Casual games saved my life. Yes, I am exaggerating, but go with me on this.
I'm waiting for a friend, I'm early for an appointment, I'm waiting for a plane, I want to take a break from my book for a little while, I can't sleep, I have time to kill, so I launch the Mahjong app on my iPhone and I'm good. Before it was a lot of impatience and foot tapping.
One of my favorite lunchtime activities at MRM was playing Katamari. We would hang out in the Interactive Media Lab sitting on the couch in the fake living room and play the nonsensical game of the little alien rolling a ball around a room. Out of Dave's current collection of video games it is Katamari that I always go for. Mostly because he always beats me at Wii Sports (except the bowling game, I have mad Wii bowling skillz).
When they came out with a version of Katamari for the iPhone, I was all over it. It was expensive for an app, but just the idea of having that game on my iPhone was too tempting to ignore. It sucked at first, the reaction time was very delayed due to poor optimization, but it improved with a few updates. I still recommend choosing the continuous play mode instead of the timed one because, giving yourself a time limit on the iPhone version only sets you up for failure because the game can't keep up with your commands.
I've tried a few other casual games, but they haven't stuck and I've come to realize why. I don't like killing the cute, happy-go-lucky main character. I don't like being responsible for it's death while I'm trying to learn the game.
In Sway, if you get it wrong, Lizzy the adorable sock lizard falls off into the abyss with a fading cry . In Monkey Ball, pretty much the same thing only you roll the cute little monkey into the water to his certain demise. Dave thinks this level of empathy is kind of insane in a This-Is-Why-I-Love-You kind of way. I rarely play games that make me feel guilty while I'm learning how to play them.
In Katamari there is also penalty for failure, but it doesn't result in death, you only piss of the Little Prince's father. I don't feel bad when the King of the Cosmos berates the Little Prince for not rolling a big enough ball because he's an a**hole with masculinity issues (he wears purple tights and regularly verbally abuses his son). He can be disappointed all he wants and I'll just fast forward through his You Suck speech and try again or go to a different challenge. No biggie.
I'll have to look for more games that don't result in killing the protagonist. Unless it's Samurai Kittens. I'm a sucker for irony and I love a good Furtality.