Some of you who don't understand the desire to play Facebook games may not understand the pure satisfaction and happiness I get from playing Pyramid Valley. My sister, Liz, plays, too. She, too, is in mourning and denial.
(Sorry for outing you, Liz!)
Others of you may understand, because you have a favorite game of your own. Perhaps it's on Facebook, and perhaps it's one you pop into your game system and play on your television.
It doesn't matter. What matters is a game's ability to take you away from your responsibilities for awhile into a world where you get to do something else.
Some people like war games, where they blow up bad guys.
Others like goal games, where they have to achieve something.
I like games where you built a little world and then take care of the people in it.
All of these games have in common the ability for the gamer to control the game world, in a way they can't control the real world.
They must meet peoples' needs in some way, because millions of game system games are sold every year in the U.S. alone, and millions of people play the many free Facebook games.
What I like about Pyramid Valley is that I've created four beautiful cities, achieved goals, and relaxed while planting and harvesting crops or choosing the "look" of my icon in a completely non-threatening environment where nothing bad ever happens. Go ahead and laugh -- it's fun!
It's not that I can't take "real" life. Of course I can. But it's nice to spend time playing with someone else's lives in a game. Maybe it makes me feel kind of god-like in this way.
If you're not a gamer, you're not going to get it.
And that's ok. I also like to read and watch movies for escapism, though these are more passive because you can't affect what happens in them.
So we've established I'm addicted to this game, Pyramid Valley. That's the addiction part.
The mourning aspect arises from the fact that the game will disappear from Facebook at the end of April. It's being discontinued. Hundreds of thousands of people are very upset about this, and there's not a thing we can do. (Big frownie face!)
I know it doesn't really matter, but these towns and the people inhabiting them, while obviously not real or alive, have become familiar to me. I've made the towns really pretty. I've had a great time decorating them, and placing buildings, trees, etc. in a pleasing arrangement.
Now it's all going to vanish into pixels and be gone.
I feel as if I'm losing a place and people I've grown to know.
Hey, I have a hard time giving up characters I've grown to care for. I'm still angry that they killed off the character of Chris in the 1990s television show "Silk Stalkings." And Beth in "Little Women."
And I haven't forgiven Wilson Rawl for killing off the dogs in "Where the Red Fern Grows."
And I don't trust Nicholas Sparks as far as I can throw him. He kills somebody in every book he writes!
So it might take awhile for me to get over the Pyramid Valley thing.
Be gentle with me in the meantime.
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