Bam!!!!
So there I was minding my own business when, bam, this game appeared on the home screen off my phone.
I hadn't bought it I hadn't asked for it yet here it was and my home screen. What the hell was going on?
It was a reminder of the time when suddenly a U2 album appeared in my phone. No, I don't mind Bono that much. He's grand like, but I wouldn't listen to all of U2's music and I certainly didn't want it to appear on my phone as a random gift from the heavens. If I wanted an album from U2, I'd simply download one from the internet, remember torrents! Or else I'd just buy one. Albums randomly appearing on my device? No thanks.
So what was this game randomly appearing on my device out of the blue. Again like the U2 Saga I hadn't asked for it, I hadn't purchased it, but here it was.
You would just imagine that I'd simply delete the game and move casually on with my life.
In all honesty, I don't really have time for games these days. I mean, sure, I play a little bit of FIFA or Mario Kart with my kids from time to time but generally speaking I don't have time for games. It's not that I don't like them per se, it's just physically I don't have the time. Life is much too busy and demanding these days.
Something strange happened.
I mean when you look at the graphics of the games today and the level of gameplay, it's pretty extraordinary and you can see how lots of kids and adults get addicted to some of these games.
So the end I didn't delete this new game that I've missedly appeared on my phone called Dino. I decided to give it a lash. I decided to see what I was like. And wouldn't you know the simplest of little games that a child could easily make was addictive and I really liked it.
It couldn't be simper in terms of gameplay. You just jump over the little palm trees and then when a bird flies along the top you don't jump you stay flat and then some of the birds fly along the bottom and you have to jump over those guys.
If if you hit a tree or bird it's game over and then that's your top score and you have to start again. As you get long the birds and the trees come faster and faster so you need to react a little bit quicker so that you don't die.
It's all frighteningly simple yet frighteningly addictive at the same time.
Oh and every 600 or 700 points or so the screen goes from black and white background to White on a black background and back and forth which I'm kind of catch out at the start until you get used to it.
For a few weeks the game served as a nice little break for me. If I was trying to figure out a problem at work or fix some sort of technical issue I might take a minute or two to play a round and It was a good way to just clear my mind. My kids got in on the action too and asked to play it every now and again, especially as the sound is very unique and they knew that I was playing as soon as they heard the jump noise.
Managed to get to a record of about 1200 fairly early on and the kids struggle to beat it and in fact I struggled to be to myself aswell.
My youngest son made a breakthrough while he was holding the phone. He put it sideways and it's 10 times easier to play sideways, as you can see the birds when they're about to come and not jump accidentally so then I was able to get my record up to over 3,000 pretty easily.
So am I alone in playing this Dino game?
Did it mysteriously appear on anyone else's phone?
The auld automation
Who could possibly beat my high score of 3536????
Yep Mr. A Utomation that's who! One Million points racked up in just the 11 hours 49 minutes. Easy peasy....