“Remoted” – Workday 73/ Day 99 (Tuesday)

The absence of the “old” desktop version of Scrabble through Facebook has altered my free time. I played Scrabble through Facebook for years, like maybe 10. It was recently replaced by Scrabble GO which is hard to navigate on a desktop and clearly designed for mobile. And phones are too small for this game or my fingers are too fat to move the tiny tiles, but in any event I tried it and I hate it. On a desktop, it’s like the nursery school version of a game – annoying sound effects, the tiles bounce up and down when you shuffle them. The game board is stupid tiny even on a desktop, then zooms as you try to place the tiles which is annoying. It was a great game and then they went and ruined it. Whoever “they” are. I am mad at them. 

So now I play Candy Crush on my phone instead of Scrabble on my computer. Also a stupid game, but it’s the only version of it I know so I have no better predecessor to be mad about. The screens while the game loads are amusing with cheery messages like “Swipe the stress away” and “Time to relax.” Umm, this game actually aggravates me more than it "relaxes" me. There are levels labeled “Nightmarishly Hard Level” (aka, the tagline for all of 2020). When you run out of turns or a bomb goes off and ends the round, the game offers the opportunity to keep playing by paying money. Real money. Ummm, no thanks.

No more lives. Get a fresh
one in a few minutes.

If you lose five times in a row (or however many lives you had), you are informed “No more lives” and your options are to buy more time (again with the real world money), ask friends, or wait some specified “Time to next life.” Dang. I wish it were that easy to get a “next life” in real non-Candy Crush life. Lose a few rounds, wait 15 or 30 minutes, be issued a next life and a do-over. Things are more tolerable with a known endpoint, and how many times have you wanted a do-over? The hard part is, you can’t advance without winning the level, which sounds like the premise of reincarnation where you keep coming back until you resolve specific issues or learn certain lessons in life. 

Candy Crush lives have lessons. The game highlights a potential move. Sometimes, it’s the only available move to line up three candies, but not always. Just because the game suggests it, it doesn’t mean it’s the best move for you. Kind of like advice from well-meaning (or not so well-meaning) people. There is multiplying chocolate, which is the same effect as being buried up to your neck in whatever. The game has some Las Vegas slot machine elements at play. Stuff flashing and dinging and swishing, seemingly at random, and when you win, it’s a candy explosion version of fireworks. Some levels feel impossible, which is infuriating, but after failing the same level for what feels like 5 million times over a couple days, suddenly it just solves itself. I think there is a mercy rule built in to keep people from giving up altogether because it is no fun losing all the time. Not in a game, and not in real life.