Time Suck

A time suck for sure but oh it’s so much fun! Like my addiction to beauty products, I also seem to spend a lot of time on my iPhone or iPad. It seems to be a way to get away from the stresses of everyday life and escape for a while. Besides the usual Social Media apps, which can actually make you feel worse at times. You know that feeling of stress or anxiety because you haven’t posted that awesome pic every day or seeing unattainable standards you think you aren’t living up to.  Games can provide an escape for a short amount of time.

While they may also raise your blood pressure a bit, they do take you away from the weight of today’s world where everything is sensationalized and scrutinized online and in the media.

There are two games beside my daily Wordle that I love to play: one is Word Ladder – Brain Games, a free game found only on the AppStore and the other is Color Slide, which is available on both the AppStore and Google Play.

The premise of Word Ladder – Brain Games is that you are given two words and you need to progress from the first word to the second word by changing only one letter in each move. Each move has to result in a new valid word. You can try and solve it in the minimum number of moves, solve it as fast as you can or just play. There are three, four and five letter games. Some games can be played only once each day while others you can play all day. What I really love about this game is that there are no ads! You heard me correctly; there are absolutely no ads. The game can be easy at times or really difficult, but it is fun and at my age I feel like it is keeping my brain from rotting. You also earn points playing the game which can be redeemed for things like hints and undoing previous changes. If you don’t have enough points yet, you can always buy some of these as well. After a while it is really easy to rack up points by playing each day. I rate the game a solid 5 out of 5 just because it is fun and I don’t have to spend minutes watching and trying to find the X to dismiss an ad.

The premise of Color Slide is to Sort and color match hexagons across the playing field, merging colors and making room for more pieces to appear, when you get 10 hexagons of the same color you get points and clear room on the board. It is really fun, if you get stuck you can pick a few reward aids earned in the game. There are ads throughout the game and can be quite annoying and long at times. You can also pay for a version that has no ads, but I am not willing to shell out the money for that. I rate it a 4 out of 5 because the game is really fun and addictive, but the ads knock it down a notch from being perfect.

I hope you get a little enjoyment from my suggestions, but truly hope that they don’t become something that eats up all your time. I tend to use it to destress for a few minutes at a time while I am waiting for an appointment or for dinner to finish cooking. Just remember it is still good to interact with those around you ☺

What do you do to stay sane in this crazy world?

Thoughts, comments or concerns?