# Wrinkler

166pages on
this wiki

Wrinklers are twitchy leech-like creatures that, in normal gameplay, only start appearing during the Grandmapocalypse. They provide a large buff to CpS (cookies per second) during idle play, while appearing to be a debuff during active play.

## Overview Edit

Wrinklers appear within the game's left panel and slowly crawl toward the Big Cookie. Upon reaching the big cookie, a Wrinkler will begin to feed upon it, withering the total CpS by 5% each. A total of ten Wrinklers can feed on the big cookie at once; twelve if Elder spice has been purchased. Each additional Wrinkler withers another 5% of CpS – two Wrinklers wither 10% CpS total, three wither 15%, and the maximum of twelve Wrinklers withering 60% of the total CpS. While the output of manually clicking the big cookie is unaffected, having enough Wrinklers will appear to halve the cookie production of every building and upgrade.

A Wrinkler can be killed, or popped, by being clicked on from three to five times. The game hints at this property by having a Wrinkler continuously shake when hovered over. When exploded, it will drop 1.1 × the total number of cookies withered during its life. If the current season is Halloween, a popped Wrinkler also has a 5% chance of unlocking one of the 7 Halloween cookie types. The stats menu will display how much of the current CpS has been withered, as well as the total number of popped Wrinklers. If a Wrinkler is popped before reaching the big cookie, it will not drop any cookies or upgrades.

If the Grandmatriarchs are appeased, whether via Elder Pledge, Elder Covenant, or by selling all grandmas, all the wrinklers on the screen will automatically be exploded, and will not begin to appear again unless the Grandmapocalypse is restarted.

## CpS multiplier Edit

Because Wrinklers store a percentage of the total wither rate, each additional Wrinkler adds a larger bonus than the previous one. The net increase in CpS is 0.5% with one Wrinkler, rising to 832% with the maximum of twelve. The twelfth Wrinkler alone increases net CpS by more than 120% of the pre-Wrinkler base value.

To calculate the effective CpS multiplier, assuming $N$ Wrinklers present, the formula consists of:

• $N \cdot 0.05 \cdot 1.1 \cdot 1.05 \cdot 1.05$ (Sucked CPS for each wrinkler. Each Wrinkler hoards 5% times number of Wrinklers present. Hoarded cookies are then amplified by a flat factor of $\cdot 1.1$ (10% gain after popping), an additional $\cdot 1.05$ (5% more cookies) with the Wrinklerspawn upgrade and additional $\cdot 1.05$ with the Sacrilegious corruption upgrade.)
• $1-N \cdot 0.05$ (Remaining unwithered CPS)

Put together, this is

• $N \cdot (N \cdot 0.05 \cdot 1.1) + (1 - N \cdot 0.05) = N^2 \cdot 0.055 - N \cdot 0.05 + 1$ without wrinkler upgrades.
• $N \cdot (N \cdot 0.05 \cdot 1.1) \cdot (1.05) + (1 - N \cdot 0.05) = N^2 \cdot 0.05775 - N \cdot 0.05 + 1$ with 1 wrinkler upgrade.
• $N \cdot (N \cdot 0.05 \cdot 1.1) \cdot (1.05 \cdot 1.05) + (1 - N \cdot 0.05) = N^2 \cdot 0.0606375 - N \cdot 0.05 + 1$ with both wrinkler upgrades.

From the above formula, we can draw the following CpS conclusion:

No. Wrinklers

CpS Multiplier

CpS Multiplier with one of: "Wrinklerspawn" or "Sacrilegious corruption"

CpS Multiplier with both: "Wrinklerspawn" and "Sacrilegious corruption"

0 1 1 1
1 1.005 1.00775 1.0106375
2 1.12 1.131 1.14255
3 1.345 1.36975 1.3957375
4 1.68 1.724 1.7702
5 2.125 2.19375 2.2659375
6 2.68 2.779 2.88295
7 3.345 3.47975 3.6212375
8 4.12 4.296 4.4808
9 5.005 5.22775 5.4616375
10 6 6.275 6.56375
11 7.105 7.43775 7.7871375
12 8.32 8.716 9.1318

## Spawn Rate Edit

Each empty Wrinkler slot has a (re-) spawn rate of 0.001% (0.005% with "Unholy bait") per Grandmapocalypse stage per frame (the usual framerate is 30 fps). And, from this we can draw the following:

Wrinklers Respawn Rate
No. of Open Wrinkler Slots Probability of Respawn Each Second
Without "Unholy bait" With "Unholy bait"
One Mind Communal Brainsweep Elder Pact One Mind Communal Brainsweep Elder Pact
12 0.359% 0.718% 1.075% 1.785% 3.541% 5.268%
11 0.330% 0.658% 0.986% 1.638% 3.251% 4.840%
10 0.300% 0.598% 0.896% 1.490% 2.960% 4.410%
9 0.270% 0.539% 0.807% 1.342% 2.668% 3.978%
8 0.240% 0.479% 0.718% 1.194% 2.375% 3.544%
7 0.210% 0.419% 0.628% 1.045% 2.081% 3.108%
6 0.180% 0.359% 0.539% 0.897% 1.787% 2.670%
5 0.150% 0.300% 0.449% 0.748% 1.491% 2.230%
4 0.120% 0.240% 0.360% 0.599% 1.195% 1.788%
3 0.090% 0.180% 0.270% 0.449% 0.897% 1.344%
2 0.060% 0.120% 0.180% 0.300% 0.599% 0.898%
1 0.030% 0.060% 0.090% 0.150% 0.300% 0.450%
• On average, it takes 57 minutes and 28 seconds (11 minutes 30 seconds with "Unholy bait") for all 12 Elder Pact (speedup factor $x = 3$) Wrinklers to spawn, from a starting point of 0 Wrinklers. This is calculated by the sum over the inverse probabilities of occupying each slot: $\sum_{k=1}^{12} \frac{1}{x \times k \times 0.00001} \approx 103,440 \text{ ticks} \approx 57 \text{ min } 28 \text{ s}$ without "Unholy bait" and $\sum_{k=1}^{12} \frac{1}{x \times k \times 0.00005} \approx 20,688 \text{ ticks} \approx 11 \text{ min } 30 \text{ s}$ with it. For Communal Brainsweep, x is 2, and therefore it takes 3/2 of that time, about 86 (17 with "Unholy bait") minutes. For One mind (x=1) this is three times as long, which is about 172 (34 with "Unholy bait") minutes.
• As the CpS multiplicator gain from Wrinklers depends heavily on the number of Wrinklers, but respawn time also is longest for the last Wrinklers, one should not pop single Wrinklers on demand. The last Wrinkler takes about one third of total spawn time (18 min 31 s (3 min 42 s with "Unholy bait") for Elder Pact, see above), while CpS multiplicator is reduced from 9.1318 to 7.7871375 during that time. Ten consecutive pops will reduce CpS by a little more than 15% for on average 3 hour (37 minutes with "Unholy bait") cumulatively. A full Wrinkler rebuild has a much stronger impact on CpS (effective multiplier 3.59{How has this multiplier been calculated?}), but only for 57 (12 with "Unholy bait") minutes. After that, the full 9.1318 multiplicator from ten Wrinklers is active again. In other words: Extrapolating the full rebuild time to the one-by-one approach (~3 hour (~37 minutes)), rebuilding has an effective multiplier of 5.48762{?} over that time, while popping them in turn yields 5.22775{?}, about 5% less. Besides that, getting all withered cookies back at once may lead faster to a CpS increase by new buildings, and is also much less time-consuming and error-prone to perform.

Halloween Cookies are spawned randomly during the Halloween season by popping Wrinklers. Each cookie has from 5% to 56% depending on related "Spooky cookies" achievement, "Santa's bottomless bag" upgrade, "Mind Over Matter" dragon aura, "Starterror" prestige upgrade and wrinkler type (normal or shiny).

All easter upgrades are egg/larvae based in theme and can be unlocked randomly when clicking a Golden Cookie, Wrath Cookie cookie or bunny or popping a wrinkler. At base, a Golden/Wrath Cookie has a 10% chance to unlock an egg and a wrinkler has a 2% chance to unlock an egg. The "Hide and Seek Champion" achievement, "Omelette" and "Santa's Bottomless Bag" upgrades, "Starspawn" prestige upgrade, and "Mind Over Matter" dragon aura all increase the chance to unlock an egg.

## AchievementsEdit

To help keep track of how many Wrinklers you have popped, go in the "Stats" section, then look under "Special"

Icon

Name Description Number
Itchscratcher Burst 1 wrinkler. 86
Wrinklesquisher Burst 50 wrinklers. 87
Moistburster Burst 200 wrinklers. 88

Owning this achievement makes Halloween-themed cookies drop more frequently in future playthroughs.

89

## TriviaEdit

• Owning the achievement "Spooky cookies" makes Halloween-themed cookies drop more frequently.
• In the game's code, next to the code that tells the wrinklers to return 110% of their sucked cookies is the comment "cookie dough does weird things inside wrinkler digestive tracts".
• The flavor text for the Ghost cookie ("They're something strange, but they look pretty good!") is a reference to and parody of the famous line in the theme song for the 1984 film Ghostbusters, "There's something strange, in the neighbourhood" and "When there's something weird, and it don't look good".
• The flavor text for the Bat cookie ("The cookies this town deserves.") is a reference to a famous line from the 2008 film The Dark Knight, in which the character Lt. James Gordon states that Batman is "the hero Gotham deserves."
• The flavor text for the Spider cookie ("You found the recipe on the web. They do whatever a cookie can.") is a reference to the web-slinging Marvel Comics character, Spider-Man. Aside from the spider pun in the first sentence of the flavor text, the text also parodies a line in the theme song used for various Spider-Man media, "Spider-Man, Spider-Man. Does whatever a spider can." "The web" refers to either the internet or the actual spider.
• The flavor text for the Slime cookie ("'The incredible melting cookies!'") is a reference to the 1977 film The Incredible Melting Man'.
• The flavor text for the Eyeball cookie ("When you stare into the cookie, the cookie stares back at you.") is a reference to a quote by the german philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you".
• The "Moistburster" achievement is a reference to the Alien Franchise's Chestburster.
• Prior to the v1.0453 update, Wrinklers disappeared when you closed the Cookie Clicker window or exited the browser.
• The Wrinkler may be a reference to the Mosquito Larvae, or the Wriggler.

## BugsEdit

• Clicking on a Golden (or Red) Cookie, Reindeer, or Bunny while it is on top of a Wrinkler will also count as clicking on that Wrinkler.
• Shiny Wrinklers in the cookie clicker Beta will turn into normal Wrinklers when you reload the page.
• Clicking with the mouse on the exact frame when a Wrinkler appears will damage the Wrinkler once doesn't matter where you clicked.
Interactive Objects
Reindeer Santa Krumblor
Mechanics
Ascension PrestigeHeavenly ChipsChallenge Mode

## Start a Discussion Discussions about Wrinkler

• #### Wrinkler rate while the game is closed?

5 messages
• So leaving the game withered will closed is better than having zero Wrinklers will closed ? Well I've been doing wrong all along x)
• Probably...? I dunno, test it simultaneously with multiple browsers.