ThatGrrl

Is there something about getting older that I find myself looking for shortcuts. To make things simpler, less complicated and less trouble. Or, is it the loss of confidence, maybe bravado, from being older. I can remember being reckless (I've tended to caution, not a big dare devil all my life) enough to open my computer and fix it myself, things like that, in my younger years. Was it confidence or trust or that feeling of invulnerability that people say young people have. I don't know. These days, I look for shortcuts.

Maybe its the idea or feeling that I just don't have as much time. I'm 59 now. Since December. Turning 50 was a big deal for me. Now 60 is coming around the corner, assuming I get there, and I don't feel too bad about it. Still seems an odd surprise, even though I can count past 60 even as far as being mathematically correct. The surprise is finding myself this old. I wasn't born this way. I used to be much younger and I looked different too.

Younger people look at me and assume I've always looked this way. I can remember thinking the same, even though it isn't logical, about people when I was younger. Look at old photographs and you imagine everyone living in black and white with (mostly) dour expressions. It's hard to think of them as real people in colour. But, real life has always been in colour. Its only technology that couldn't show it that way, at the time. We rely too much on technology, far too much as time goes on.

Anyway, shortcuts, to stay on topic. The more time I spend looking for shortcuts the more I think about the time I've wasted looking for shortcuts that I usually end up rejecting and I could have been actually making real progress, without shortcuts. (There's a good run on sentence for you, and I'm not changing it).

Idle, incremental, and clicker games, are they good or bad for people who obsess about things? Can an online game like Cookie Clicker help you beat the worse (less physically healthy) habit of chain smoking? Maybe. Luckily, I'm not a smoker so I can't test out that theory.

But, I thought I would post about my habit, limited obsession, mild addiction, with idle games. They probably are not healthy but, I do wear out some of my obsessive compulsive energy madly making progress while knowing it really doesn't matter at all. It also doesn't bother anyone, and its been a little secret I've kept hoarded to myself, until now.

What are idle, incremental or clicker games?

Any simple (usually fairly uncomplicated) game in which you increase your score in whatever format: points, gold, cookies, cows, candy... anything. I don't think any of these games have an ending. They just keep going with new additions, features, and fluff. Like so many Facebook games, you work to get stuff but you actually have nothing. Little image files you don't own, no copyrights. Why would anyone play such games, you might wonder. Try one and see. But, don't get addicted to it. Be careful, it sneaks up on you.

How about a list of Idle and Clicker Games to Become Madly Focused and Obsessed With:

• Cookie Clicker
• Candy Box
• Adventure Capitalist
• Crusaders of the Lost Idols

I know there are others. I've played others. These four seem to be the ones I've stuck with, or come back to and stuck with again, and again. At least two of them are also on the Steam site. Most of them are free to play, or to start playing.