What are your favorite but embarrassing casual game time-sinks?

[Mirroga]

I am a hardcore gamer who plays both console and PC games. Although as a gamer I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I play some casual games. I play such games because I just like to ease my mind off for about 10-30 minutes, and no other non-casual games can be played for such a short amount of time and be left satisfied.

I created this topic so we can share our guilty and embarrassing "non-hardcore" hungers. And I hope I you share and even recommend better games which are easy to pick up and play as well as have nice themes and gimmicks to keep coming back to playing it.

Plants VS Zombies
I've played a lot of tower defense games. Although there's just one thing that I consider lacking in a simple game genre. Appeal and aesthetics. I loved the very concept and execution of the game's design. And it even had a final boss that really tested some strategies and management. I was tired of playing another tower defense in which you just keep planting structures or even mages, etc.

Cook, Serve, Delicious
I was trying to find a nice management game with some "theme" to get me into it. Lo and behold that cooking/restaurant-themed ones was a good way. It was just a nice time sink in which I can prepare my favorite foods all while having some slightly higher degree of tactic and management like "menu rot" or "foods great to combine at a rainy day."

 

[Padwolf]

To be honest these aren't really guilty pleasures for me, I just enjoy them openly.

Puzzle Quest for the PC. I have something like 60 hours sunk into it. I guess it's just fun and simple and passes the time if there really is nothing else.

Plants Vs Zombies is another one for me. Tons of hours sunk into that, growing my own plants and keeping them watered. It's such a fun game with a lot to do on it really.

Peggle. Goddamn Peggle. Why is it so addicting? Why have I sunk so many hours only to quit the game in frustration?!

Don't know if it counts but the Harvest Moon series. But if anyone has played those I'm sure they would agree they are very hardcore and take a lot of time and dedication and patience. Really, Harvest Moon is more troublesome than Dark Souls could ever hope to be! What's that? You want to grow your crops in Summer? Too bad! Here's a motherfucking storm. Enjoy having a giant boulder in your crop field that you can't break because you don't have a good enough hammer for it! Enjoy the loss of 2000g!

 

[gorfias]

My worst two:

Free Cell. I taught it to my wife and now she is addicted too.

Candy Crush. Holy moly. I showed my boss and now he's addicted. He keeps getting frustrated, deletes it from his phone, then starts all over again.

 

[tippy2k2]

Clash of Clans

My friend had gotten it but I had always ignored these Free to Play time-sink bullshit games. Then I got the game...

I'm at level 70 and I play it quite often. I've never paid a dime to play, which makes me very happy since many of these F2P games are basically Hitler if you ask many gamers. I expected a game that asked you every five seconds if you're SURE you don't want to pay $5 to make your weapons better or if you didn't pay anything, you'd quickly be left in the dust by little trust-fund brats spending all their money but that isn't the case.

I suppose it does take me longer to do stuff that could be quicker if I did pay but I get lots of little bursts of fun out of the game. The cool-down timer happens and I can go do something else for some time before coming back and doing it again. It's a very nice little "five minute game" where I can do something to kill a few minutes before doing something else.

 

[VanQ]

Spider Solitaire. God damn it I just love the fireworks that go off when you finish, don't judge me!

Also, a Japanese Cell Phone game called iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls. It's a pay2win card game with hundreds of idols and cards, each with their own distinct personalities and stats/abilities.

My favourite Cinderella girl would have to be Rin.

Spoiler

and then my next favourite would be Nao.

Spoiler

My FFXIV character is also named after Nao, since Rin's name was already taken by some gentleman with fine taste.

I've probably spent about $1000 on this game for the card gachas (10 packs of random cards) over the course of the nearly 3 years I've been playing it.

 

[crimsonshrouds]

Why are these games embarrassing? Well, I guess candy crush and i haven't spent a dime on it. I also play solitaire as well.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Well I dont really play any casual games really if I have spare time like that I just watch something or do some work or read a book basically anything other than play a so called casual game as they 99% of the time do nothing for me other than make me feel I am wasting my time.

When I am drunk my go to game of late has been DOA5 I also play it (better) when sober but its a fighter I enjoy and so I can play it without fear of missing out on anything when drunk i.e theres no real story or collectables, conversations etc its all about the combat and yeah I lose more than I think I should when drunk but it dosent really matter its still good.

I have never felt the need to waste my time on something like candy crush or angry birds etc just dont have that much free time to consider wasting.

 

[Souplex]

I played Minecraft for a while.
I've since replaced it with Cookie Clicker.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Peggle. Goddamn Peggle. Why is it so addicting? Why have I sunk so many hours only to quit the game in frustration?!

Hello, I'm Shoggoth2588 and I'm a recovering Peggaholic. It's been...I'm guessing 5 years since I last booted up the game but I've been faced with great temptation when I re-installed Origin for my free download of The Sims 2 when EA also gave me access to free Peggle. Luckily my computer is barely capable of running Minecraft so I'm safe until I upgrade.

Aside from all the fun I had with Peggle in a bygone era, I'm a huge Nintendo fan. In addition to the Nintendo games that it's alright to gush about (your Zeldas and, your Smash bros and, your 3D Mario games), I really had a lot of fun with the Yoshi games (specifically Yoshi's Island and, Yoshi's Story), Animal Crossing (my first being on the Gamecube and I enjoyed the Wii one a bit) and, I also really liked Wii Sports and, Wii Sports Resort. Wii Sports Club has been a huge disappointment for me though...

I can't think of too many other casual games that I play...I generally play most games on easier settings though so there's that.

 

[scorptatious]

I used to play a ton of Plants vs. Zombies as well.

I also have a few Angry Birds games that I still play whenever I want to pass the time.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Uhh...Heartstone I guess? Is the only one I can think of, but I only play that for a few arena runs here and there and play it daily for the daily gold quest.

Other than that I really don't have any timesinks anymore, since I am focusing on watching anime at the moment and I'm waiting for fall games to release.

My other time sinks (aside from casual games) are browsing forums and commenting (I'm very active in certain IGN articles).

 

[Mirroga]

Uhh...Heartstone I guess? Is the only one I can think of, but I only play that for a few arena runs here and there and play it daily for the daily gold quest.

Other than that I really don't have any timesinks anymore, since I am focusing on watching anime at the moment and I'm waiting for fall games to release.

My other time sinks (aside from casual games) are browsing forums and commenting (I'm very active in certain IGN articles).

I also play Hearthstone. Although I doubt I could call that casual or embarrassing since it has a massive, competitive following and the brutality of ranked/arena games.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm not really embarrassed by any of my games...

EDIT: I think I'm mostly embarrassed by the games I haven't played. I never played Final Fantasy 7. Or a Sonic game (to completion anyway). And I've only played one Mario games, unless Yoshi's Island counts.

 

[ZCAB]

I like to play Minesweeper or 2048 when listening to Youtube video's that I can follow with just the sounds (movie reviews, comedy shows, that sort of stuff). Not too embarrased about it, though.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I went through a phase of playing a tonne of Hearts on my computer because I also used to play it with friends.

Does Pandemic II count?

 

[McElroy]

I've played a lot of Miniclip 8 Ball Pool, but quit about six months ago because A) I began losing a lot and B) I encountered my first hacker in the game. Finally I'm free.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

This is actually legit embarrassing. Ive spent an embarrassingly large amount of time playing Corruption of Champions. Its absolutely disgusting yet somehow fascinating at the same time

Note: Look up CoC at your own discretion, and probably on incognito mode, I am not responsible for any damages sustained during a playthrough

 

[DOOM GUY]

Is The Sims considered casual? I really love The Sims, I can play those games for hours, any of them, which is why the news of The Sims 4 makes me really mad.

I also really like Bejeweled, it's a fun little game to spend some time on. I suppose Animal Crossing is pretty casual too, but yeah, that's another one I really like.

I don't know why it'd be embarrassing playing games like that, but it's whatevs.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I suppose Hearthstone is the only proper casual thing I play. No idea why i'm still playing it though, it makes me so fucking angry sometimes. The current meta (well, maybe not *current* current, the Nax cards might change it) annoys me to no end.

"Zoo Warlock is a board control deck"

-Trump 2014

Could have fooled me.

I uninstalled it on my PC after a fucking double Arcane Golem AND Leeroy plus Coldlight Oracle x2 Rogue deck effortlessly stole the win from me, tipped me over the edge completely. Still play it on my new laptop though so that isn't the damning statement it should be.

I just play full Deathrattle Warlock, I added the bare minimum of Warlock spells (not even a Soulfire or Siphon Soul) set the library to "Deathrattle" and copy pasted two copies of all of them into a deck + Alex and Deathwing. It's really fun and also works in a Priest deck.

My Secret Mage is improved by the Mad Scientist though his death doesn't proc a Secretkeeper buff so sorry girls, out you go again

I always end up feeling like people missed the point of these kinda games. I always figured you make a deck on which cards you personally like and build from there, AKA my Secret Mage and full Battlecry Heal Priest. Instead people just copy paste the optimal Miracle Rogue or Zoo Warlock from Hearthpwn with no changes.