Sunday, March 2, 2014

A Childhood Purgatory Revisited

I almost knew it. I had an inkling. I suspected.
When touch-screen devices began to be inundated with mind-numbing timesinks like Fruit Ninja calling themselves "games" I wondered how low they could go. However, with FlappyBird taking center stage, I finally realized what the next logical craze should be. I knew what had to be lurking somewhere in the apps catalog. If you're down to only pressing one button over and over and over... and over... and over... and over... again... and over... and over... again, and again, and again, I know that the entertainment industry has long ago provided the pinnacle of gaming. Because, you see, I had a deck of playing cards when I was young, and I remember the epic battle of wits called... War! And lo and behold, it is already available on your Android device.

War was a game we previous generations played when our parents would pack us into some motorized conveyance along with the rest of their luggage for a few hours straight. It was an activity so stultifyingly monotonous that it only came up when the sole alternative was staring blankly out the car window at the corn fields wilting past. You split the deck. You throw down a card. High card takes both. Repeat until your brain starts struggling out of your ears in desperation. No decisions, no planning. It's a card game so bereft of choice that even eight-year-olds used to consider it painfully simplistic.

And yet War will never out-sell FlappyBird. Its sheer complexity is now too intimidating. Because you see, it involved, at least tangentially -
- num83r5 !

Flap away, FlappyBrains, Generation Facebook, oh future of humanity, flap for your lives or the numbers will get you.

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