

One-Mind Cookie Clicker

Ok, you have the Bingo Center, you have researched all the pre-requisites, now you are finally ready to start the Grandmapocalypse by purchasing the One Mind upgrade!

There is no going back from purchasing this uprade. If you decide to go through with it, you will be locked into the Grandmapocalpyse with very few options to fix it. Later we will explain that the Grandmapocalpyse isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you should be prepared for some of the consequences.

A few things happen when in stage one of the Grandmapocalypse (aka One Mind):

• Golden Cookies are now Wrath Cookies 1/3 of the time
• Wrinklers start appearing
• Your Grandmas start changing appearance

So far, this is all that happens.

Communal Brainsweep

After a few more upgrades at the Bingo Center, you get another chance to upgrade your Grandmas even further. This upgrade, called the Communal Brainsweep, will give your Grandmas another 0.02 CPS per Grandma.

Once you take this upgrade, you have entered the second stage of the Grandmapocalypse.

In the second stage you have:

• Golden Cookies have a 2/3 chance to be Wrath Cookies
• Wrinklers appear faster
• Grandma appearance changes again

Elder Pact

Finally, we have the Elder Pact. This is the final stage of the Grandmapocalypse (although not the final upgrade). Elder Pact gives your Grandmas 0.05 CPS per portal.

Once you take the Elder Pact you will have these effects:

• All Golden Cookies are now Wrath Cookies
• Wrinklers appear incredibly fast
• Grandmas become demonic

What is a Grandmatriarch?

A Grandmatriarch is just the scary name for the final form of Grandmas during the Grandmapocalypse. These Grandmas are the most efficient and can even become the strongest building in the game!

Is the Grandmapocalypse Good or Bad?

The most asked question in all of Cookie Clicker, is the Grandmapocalypse a good thing or is it a bad thing? The short answer is, the Grandmapocalypse is a good thing. With the Grandmapocalypse your Grandmas are much better at making cookies and you get Wrinklers, which can get you up to six times your CPS. Also, the Wrath Cookies are almost always worth it as well.

The main strategy that most people employ for the Grandmapocalypse is to stay in stage one, aka, only getting the One Mind upgrade. Apparently this gives the highest CPS over all other upgrades. A redditor actually did a test and found that One Mind is even better than playing without the Grandmapocalypse!

I will be explaining each part of the Grandmapocalypse in the next sections, so keep reading if you want the mechanics explained!

Wrinklers

Wrinkers are the weird little disgusting creatures that start attaching to your big cookie during the Grandmapocalypse. While they are described as being bad for your CPS, they actually increase it tremendously if you let them live. The reason for this is pretty straightforward if you know the numbers behind them.

Each Wrinkler will give you 1.1x of the amount of cookies they have eaten. So, although it looks like they are negatively impacting your CPS, they are actually making you way more than you would regularly. Also, and this is important, Wrinklers give you 1.1x the amount of cookies every Wrinkler ate while that Wrinkler was there.

So, if you had two Wrinklers present at the same time, popping one would give you 1.1x the amount that both of them ate. Because of this, once you have reached 10 Wrinklers eating your CPS, you will end up having what equates to a 6x CPS multiplier.

To summarize, always keep Wrinklers for as long as possible! You can pop one or two if you need it for a big upgrade, but don’t pop them just for the sake of it as they increase your CPS dramatically.

Are Wrinklers Good or Bad?

Wrinklers are incredibly good for you in Cookie Clicker. They increase your CPS by 6x if you let ten of them pile up.

Wrath Cookies

Another incredibly important part of the Grandmapocalypse is Wrath Cookies. These are the red version of Golden Cookies and, unlike their golden counterparts, can have negative effects instead of positive.

What’s more interesting about the Wrath Cookies is the fact that they have roughly a 50% chance of being either positive or negative. This means that you are taking an active gamble by clicking on them, one that may or not pay off. You might end up getting a Clot (the negative version of the Frenzy) or you could end up with an Elder Frenzy which gives 666 times CPS for 6 seconds (longer with upgrades).

Here is a list of all the Wrath Cookie Effects:

• 24.5~25.3% to get “Ruin!”:
  • lose 5% of current cookies, or 10 minutes worth of production, whichever is less, plus 13.
    • 10 minutes of production is equivalent to CpS * 600.
• 24.5~25.3% to get “Lucky!”:
  • Gain 15% of current cookies, or 15 minutes worth of production, whichever is less, plus 13.
    • 15 minutes of production is equivalent to CpS * 900.
    • This is the same as the “Lucky!” effect of Golden Cookies.
• 24.5~25.3% to get “Clot”:
  • This reduces production by 50% for 66 seconds, which is equivalent to losing 33 seconds of production (CpS * 33).
  • With the Get Lucky upgrade, this lasts 132 seconds, equivalent to losing 66 seconds of production (CpS * 66).
  • When Clot is active, a red border appears around the cookie window.
• 5.99~6.156% to get “Elder frenzy”:
  • Grants you x666 production for 6 seconds (CpS * 3996).
    • Affects Cookies per Second, but does NOT affect Cookies per Click (although it indirectly affects cookies per click with the ‘mouse’ upgrades).
    • With the “Get Lucky” upgrade, this lasts 12 seconds (CpS * 7992).
    • With 10 Wrinklers giving an effective 6x CpS and the “Get Lucky” upgrade, the total benefit of the elder frenzy is CpS * 47,952 or 13 hours, 19 minutes, 12 seconds of production
• 2.35~2.420% to get “Click frenzy” buff:
  • Grants 777 times normal clicking power for 13 seconds.
    • With the “Get Lucky” upgrade, this lasts 26 seconds.
  • Works only for manual clicking, not for Cursor‘s autoclicking.
  • Assuming the mouse is upgraded to adamantium (4% CpS per click), and about 5 clicks per second, this gives x155.4 production (CpS * 2020 or 4040). An unobtainium mouse (5% CpS per click) at the same speed gives x194.25 production (CpS * 2525 or 5050).
• 0.44~0.449% to start a “Cookie Storm”:
  • A massive amount of Golden Cookies appears everywhere on the screen for 7 seconds, each granting you 1–7 minutes worth of cookies.
  • Those cookies do not count for clicked/missed Golden Cookies counters. They can, however, unlock Easter eggs.
• 6.38~6.56% to start a “Cookie chain”:
  • If the number of cookies in your bank is less than 10 billion, the first cookie you click in the chain will reward you with +6 cookies, and 3 seconds after being clicked another cookie will appear which grants +66 cookies, and then the third +666 cookies, and so on. If the number of cookies in your bank has reached 10 billion but less than 100 billion, the cookie chain will start from +66 cookies, and when reached 100 billion it will start from +666 cookies, and so on.
  • If a chain cookie is clicked and added to your bank, the next cookie’s appearance is decided:
    • Missing any cookie will break the chain. All cookies (min-capped 1 second at 10+ chain) will appear for 1 to 10 seconds and are NOT prolonged by Lucky Day or Serendipity.
    • Every cookie past the 1st has a 1% chance to not appear.
    • No cookie will appear if the reward exceeds 50% of your bank. (That is, your bank is less than 2x the value of the next cookie.)
    • No cookie will appear if the reward exceeds 6 hours’ worth of cookies.
    • Cookies will spawn until an above condition is met.
  • The following table shows the rewards and requirements for each level of the chain:

• 2.35~2.420% to get “Cursed Finger”:
  • Sets CpS to 0 for ten seconds, but each click is worth an amount equal to ten seconds of normal (unwithered) production.
  • Works only for manual clicking, not the Cursors’ autoclicking.
  • Since seed costs are based on CpS, all seeds have their minimum cost during Cursed Finger. It can be advantageous to fill the entire Garden with Bakeberries (or other expensive seeds) during Cursed Finger.
  • With the “Get Lucky” upgrade, this lasts 20 seconds.
    • Interestingly enough, “Get Lucky” also doubles the value of every click. This bonus works similarly if “Lasting Fortune” is also purchased, making every click worth 22 seconds of normal production.
  • Also interestingly enough, CpS is not updated during the duration of this effect. This means that buildings or upgrades purchased or sold during the duration of this effect will not alter the cookies received from a click until after the effect ends, and means that a Cursed Finger that was received from a Wrath Cookie that was clicked during a Frenzy or Clot will not be affected by the Frenzy or Clot ending.
  • Any reindeer clicked during this duration will give 50 cookies; this is due to the CpS being set to 0 for the duration of the effect.
• 4.13~4.262% to get a building special:
  • Get a variable bonus to cookie production for 30 seconds; effect shared with Golden Cookies.
  • Possible specials: High-five (Cursors), Congregation (Grandmas), Luxuriant harvest (Farms), Ore vein (Mines), Oiled-up (Factories), Juicy profits (Banks), Fervent adoration (Temples), Manabloom (Wizard towers), Delicious lifeforms (Shipments), Breakthrough (Alchemy labs), Righteous cataclysm (Portals), Golden ages (Time machines), Extra cycles (Antimatter condensers), Solar flare (Prisms), Winning streak (Chancemakers), Macrocosm (Fractal Engines), Refactoring (Javascript Console), Cosmic nursery (Idleverses).
  • You need at least 10 buildings of a type to get its special. One of the applicable specials is chosen at random. However, having at least 10 buildings but less than 10 of each type causes this to become a Frenzy.
  • Production bonus equals +10% per building of the corresponding type, meaning 10 buildings will give you +100% (x2), 20 will give you +200% (x3), and so on.
  • Stacks with Frenzy; if Frenzy and a building special bonus are active at the same time, the bonuses are multiplied. For example, having 50 Cursors when triggering a High-five while a Frenzy is active will grant 42x production for the duration of the stacked bonuses.
• 1.77~1.826% to get “(building special debuff)”:
  • In contrast to the previous effect, this “rusts” CpS by -10% per owned building of a random type for 30 seconds. It otherwise works within the same requirements of its CpS-boosting counterpart.
  • Possible debuff specials: Slap to the face (Cursors), Senility (Grandmas), Locusts (Farms), Cave-in (Mines), Jammed machinery (Factories), Recession (Banks), Crisis of faith (Temples), Magivores (Wizard towers), Black holes (Shipments), Lab disaster (Alchemy labs), Dimensional calamity (Portals), Time jam (Time machines), Predictable tragedy (Antimatter condensers), Eclipse (Prisms), Dry spell (Chancemakers), Microcosm (Fractal Engines), Antipattern (Javascript Console), Big crunch (Idleverses).
  • The description of this effect is misleading. While it would seem that a production modifier of more than -100% would result in negative cookie production, this effect simply adds the “negative multiplier” to the denominator of the Golden Cookie production multiplier. For example, with 105 Banks, a Recession would result in a Golden Cookie production multiplier of (100%) / (100% + 1050%) = 100% / 1150% = 8.695%.
  • As with building buffs, you need at least 10 buildings of a type in order to get a debuff. However, also like the building buffs, having at least 10 buildings but less than 10 of each type causes this to become a Frenzy instead.
• ~0.002% to get “blab” (really rare):
  • Does nothing but has a funny message, which includes:
    • Cookie crumbliness x3 for 60 seconds!
    • Chocolatiness x7 for 77 seconds!
    • Dough elasticity halved for 66 seconds!
    • Golden cookie shininess doubled for 3 seconds!
    • World economy halved for 30 seconds!
    • Grandma kisses 23% stingier for 45 seconds!
    • Thanks for clicking!
    • Fooled you! This one was just a test.
    • Golden cookies clicked +1!
    • Your click has been registered. Thank you for your cooperation.
    • Thanks! That hit the spot!
    • Thank you. A team has been dispatched.
    • They know.
    • Oops. This was just a chocolate cookie with shiny aluminium foil.
• 0.94~1.194% to start “Dragon Harvest” (requires Krumblor, cookie dragon, proportionally decreasing odds of other effects):
  • Get x15 cookie production for 60 seconds.
  • Requires Reaper of Fields aura to be active on Krumblor.
• 0.94~1.194% to get “Dragonflight” (requires Krumblor, cookie dragon, proportionally decreasing odds of other effects):
  • Gives x1111 cookies per click for 10 seconds.
  • Works only for manual clicking, not for Cursor‘s autoclicking
  • Can also indirectly stack with frenzy. After buying all the main “mouse” upgrades, your clicking power during frenzy increases by approx x7 because of the increase in CpS, so, therefore, getting a “Dragonflight” during a “Frenzy” yields roughly x7777 clicking power until either the “Frenzy” or “Dragonflight” ends.
  • Requires Dragonflight aura to be active on Krumblor.

• 1.17~1.194% to get “Everything must go” (Business Day season only, proportionally decreasing odds of other effects):
  • All buildings are 5% cheaper for 5 seconds.
• 0.01~0.012% to get “sweet”: Gain one sugar lump.

As you can see, some of these are incredibly similar to the Golden Cookie upgrades, while some are tied to events or even Krumblor. The main effects to pay attention to are towards the top!

Should You Click Wrath Cookies?

Yes, you should always click Wrath Cookies if you are an active player. The tradeoffs are always worth the eventual reward.

Grandmapocalypse Strategy

The Grandmapocalypse strategy involves staying in the first stage of the Grandmapocalypse (One Mind) and keeping the Wrinklers always on your big cookie. This gives you your 6x CPS bonus from the Wrinklers while also giving you the chance of getting massive CPS multipliers from Golden/Wrath Cookie combos.

For inactive players that just idle, it is better to upgrade all the way to the final stage of the Grandmapocalypse. You avoid the only negative part (Wrath Cookies) while increasing your CPS and getting a whole bunch of extra upgrades along the way. Wrinklers also spawn much faster, so you can afford to pop one or two more often.

How to Stop the Grandmapocalypse

You might have gone too far in the Grandmapocaplypse and want to somehow stop it. There are two ways to stop the Grandmapocalypse in Cookie Clicker. The first, you can use the Elder Pledge to halt the Grandmapocalypse for 30 minutes. Alternatively, you can use the Elder Convenant to end it permanently, in exchange for 5% CPS.

What is recommended by most people, is to only use Elder Pledge and Elder Covenant when you are wanting to unlock achievements. Otherwise, you are better off ascending and restarting the run if you don’t want the Grandmapocalypse.

Warning: Selling all your Grandmas will pop your Wrinklers and prevent others from spawning. Try to avoid selling all of your Grandmas.

Does Elder Pledge Pop Wrinklers?

The Elder Pledge does pop all of your Wrinklers.

Is Elder Pledge Good?

Elder Pledge is only good if you want to unlock the achievement, otherwise restart the run.

Grandmapocalypse Achivements

The list of Grandmapocalypse achievements are:

• Elder Nap: Appease the Grandmatriarchs once
• Elder Slumber: Appease the Grandmatriarchs 5 times
• Elder Calm: Delcare a covenant with the Grandmatriarchs
• Itchscratcher: Pop 1 Wrinkler
• Wrinklesquisher: Pop 50 Wrinklers
• Moistburster: Burst 200 Wrinklers

As I’ve said before, it is good to go through all stages of the Grandmapocalypse at least once to get the achievements done.

Getting the Grandmapocalypse Fast

To get back to the Grandmapocalypse fast if you have already done it in a previous run, you will need the Heavenly Upgrade Persistent Memory. This upgrade unlocks research 10 times faster (meaning it takes 3 minutes per upgrade).