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Game ON?
HALLIE EPHRON: I used to make fun of people who played online games, thinking I was immune to them. I mean, it all seems so pointless. But then my daughter saved enough babysitting money to buy herself a Nintendo and my husband and I were the ones who got addicted to Super Mario. The tinkling of those coins can still send a frisson of excitement down my back.
After that, my husband discovered Tetris and Marbles. I had a brief fling with Minesweeper. But mostly I had resisted online games... until recently. With our movement curtailed, online games have proven to be a lovely diversion.
Here are some we're enjoying...
Bridgebase: Online bridge is my current time sink. Sometimes I play solitaire (the computer plays the other 3 hands). Other times I set up a date with my sister and friends to play an actual game. My favorite thing about bridge solitaire is I can bail when it's clear that I've made a perfectly dreadful bid. Also the game provides a little explanation of the bids the other 3 "players" are making. I learned to play bridge so long ago, the "Goren" rules I learned are out of date.
Words with Friends: Online Scrabble. My husband arranges night time game dates with one of our daughters, and occasionally one of them beats him. Usually not. He's a fierce Scrabble player, and gets all the good letters (or so it seems.) I refuse to play him because I'm a terrible loser.
New York Times Spelling Bee: My husband and one of my daughters are addicted to this one. The challenge is to make as many words of four or more letters as you can out of seven letters. Six of the letters revolve around a central letter that has to be in each word.
Have you discovered (REdiscovered?) online games? Which ones have hooked you. Or have you resisted their siren song?
Oh, those online games will take up all your time if you let them!
ReplyDeleteThe Spelling Bee is great fun as is the Mini-Crossword and the Tiles games.
I enjoy crossword puzzles and word games like Word Stacks and Wordscapes, too . . .
You're on the same page as my husband - word games. Me, not so much. Never could do anagrams. My brain doesn't work that way.
DeleteI just got through playing Word Cookies. I thought I had escaped the online game black hole, but then I started playing Word Cookies on my phone, and I got hooked. I had gotten to a ridiculously high score on my old phone, but when I got my new phone, I couldn’t transfer it, so I started over. It’s been okay doing that. There are a few changes to the game now that I really like, so I’m back at it full force. I think I prefer playing something solo.
ReplyDeleteUh oh. Word Cookies. Trying to decide whether to investigate.
DeleteMahjong online exercises my brain.
ReplyDeleteI've heard from several friends who love it. Bridge is like that, too - I suppose any good game is.
DeleteI think Facebook is a huge time suck already so, I won't be playing on line games. I won't be playing the off-line ones either. No Nintendo. Occasional cards or Scrabble with Irwin are the only games I can be convinced to spend time doing. When with our grandkids, he is terrific about teaching them card games and playing their board games. He's a good Papa.
ReplyDeleteIrwin plays Bridge on line with friends from the Bridge club he belongs to. Also, he will spend a little time playing with strangers from all over the world on Bridgebase. He likes games much more than I do.
Irwin sounds like a very good fellow.
DeleteA firm resister here, although I briefly forayed into Myst a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI'm on screens too much as it is. I play solitaire with real cards on Saturdays listening to Wait Wait and Says You, and Hugh and I play Farkle sometimes in the afternoons. When (sob) I'm with my older son, we always play real Scrabble. I rarely beat him! He's invited me to play online with him but I haven't taken him up on it yet.
Really you should try it, Edith - especially if you haven't been able to hang out with him in person.
DeleteThinking of Myst makes me think of Legend of Zelda. I was a total Zelda addict for a while.
DeleteI used to play some of the games that were available on a couple of websites. Nothing too involved, just basic time-wasting type of games. These days, the only games I play are on the Metv.com website but again they are just a way to kill time rather than anything that taxes the brain too much.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing wrong with killing time - sanity is important these days.
DeleteI play daily word games in the morning: Wordscapes and Word Chums (similar to Words with Friends).
ReplyDeleteEDITH; I remember playing MYST! The graphics were gorgeous, way ahead of its time. And I love any puzzle games.
Amazing graphics, and so addictive.
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ReplyDeleteI am addicted – – I mean addicted! To spelling bee. I absolutely love it our children also introduced us to code name. Do you know that one? It’s so much fun!
Code name? Going to look it up...
DeletePretty sure that's one my coworkers and I have played. So much fun.
DeleteI play Classic Words (scrabble) once or twice a day to keep me fit to face my brother on Words with Friends. I noticed that I lost more often when I didn’t practice because he is better than me and as your husband, Hallie, he gets the good letters.
ReplyDeleteNo other games, it would cut too much reading time.
Wise to keep it in bounds.
DeleteI play WWF although FB seems to have changed the platform and not for the better. Used to play Scrabble but that stopped working this year, along with most other things in our lives! I only play those with friends. (I can beat Kate regularly, Debs) I used to play bridge incessantly, on POGO, had regular partners and loved every minute of it. Then one day I stopped. People started fighting and it wasn't worth the headache. That disappeared last year.
ReplyDeleteI registered at Bridgebase just now. This is going to be a busy stressful day for me as I have to go to the doctor, snow and ice are deep, and it's colder than a well digger's ass in Alaska. However I have Keith the Transporter who will get me out of the house in a wheelchair and where I need to go, then come get me. Anyway, I don't see bridge in my plans. Hallie, I'm reasonably good, play standard American and most conventions, and I never ever berate my partner. Maybe I'll find you online one of these days soon. Name is AnnMas0n.
All my children and most of my grandchildren are in Texas. I'm so concerned about them although so far all are doing ok, coping. And firing up their generators, something that is not without risk of course.
Who didn't get the memo that is is 2021 and supposed to be better than last year?
I'll be on the lookout for you, Ann - though what I like about solitaire is I can quit and start over if I don't like my hand
DeleteI would say I'm not an online gamer but I would almost be lying. A few years ago I bought some Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendars which led to buying the Curio game. Now I can't start my day without playing the mahjong games or breaking those Christmas ornaments!
ReplyDeleteHallie, thank you for the instructions for Spelling Bee. I look at it every week and wonder just how you are supposed to play. Now I know. New addiction. :)
ACK! Sorry about that.
DeleteI was playing Wordscapes, but then I realized I was getting ridiculously aggravated when I couldn't figure out that last word - and had found seven words that WEREN'T the right one. Completely the opposite of what the intention is.
ReplyDeleteI will occasionally play a game of solitaire or a matching tile game (they call it mah-jong, but I don't think it really is) on my computer.
My co-workers and I get together on Microsoft Teams ever Friday afternoon for something. It's usually an online version of a group game. Last week was Pictionary (called Skribbl.io).
Microsoft teams? GOing to investigate...
DeleteIt's Microsoft's answer to Zoom - it allows groups of people to get together and collaborate.
DeleteWhen the kids were small and fighting all the way up to the ski condo in VT that we'd rented for a weekend, I was disappear into Andrew's Tetris. Saved me! John loves Spelling Bee and Bridge--I will wait for that until I'm retired!
ReplyDeleteI remember Tetris well.
DeleteNo actual online games for me but I do Sudoku several times a day and love Ken-Ken. I had tried WWF a few years ago, playing mostly with my sister. She kept winning and I suspected she was using some sort of cheat device. Of course maybe she was just that good from playing a lot and actually did know all those words. For a while I was playing JumbleJong, which was something like solitaire, but I was wasting too much time. I can't find it now so maybe it has been discontinued.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do Spyder Solitaire all the time, especially while waiting for pages to load.
DeleteI'm remembering when I took solitaire OFF my computer to stop myself from playing -- those were the days before the internet made games available without downloading.
DeleteThe disastrous year of my kitchen design career, when my longtime friend who owned the company turned out to be having a mental and financial break, I started playing Solitaire on the computer at work; while everyone else was freaking out, I was in Zen mode. It relieved the incredible stress of clinging to a dying company just as my career should have been taking off. Which led to the addiction of using the mouse and screen to calm my mind. (Now my finger on the screen, more often.)
ReplyDeleteJudi, I quit playing WWF with one friend who kept accusing me of cheating. And not in a jokey way, either. Last week my daughter and I played Scrabble online together, while we were on the phone with each other. That was a lot more fun than waiting all day for someone to make a move. This was a timed game, and we laughed like crazy people. We each won a game, which made it more enjoyable.
When Candy Crush was all the rage, my oldest daughter was very into it, and I think she was actually spending money on the extra tools, because she achieved a ridiculously high level. I have played it a couple times, but once it got to the level where you had to start paying I either started over or just quit. All that color and noise (although I turn the sound off) is addictive, like the sounds of a winning casino jackpot.
I just played Spelling Bee a couple times this week. It's a fun mini mind-stretcher.
Yes, when the game starts charging you it's time to opt out. (Sorry to hear that about your kitchen design career, Karen... Fortunately I've only had good experiences working with close friends.)
DeleteThanks, Hallie. I think I would have really enjoyed it, once I got going. I'd barely finished my training and was just starting to get commissions when the company went down in a blaze of glory. But I've designed two of my own kitchens since then, so it wasn't a total waste.
DeleteOn another note, I hope Debs and Gigi are okay, and that the Crombie furnace is back on.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to say the same!
DeleteWaiting to hear...
DeleteI play several games on-line...Words with Friends, Dice Buddies, DailyThemed Crosswords. I also have a jigsaw puzzle app and a coloring app that I do once a day. Along with my books, the games have been what’s gotten me through this horrible, crazy weather here in North Texas.
ReplyDeleteStay safe, Chris - we're waiting to hear from so many friends that they have their heat back...
DeleteGigi was commenting late yesterday afternoon. She and Debra only had power for short intervals.
DeleteGigi was commenting late yesterday afternoon. She and Debra only had power for short intervals.
DeleteOn my phone is Wood blocks, solitaire, a jigsaw puzzle (which has little pieces so I only set the number pieces to about 100/120), Wordscape in on my kindle. I find myself playing games instead of reading or doing things around the house so I try to keep my game time to the evenings just otherwise I just won't get anything done.
ReplyDeleteThat is the danger... but sometimes I play instead of watch TV which seems like a fair trade.
DeleteBejeweled, solitaire, wordscapes, animal crossing, and I’m revisiting Zelda. I play mostly at night when I need my brain to switch off for a while or at least be redirected.
ReplyDeleteGoing to check these out...
DeleteI have a few on my iPad, fewer than I used to because books are filling up the memory. Free cell solitaire is addictive, but I do find it hard to quit a game since reading that "theoretically" they are all solvable . . . maybe so, but not always by me. When I picked up Stone Loops, my sister was elated, "We've got you now." A friend in England introduced me to Monument Valley with its Escher-like dizzying levels. Sudoku is still more satisfying on paper.
ReplyDeleteCanNOT do Sudoku without pencil AND eraser. (Or even with, for that matter - needless to say my husband dispatches them fairly quickly.)
DeleteI pretty much stick with Trivia Crack and Words with Friends. I have a WiiU I haven't turned on in months. And yet I keep thinking about getting a Nintendo Switch.
ReplyDeleteNo online games for me now, but several years back I got lost playing the Farm and the Cafe game via Facebook, I think it was. Oh my goodness, I really lost schwacks of time doing that. Would even plan my chores and work around the various timings required to earn points. Sheesh. One day, I came to my senses and stopped. Cold turkey. Thank goodness!
ReplyDeleteA couple friends have developed pretty amazing worlds on that Animal Crossing game.
DeleteI'm not much of one for online games. Every once in a while I'll play Spider, TriPeaks, and Pyramid. And that's it. It is a relatively balmy 32 right now, and raining. But lower temps are on the way, and maybe snow. Our water pressure is so low we can get water only on the first floor. But we have power, so we have heat. So much better off than a lot of people.
ReplyDeleteStay safe!
DeleteHi all! We are okay here, and certainly appreciate all the good thoughts! Our power has been intermittent, but we are managing and haven't frozen to death yet. Our kitchen pipes are frozen, however, so that's going to be fun when things thaw out in a couple of days. I will try to keep everyone posted.
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking in, Debs. Glad to hear you are maintaining!
DeleteWe've been worried about you! Now: Collective exhale!
DeleteSo glad to hear you’re coping!
DeleteI play Scrabble against the computer. I call him Ivan because he’s terrible and used words nobody had heard of. But I’m at the skilled level and I beat him once a day!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy playing Rummikub on my phone. I only use the Practice mode, which lets me play non-timed games and is free. I tried to "Play now" mode, but the time limits to complete my turn made it stressful, not relaxing.
ReplyDeleteWords with Friends and Design Home are my two games. I don't allow myself any more than that, and I play them just once a day to wind down before bedtime. Otherwise they suck my time.
ReplyDeleteLove the NYT Spelling Bee. Some Sundays (I do it in the actual printed magazine) it’s so easy, other times I can’t get past the lowest rank.
ReplyDelete