Right, so… If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been most of this month, I work in an accounting firm and in Ireland, around the middle of November, there is this thing called Income Tax that needs to be filed. And our firm has been doing that on behalf of lots of clients for the last few weeks. Now that it is out of the way, at least for this year, let’s talk about something I do to take my mind off it after 5:30 in the evening: Games.
Most of us play them in one form or another. Mine have mostly existed on screens since I was about 9 or 10. And in the first of a chain of posts up to Christmas, I want to explain where my tastes lie in the five types of game that I’m aware of being primarily on a screen: Roblox, Console, Online, Flash (when that was a thing) and first up tonight, Mobile.
Let’s face it, a mobile phone is man’s third best friend besides his Dog and his Umbrella, at least in my mind. And there is also no getting away from the reality that some of us cannot really function in real life without some kind of mobile phone. The Pros and Cons of mobile phone use for certain tasks could be something for me to weigh up in my own head another time but today, I want to focus on one element that I am increasingly entrenched in thanks to my Tablet: Mobile Gaming.
I have played my fair share of mobile games from an early age, mostly via Facebook when you could invite “friends” to be your “neighbours” in games mostly produced by Zynga. Most of them do not exist anymore like PetVille, Café World and the original FarmVille to name a few that I was a part of. But the spin-off FarmVille 2: Country Escape still does, alongside sister spin-off FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape and FarmVille 3, all of which I have dabbled in but have not touched in a while for reasons that will become clear once I go through the games I actively play right now.
Before that, let’s talk about how I approach Mobile Games, especially considering the way some of them are advertised and the avalanche of micro-transactions that exist beneath the ‘Free’ tag in the App Store. I will discuss the ethics of those issues and more in an Analytical Aspie post, but generally speaking, I play mobile games one of three ways, depending on the type of game.
The first is the Scavenger style. If there are Optional Ads for in-game Resources, Boosters and even Premium Currency available, I’ll happily rattle off several of them in the background while doing something more productive. The ads themselves are often the annoying ones from TEMU and those I want to rant about in a future post, but at least I can press the mute button and look at something stimulating while they are whizzing by. I am also a fan of any Wheel of Prizes I can spin for anything valuable, even if some prizes require luck. But in general, I play games objectively and try my best to earn resources, boosters and currency by playing normally.
The second style I employ, which sometimes ties into the first, is Resourceful. This involves me making the most of what I have and usually refusing to be tempted by weekly package offers that can add up very quickly. Although some are more worthwhile purchasing than others, such as Removal of Ads packages. And the third style I employ, which regularly ties into the second, is Intuitive. When I play mobile games like Pet Rescue Saga, for example, I always keep on eye on the way the grid develops and if my instinct says a Booster is best used at a crucial moment now than never, I’ll often do so and sometimes it’s worth it, sometimes it’s not. Truth be told, you sometimes need luck to break through a particularly tricky level. And instinct is like pure chance, sometimes it serves you well, other times it backfires. But we all have it and use it subconsciously. Mobile Games just happen to be the arena I am most aware of it in action.
So that’s how I play Mobile Games, but why do I play Mobile Games? The answer: Stimulation of my Brain. Firstly, I’m not a sporty person by nature but I also don’t like being idle, even if when I let my brain wander, I have crazy dreams and craft ideas that make me excited downstairs, and sometimes dream up ideas for posts I want to publish on here. Secondly, as someone that has been more slow than resistant to moving with the times in terms of the consoles people play with, the ways people play with each other and, most importantly, the games people play, mobile games have been that perfect way for me to both destress and game on a regular basis. Especially since, thirdly, I do not like myself when I am trying to be competitive. I often feel frustrated and depressed when I am having a bad run of form against randomly assigned competitors in a game that has such a mode available. It often knocks my confidence and makes me question my skills, which is why my stance when it comes to games is that I play games by myself, for myself.
But what mobile games, specifically, do I play?
The ADog Blog 