Guilt-ridden Games

The past thirteen months have fostered a lot of addiction. Of course I'm talking about the vilest form of addiction around, the most insidious and life-altering type of addiction that's helping to destroy the world: phone games.

Sure, I've played them before. But not to the point where I'm all in now. And I'm very, very mad at myself for falling into the vast black hole of games. In fact I used to scoff at people who couldn't put their phones down in public, banging their finger away while trying to blast an asteroid or whatever.

Now, I'm one of them. 

My name is Stuart. ("Hi, Stuart.") And I'm a...a...*gasp, choke*...gameaholic.

There. I said it. And I know I'm not alone. For crying out loud, gaming has become one of my first go-to morning rituals. I can't start my day properly without "gaming maintenance."

See, these game-creators and destroyers of souls are truly heinous people who know exactly what they're doing. My game of choice (before I turn to my other games) is "Angry Birds 2." When I first got into it, it seemed perfectly harmless, just kind of passive, mindless entertainment I could amuse myself with during long car rides. But the gaming maintenance alone is intense. Every day you're expected to play the daily challenge along with other tasks. Not to mention gain (through side games) 5 apples a day to keep your lil' cute "hatchling" fed. What happens if you don't feed your hatchling?

To my great shame, sadness and dismay, I found out. Time had run out and "Boney (they encourage you to name your hatchlings, thus establishing a close loving connection. You devious bastards!)" shed giant, sad cartoon tears, slung a bag over his shoulder, and slumped off my phone screen to never be seen again.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo... (Screaming while standing out in the pouring rain with my fists clenched into the air).

So, so sad. And manipulative. And these gaming gurus are thriving during our pandemic, grifting rubes (such as myself) into playing along, ladling on the guilt like chow at the soup kitchen. (I honestly had no choice--absolutely none, whatsoever--to raise a new hatchling and name him Boney again, in hopes I could forget the nightmare of seeing my initial hatchling heartbroken and run away to die of starvation).

The manipulation doesn't stop within the game itself either. The ads that you're forced to sit through are evil as well. They're always trying to sucker we poor fools into playing games "to win real money!" (I gotta admit, my defenses were at a pandemic low at one point and I almost succumbed to this poisonous apple). 

Then there are the ads for all of these cool animated games with animated tasks like saving a King from drowning. Now I've been conned into a couple of these before. And they're NOTHING like what was advertised. Usually, it's just some poorly animated dumb guy building a garden at a snail's pace.

Tricky, these people are. Shameless, too, for preying on a shut-in world.

You know, it used to be my annoyance started and stopped when "friends" kept inviting me to play Candy Crush on Facebook. Now I've succumbed to the tempting, albeit hollow, promises of phone games.

So, my fellow humans, I say we toss off the shackles of our gaming-induced slavery and revolt! Throw down your phones now and go take a walk!

I plan on doing that just as soon as I complete my Angry Birds daily tasks. Maybe... Hang on... Just another hour...

Speaking of shameless manipulation, I actually enjoy being manipulated by a good book. Now, I'm not saying that my horror thriller, Dread and Breakfast is good, mind you. That's your call. But I did set out to manipulate the reader with many terror-filled twists and turns inside the Dandy Drop Inn. Come on over, check in, and find out if I succeeded (I'll wait for you to finish your current game).