017 Gaming

"Gaming"

Before the DIY stores reopened people were looking for ways to distract themselves through lockdown where the days and weeks were long. Whether it was a box set on Netflix, a book or some new hobbie everyone needed something to get them through the waking day. My own drug of choice was gaming, mobile gaming to be more precise. And even that was accidental despite always having an interest in games going right back to when I was young and got a Commodore Vic 20. Computers and consoles are all the rage nowadays but when I was young it was a very geeky thing to do so I rarely even discussed it with friends. How times have changed.

At the start of lockdown I looked for a distraction. There was only so much I could read or watch. I turned to crosswords. I've always loved cryptic crosswords. My uncle one time gave me a couple of Times crossword books which I loved filling out. Every Saturday we would do the Teletext crossword too which was extra fun as it only provided the clues so I would use this information and through trial and error would create the grid for us to use before he arrived by bus from work to my gran's house. Good times. Any way with a lack of p paper crosswords I sought out an app. With my laptop broken I had to rely on my phone. I founds a great app with cryptic crosswords so all good but there was about 150 crosswords included and only 12 or do were free. £2.99 was reasonable for the full app but I had no means of paying for it.

After some searching about I found there were some apps you could get that effectively paid you to play games. Like anyone else semi-sane I was skeptical and expected very little return for a monotonous grind. I was however pleasantly surprised on the whole. There were some horrendously mind numbingly boring efforts along the way for sure but also some absolute crackers which I have kept playing ever after I no longer needed to. All free to play. Best of all I did along the way receive a £20 Google Play store card to buy the crosswords, an album and a couple of ebooks. Needless to say I'm continuing to game my way to my next voucher.

I am very impressed not only from an entertainment point of view but also from other aspects of these games. There are some really good ones to get the brain working. There are also some incredibly inventive games. I never thought mobile gaming could ever be as good as I have actually found it to be but I am blown away by some of the quality. I'll leave it there as I have a cafe to run and a farm to get back to.