I'm speaking, of course, about video games. Or computer games, or mobile games - we all love 'em. Or at least some of them. I'm not talking about the MMORPG games that you need special consoles and headsets for. I'm talking Farmville. Solitare. Angry Birds.
Me, I'm addicted to ULTIMATE JEWEL. It's soothing to watch all those shiny jewels line up and disappear, plus it has the added benefit of being impossible to lose. In fact, I've started playing to get the lowest score possible. I have the freebie version, which means in between games I get ads urging me to refi my mortgage, or to buy clothing perfectly suited to a 13-year-old girl. I guess I'm not their target demographic.
I used to play BEJEWELED 3 constantly - it's another pretty, glittery thing with exploding baubles. It's designed to suck you in by having each level get more and more difficult, with less and less time to make moves, until the program overwhelms you. Eventually, it stressed me out - I have enough going on in my life, did I really need a game calling me a loser?
My other (current) game is MAHJONG SOLITAIRE. Like solitaire with cards, it's the perfect thing to keep tucked away on your laptop for mental breaks between writing pages, answering emails and paying bills.
Youngest's obsession is CANDY CRUSH, which is notorious for its ability to make ravening addicts out of its players. There have been times - I swear this is true - when my daughter is in the bathroom so long I'm afraid something biologically wrong has happened. Nope! She was just engrossed in getting to a new level.
I have a good friend whose love affair with TETRIS was so passionate, it figured into her decision to not install internet in her home. She was worried she'd never get anything done. On the plus side, she's a genius at packing boxes and loading trucks.
And finally, my very first, and well beloved computer game: OREGON TRAIL. Does anyone else remember making the trek with 100 pounds of flour and 15 boxes of bullets (that got swept away when your wagon foundered in the Green River.) How many of us had loved ones die of dysentery along the way? BTW, there's a site where you can play the game the way God intended, with a black screen and little square pixels in the shape of oxen. Good times.
How about you, dear readers? What are your game addictions?
I enjoy playing word games like WordScapes on my tablet, but I don’t play regularly . . . .
ReplyDeleteI play the occasional hangman, solitaire, or spider solitaire, but I confess, I have never heard of any of the games you mentioned. Head hangs in shame.
ReplyDeleteDoes doing the New York Times Crossword on line count? Or playing Jumble Jong? And, yes, the Oregon Trail. Played a more graphically sophisticated version when a mentor to a 5th grader about 20 years ago. So much flour and dysentery. HappyWednesday!
ReplyDeleteNo online games! I play solitaire with cards when I listen to my favorite radio shows on Saturdays. My kids played Oregon Trail in the nineties, and Civilization.
ReplyDeleteSolitaire with cards always makes me think of my grandmother, Edith. She used to love Solitaire (and other card games.)
DeleteIf my kids would only oblige me with some grandkids, I'd be all set! ;^)
DeleteI played games online back in the early days of having the Internet, but I really don't play anything anymore. Unless you count Fantasy Football.
ReplyDeleteFantasy Football is too hard for me - all that information you have to keep track of! Ross did it a few times with some friends, and he loved it.
DeleteNo games for me either, unless you consider scrolling Facebook to be a game. It's definitely an addition! We did play Oregon Trails back in the day, and, I would lift our son's game boy in order to play Tetrus:)
ReplyDeleteCharm King at the moment. Angry Birds until the graphics got too distracting. That was nice because the levels did not really get harder. Dr. Mario on the old TV. And a funny one called Tapeworm some time after Pong.
ReplyDeleteNope. No video games on any of my devices, although my husband plays solitaire on his iPad. The pc is for work. The iPad is for reading and checking email and Facebook. The only thing my cell phone does is make calls home on trips. Yup, that’s me—total dinosaur.
ReplyDeleteA dinosaur? I don't know, but that explains why you're so prolific! Maybe I ought to make my laptop work-only...
DeleteSolitaire. My first love. Freecell has supplanted it, but I swear it keeps me sane, some days. Like Mahjong, computer cards are way more fun than real ones--no shuffling.
ReplyDeleteLike everything else, though, I keep deleting the game du jour when I feel I've overdone it. Candy Crush is the DEVIL. My daughter actually bought extra points to get to really high levels; I think that's cheating. I dumped it at Level 50.
Our first computer game, when the girls were small, was Treasure Mountain, which taught shapes, numbers, spelling, and lots of other stuff, plus the theme music was Bach's Solfeggietto, which our girls later learned to play on the piano. Last year the middle daughter was visiting the youngest, and they spent a fun evening playing it again, thanks to some Wayback Machine kind of site for old games.
We had Oregon Trails, too, and that was fun, but once you make it, battered, beaten and bereft of any other family members, to the Pacific, that's the end of the game. I always thought that was a serious flaw in the game, from the standpoint of the publisher. My grandson was seriously amazing at Angry Birds; he will be fabulous at physics, thanks to the things he learned about trajectory and thrust.
Yeah, the makers of Oregon Trail should have done a follow-up game: Widows and Widowers of Willamette. First player to find a replacement spouse to help with clearing the land wins.
DeleteDid anyone else play Lemmings? Or Sim City? My kids were obsessed with both of those for a while. And we did not even allow them access to TV, or video games. At least the various kind of Sim City games taught various skills. Their favorite was one where you built a zoo. If you weren't careful the animals would all eat each other. The bloodthirsty little girls loved that.
ReplyDeleteNo, but my kids had those electronic pets in an egg that they were supposed to take care of for points. Inevitably, someone would remember Fluffy-chan too late and discover a pile of pixel bones on the screen.
DeleteI remember Oregon Trails with dysentery and broken wagon wheels. My indulgence is checking the Washington Post for "news" updates.
ReplyDeleteMah jong solitaire is my only vice at the moment--I try to end up with all the dragons last....and I have the Singing Horses just because they always make me smile (we found the whole farm on Swedish tv when the boys were little--there were punk cows with leather jackets and a boom box, of course the a capella singing horses, I forget what else). Like you, Julia--I don't play anything that will stress me out about getting to higher levels, etc. It's just for a break--so I can shift my thoughts from whatever groove they've been in.
ReplyDeleteI do Spider Solitaire every day - it's my go-to when I'm waiting for pages to load. But Oregon Trail! I loved that one. When I was teaching that was a reward and the kids loved it too, although all the boys wanted to do was shoot! Carmen Sandiego was another one we loved - maybe that's where my geography expert son learned so much!
ReplyDeleteJudi, I loved the shooting too. I loved to drop those buffaloes. If you get good at it, you don't have to buy as much food in St. Joseph before hitting the trail!
DeleteI've played assorted video games over the years, including Mah Jong, Freecell, and a weird game called JezzBall, with a bouncing ball you had to confine in an increasingly small space. There was also a bass fishing game. I liked Bejeweled's graphics on my phone, but the ones that have captured me on my tablet are Spider solitaire and a Sudoku game with varying degrees of difficulty.
ReplyDeleteJust as a side note, a lot of young composers are getting their big break into professional careers through writing music for computer games now. I had the pleasure to meet Austin Wintory a few years back when we recorded his score for The Banner Saga. It was so interesting to see how he put that music together in layers, so it would change depending on how well or how badly the player was faring. (Think a sophisticated version of sad trombones if you get dysentery on the Oregon Trail.)
I have an elaborate theory about why we play the games we do and why other games don't do it. I currently play Diggy's Adventure, which is a maze game with levels and it's totally addicting for me. Not infrequently will Ross say, "Let's go," and I'll reply, "Hold on, I have to get Diggy's camp set up first." I also play Knights and Brides. Both are Facebook games, and both involve achievements, including BUYING things. I play one of the later versions of Candy Crush, but Ross (bored, presumably, while I played another game) got addicted to Candy Crush original and is now at stratospheric levels. He's convinced it's all skill, which just feeds into my theory that we play the game(s) we need emotionally to play.
ReplyDeleteI think you're on to something. My Ross loved Age of Heroes, which involved what seemed to me tedious amounts of mining and farming and a lot of interaction with other players online. My games are all soothing solitary pursuits with pretty colors.
DeleteI spent years engrossed in 'Solitaire's Journey',I still have the floppy discs! Lately,though, Gordon Ramsay Dash on the phone keeps my husband and myself significantly distracted from each other!
ReplyDeleteI used to play Legend of Zelda. And I did the Bejeweled thing. And Doodle Jump. But I don't really play games on my phone these days. Not sure why I stopped.
ReplyDeleteI will play the odd game of Mahjongg Solitaire on my laptop, though.
Mary/Liz
Nice reminder of those early computer games, which did introduce computer skills back when it was new stuff. Scholastic had several slow-loading games on floppy disks, and we had some to help with keyboarding skills. Moms had to babysit the Tamagotchi eggs which weren't allowed at school. Free cell solitaire was on my first PDA, and I still find it soothing. I saw someone playing Word Jewels in the allergist's waiting room and added it. A friend-of-friend on FB suggested Bejeweled Stars, which is quite addictive. My sister was so happy to see I was "caught" by games. Thinking back, I spent many summer hours playing solitaire, and with siblings playing Clue and Monopoly and gin rummy. Games seem to be a basic component of life . . .
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I have never played any of those. I kind of think… I might get addicted to them, and I don’t even want to give it a try. Don’t tempt me!
ReplyDeleteWait, wrong. Many years ago, I did play… What was it called?! hitchhikers guide. Which was only text. I loved it, but I could never catch the babel fish, so I quit.
ReplyDeleteI play Monopoly and Yahtzee and Mahjong Solitaire, though I wish that you could play real Mahjong. For the longest time when I played Monopoly against the computer, I thought I was playing a guy named Al, whose avatar looked like a mechanical something. I wondered how they chose Al as a player until I had that "slap my forehead" moment and realized Al was AI - artificial intelligence. There was a beautiful computer game called Syberia that I really loved as well.
ReplyDeleteCelia, I would love to learn how to play Mahjong in real life. I've seen some antique tile sets that are beautiful - it looks as if just handling them would be soothing.
DeleteI’ve never heard soothing and Mahjong used in the same sentence
DeleteOMG, I *loved* Oregon Trail! Nowadays I play games on my iPad. My favorite card game is Euchre but lately I've become addicted to Phase 10.
ReplyDeleteI had to delete CANDY CRUSH from my laptop!!! I've never looked back.
ReplyDeleteI was at level 80 on Midnight Castle 3 weeks ago. Then my computer died. Suddenly, time for housework happened simultaneously. I by mistake clicked on something on "Mr. Laptop". Now I am getting 'invites' to play Hidden City. Think I would rather play with the cats.
ReplyDeleteI don't play any games on my phone, but I've been known to dabble in Mah Jong and Spider Solitaire on long airplane flights. I've never heard of Oregon Trail...hope it doesn't end up like the Donner Party!
ReplyDeleteNo one gets eaten, but the prevalence by which people traveling in your party died from snakebite, cholera and dysentery was notorious.
DeleteI play Words with Friends, Trivia Crack, and Ruzzle with scattered friends and family. It's an pleasant way to keep in touch.
ReplyDeleteNone here, though I did have Ma Jong and Solitaire on the iPad when I first got it. Seemed like a waste of time... but then I do jigsaw puzzles, and I guess that's about the same.
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to get into jigsaw puzzles because my grandmother loved them, and I have fond memories of helping her find outside pieces and all the sky-blue. Unfortunately, I stall out at that point. I guess I'm meant to be a helper, not a player.
DeleteScrabble, Words With Friends, bejeweled blitz, Wizard of Oz, I used to play computer bridge on Pogo, with real people, and that was addictive. Had a few regular partners and damn we were good Had to stop. I could happily play bridge 24/7.
ReplyDeleteOh, Ann, several of my college dorm-mates happily played bridge 24/7 — in person. Back in the 1960s, before personal computers, iPads, and all that stuff. Those were surely the “good old days” :-).
DeleteAnn, my mom is STILL a bridge junkie. I think she's dropped down to one, but if I recall correctly, as one time she was a member of three bridge groups!
DeleteLearned to drink, smoke, drink beer and play bridge in college. Them was da days
DeleteOther than a few versions of solitaire, the only games I play on the computer (including my phone) are Words With Friends (pretty active with that one) and 7 Little Words, a simple little game my mother-in-law introduced me to. It gives you seven brief definitions, and at the bottom are tiles with multiple letters on them. You have to pick tiles that join to spell a word fitting each definition. Each round takes no more than 5 minutes, making it a perfect diversion or waiting-in-line option.
ReplyDeleteI've often thought it says something about me that I opt ONLY for card games and word games. Not sure what, but something!
I adore card and word games, Susan, but oddly, only in real life. I tried online Scrabble a couple times and it was -blah -. I guess I need someone sitting across from me to talk to!
DeleteI play Trivia Crack with one friend and Words with Friends with many people. I'm not very good at Words with Friends, but I enjoy it. (Carstairs38 if anyone wants to beat me.)
ReplyDeleteAnother one I love is Flood It. The idea is to start in the upper left corner and get all the squares to be the same color in 22 moves. It can be rather addicting.
Love Tetris! I don't play much any more, but it's been calling me recently. I just found a Wooden Blocks game on my iPhone that reminds me of it in some ways.
I've never heard of Oregon Trail! But I did play Myst a long, long time ago. I just looked it up--released in 1993! That was my only foray into adventure games. And although my grandmother played solitaire obsessively, I never learned, and have never played anything on phone or computer except for Bejeweled and Words with Friends. Not enough hours in the day...
ReplyDeleteI’m with you, Deb. Maybe people from Texas aren’t allowed on the Oregon Trail? I had Myst, too, but never got past the front door!
DeleteBut maybe I should try Gordon Ramsay Dash, lol!
DeleteMYST! Yes, I played that, too. Or tried to....
DeleteI'm not an online game player. It's not that I've never played one, but I spend way too much time on my computer as it is. I know if I start playing games, I'll never see the light of day again. My eight-year-old granddaughter has shown me a few on my phone that I like,including Temple Run 2, but luckily I'm not very good at them, so that helps me stay away from them. The granddaughter flies through Temple Run 2, despite her mom restricting her time on any electronic devices. On the other hand, she loves to read. I do worry about kids being so addicted to games, well, any online activity.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Julia, I remember The Oregon Trail from some time ago when it was used in the schools.
Yes, we bought the at-home version for our then very small kids because it was educational! It taught me I would never have made it as a pioneer.
DeleteFreecell got me through two pregnancies. Bejeweled convinced me to buy my own DS when the hooligans wouldn't let me use theirs. Candy Crush is my go to phone game. And I've recently leveled up to trying to play Zelda on a vintage Nintendo Cube that H2 picked up at a resale shop. It's maddening. That's about it for me - just enough to understand the addiction without being swept into the Fortnite frenzy, which has taken over every man (and some women) I know between the age of 10 to 40.
ReplyDeleteI love Cookie Jam and Cake Swap...both are match 3 games. I also like word games—Word Cookies, Wordscapes, and Word Connect. I used to play Words With Friends but I am not very good at it so I stopped.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be late -- between crosswords, Words With Friends, Wordscraper, and Bejeweled Blitz -- I have no time!!! It's a rainy day. What else could I be doing???
ReplyDeleteI play Spider Solitaire and cribbage and do the Boston Globe Crossword ...
ReplyDelete