Monday, July 13, 2009

Summer Doldrums

I've been curiously uninspired as of late. Between the staining and powerwashing and replacement door and window purchasing and painting that has been going on (none of which exactly define me as a fan) I find myself yearning to just sit on the couch with the laptop and play Facebook games. And I've actually worked a fair amount of that into the schedule (forgoing more useful tasks such as scrapbooking and designing and showering). And despite the sluggishness that seems to have invaded my psyche, I have a few observations for you. If you've found yourself in a similar malaise, you may recognize a few of these...

1) Farkle is evil. It lures you in with it's cute little innocent-looking dice and fun trophies at the end. It posts your friends' scores with leering yet alluring abandon, and when you fall for the trick and decide to figure out how to play, it tries to fool you into thinking it's Yahtzee on a stick. Well, it's not. It's Yahtzee WITH a stick, and it's gonna beat you senseless with it just as soon as you're hooked.

2) Farkle giveth, and Farkle taketh away. See Number 1. The part that says "beat you senseless with a stick." Ironically, Farkle takes away all your good scores and leaves you with a string of Farkles broken only by the glaring -500 that punctuates every third Farkle in the list.

3) Farkle doesn't care if you are the laughing stock of your friends. It posts the stupid score it gives you anyway. Which totally figures, cos it loves them wayyyyyyyy more than it loves you, obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't be stuck with a one as your first number while everyone else has eights and nines.

4) Farkle is pretty smart. It knows just at what point in the game you decide, "Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere! This game is pretty fun after all!" That's the point that it goes into spontaneous Farklemania and every Java-toss of the dice brings heartache and loss. Conversely, it also knows when you are THISCLOSE to never playing again, and you get fabulous hand after fabulous hand. Until the last turn, of course, when you accidentally let loose and think to yourself, "Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere! This game is pretty fun after all!..."

4 comments:

Brandi said...

I had to remove it. It was making me want to kill my computer. I feel better now. Now I just spend all my time playing Farmtown. Just as useless, but it's pretty. :)

Miss Chris said...

OMG, who knew you were a mind reader!!! I swear I could have written this post! Of course, my version would not have been as funny and well-crafted, but the sentiment would have been exactly the same!

Molly Joy said...

DEATH TO FARKLE.

I'm convinced Satan himself made this game.

cardgameguru said...

Haha, I know exactly what you are talking about too. I play Farkle on facebook and have a love/hate relationship with it.

My husband picked up a game called Greedy Greedy that is very similar but also adds an element of cards. These help you increases your score, tangle with opponents and a whole mess of other abilities.

We've had several sets of friends over and everyone loves it so far. It's basically Farkle without the punitive action and allows a lot more interaction among the players. You should check out their website at www.highpointgames.com

Best wishes,

Sherri