Simply addictive

Five games that keep you glued to the screen

Balatro

I picked up Balatro a little over a month ago, and have spent over 100 hours playing it. The game is insanely addictive. To concentrate better on tasks at hand, I had to uninstall it this week, but already, I am thinking about all the various ways I can progress and unlock the various decks in the game. Rambling aside, Balatro is a card game that loosely uses poker hands and betting (not real money) to place larger and larger bets. There is a fair bit of strategy involved, and you can calculate the points you will earn per round, and even predict, fairly accurately, the next spread of cards from the deck view. However, Balatro is best played without trying to predict the next card. Instead, focus on beating the system by working the complicated system of jokers that can do everything from adding multipliers to your points to conjuring up money with the right conditions. You also can’t really save the game in any meaningful way, for example, just before you make a risky move. It can only save one round at a time if, say, you need to stop in the middle of a game and continue later. However, defeating a boss blind till above 10,00,000 will unlock new decks and challenges.

World of Warcraft

The game had 12 million players at its peak fan following

World of Warcraft is a 2004 MMORPG, which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. The game is a massive success and possibly the only reason Blizzard Entertainment is still around. At its peak, WOW had over 12 million players, and many of them still play the game religiously today. It’s addictive nature lies in its unique blend of cooperative gameplay and nearly endless content from continuous and regular expansions. The progression loops, like levelling up, grinding for rare loot, and unlocking achievements, create a cycle of reward and motivation that keeps players invested in their character’s journey. The community is also one of WOW’s big features, where players feel like they belong to the world. The social elements, such as forming friendships, participating in guilds, and engaging in faction-based PvP, add a layer of community bonding that few games can rival. If you want to get a feel for what this is like, watch The Remarkable Life of Ibelin on Netflix. It’s a sad but fulfilling and insightful representation of the second, paralellel lives people have built in the game. 

The Binding of Isaac

In The Binding of Isaac, no single run-through feels the same, as each game is completely randomised with new rooms, enemies, and items, making it endlessly playable. The gameplay is very difficult and also has permadeath which forces players to spawn back at the start of the game. While this makes you want to throw something through the screen, it is also one of the reasons why this indie game is so addictive. Every time you beat a boss or find a powerful item, it feels incredibly rewarding. The dark and quirky storyline combined with its art style make the game both unsettling and fun at the same time. If you haven’t heard of The Binding of Isaac, your mother has essentially gone crazy and trapped you in a dungeon. And now you have to escape by journeying through various randomly generated rooms.

Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate is essentially a digital version of Dungeons and Dragons, the mother of all RPG games. After a gap of more than 20 years, the third installment of the game was released last year. Needless to say, it is worth the wait. Like any Dungeons and Dragons game, your entire fate depends on the roll of the dice. However, the game is also about freedom. You can heavily customise your character, choose your relationships, and what you will do at every turn, including combat. This sort of freedom is extremely addictive, and it also makes this game infinitely repayable. It’s a nightmare for completionists, though. Not to mention you can team up with your friends in co-op mode where each player can control a character and make their own choices. Needless to say, Baldur’s Gate 3has multiple endings, which encourages multiple playthroughs. Baldur’s Gate 3 also has some of the best cinematography and voice acting you will ever see in a game.

Candy Crush

Though it may be cool to diss Candy Crush these days, at one point, nearly every person in the world was playing the game. It is the ultimate time killer, both casual and insanely addictive. If you have never played it, which is doubtful, you will still recognise its simple match-three mechanism. The game reels you in with simple levels, its delightful theme and then keeps increasing the challenge adding various obstacles along with purchasable power-ups and boosters to defeat them—a heady rush of dopamine. The power-ups and boosters can make it easier to complete a tough stage. Just like any addiction, though, buying and using these boosters can be a slippery slope of spending.

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