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

[EHKOS]

I see a good amount of casual games I'm not embarrassed to like. I have but one guilty pleasure. Some may call it casual, some may not. Call of Duty Black Ops. The multiplayer addicts me for at least a week, by the end I'm so sick of it. So I usually go, buy it, then a week later trade it in with the disc smoking from overuse.

 

[EyeReaper]

Well, recently I've been wasting away my time playing "Heroes of Dragon Age." a dumb, no strategy, pay to win game that forces you to either pay money to continue, or wait half an hour to continue again after some playing. Of course, I wouldn't dare drop a cent directly into EA's coffers for a mobile game.

But whatever, I eat up Dragon Age like candy, and hell, after all the time I've played, my characters are almost getting to the obviously paid for pvp level.

 

[Mirroga]

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.

It seems you haven't experienced a real game of TCG like Magic the Gathering if you question people copying the meta. If you want to personally create your signature and fun deck without getting bombarded by copies, I think you should play the games on Casual (not Ranked). But no guarantees if you will avoid them since unlike TCG pubs, you can't pick your opponents.

Although I can say with a straight face that Hearthstone is doing "well" in terms of its high ranked plays considering the meta keeps changing. I used to dread the BETA's Frozen Mage decks and Murloc decks. Now, the big ones are Ramp Druids, Control Warriors, and anything Hunter-related. It might give you more reasons to hate the metagame, but at least its not stagnating under one deck to rule them all.

 

[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.

It seems you haven't experienced a real game of TCG like Magic the Gathering if you question people copying the meta. If you want to personally create your signature and fun deck without getting bombarded by copies, I think you should play the games on Casual (not Ranked). But no guarantees if you will avoid them since unlike TCG pubs, you can't pick your opponents.

Although I can say with a straight face that Hearthstone is doing "well" in terms of its high ranked plays considering the meta keeps changing. I used to dread the BETA's Frozen Mage decks and Murloc decks. Now, the big ones are Ramp Druids, Control Warriors, and anything Hunter-related. It might give you more reasons to hate the metagame, but at least its not stagnating under one deck to rule them all.

It's not even as if my Hearthstone decks don't work against the popular meta though, all of my decks likely have far more wins than losses (is there a way to check?) and I always play Ranked. I'm living proof that forging your own path and disregarding the meta entirely is perfectly legit if you try hard enough. I run fucking Elven Archers for example just because I think her art and voice acting is cool and get away with it. She's great in a Warrior deck by the way, her Battlecry plus Execute is instant removal for 2 mana only.

I do have Magic 2015 on Steam too, though it's sorely underplayed. There's no way I would ever get into the physical copies because I would never go to the events and I don't have a burning desire to spend a pretty hefty sum of money to make a deck that might not really work.

I'm like this with fighting games too, I was saddened by Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 getting drowned in Doctor Dooms, Vergils and Weskers just because they were top tier. I ran Phoenix Fucking Wright, the de facto worst character in the game from launch til I stopped playing well over a year past launch and did well with it for god's sake. Phoenix Wright/X-23 and I never had a solid third, I swapped between Amaterasu, Deadpool, Dante, settled on Vergil for a bit but got tired of him, Morrigan and eventually Phoenix from the X-Men. If only she had a solid health pool and didn't get instagibbed by everyone's Baby's First Combo. Look just add another Phoenix who has one million health (standard health pool for the cast) but no Dark Phoenix comebacks to fall back on, (you can't stack both Phoenixes obviously) and I would be happy. That's perfectly balanced as far as i'm concerned, nobody was raging about Phoenix herself it was her free comeback Dark Phoenix that led to universal hatred of her and crazy overnerf.

 

[Mirroga]

It's not even as if my Hearthstone decks don't work against the popular meta though, all of my decks likely have far more wins than losses (is there a way to check?) and I always play Ranked. I'm living proof that forging your own path and disregarding the meta entirely is perfectly legit if you try hard enough. I run fucking Elven Archers for example just because I think her art and voice acting is cool and get away with it. She's great in a Warrior deck by the way, her Battlecry plus Execute is instant removal for 2 mana only.

I agree. I've been fighting against people who have reached legend and have obtained all cards in Naxxramas and as long as the deck is balanced and nicely done, they can be beaten. Hell I still use Chillwind Yeti, Boulderfist Ogre, and Harvest Golem simply because I just know the meta or situational decks will have a hard time trading with them.

And your mention of Elven Archers + Execute is pretty much legit. Some people still use Elven Archers just to get rid of those 1 HP minions. Others would just use Whirlwind since it goes well with Berserkers and damaged-minion comboes of Warriors.

 

[Julius Terrell]

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.

Some of us take our bejeweling seriously you know. I've probably sunk 3 or 400 hours into bejeweled 3. I wish they would come up with an upgrade for bejeweled so I can play new modes and such.

That I still play peggle quite a bit. I don't know why these games are considered casual? It takes some serious reflexes to be any good at bejeweled 3.

Took me years just to break 1 million points. There are people on youtube who can get asinine scores of like 10 million plus. With the hack versions being offered out there this shit pretty hardcore if you ask me.

 

[The Wykydtron]

It's not even as if my Hearthstone decks don't work against the popular meta though, all of my decks likely have far more wins than losses (is there a way to check?) and I always play Ranked. I'm living proof that forging your own path and disregarding the meta entirely is perfectly legit if you try hard enough. I run fucking Elven Archers for example just because I think her art and voice acting is cool and get away with it. She's great in a Warrior deck by the way, her Battlecry plus Execute is instant removal for 2 mana only.

I agree. I've been fighting against people who have reached legend and have obtained all cards in Naxxramas and as long as the deck is balanced and nicely done, they can be beaten. Hell I still use Chillwind Yeti, Boulderfist Ogre, and Harvest Golem simply because I just know the meta or situational decks will have a hard time trading with them.

And your mention of Elven Archers + Execute is pretty much legit. Some people still use Elven Archers just to get rid of those 1 HP minions. Others would just use Whirlwind since it goes well with Berserkers and damaged-minion comboes of Warriors.

Yeah I guessed as much with the Warrior deck, though I did check the forums and the thread discussing her viability was pretty much unanimous against her with only Ironforge Rifleman being worse cuz the mana cost is far from worth it. The old "you can add her but why would you if you could replace her with something better?" line was everywhere. My one friend hates on Big Game Hunter with this logic too but he's in every one of my decks just for the removal.

 

[Mirroga]

Yeah I guessed as much with the Warrior deck, though I did check the forums and the thread discussing her viability was pretty much unanimous against her with only Ironforge Rifleman being worse cuz the mana cost is far from worth it. The old "you can add her but why would you if you could replace her with something better?" line was everywhere. My one friend hates on Big Game Hunter with this logic too but he's in every one of my decks just for the removal.

Hah! I'm also one of those guys who just keeps Ragnaros (Crafted) and Black Knight (Obtained from Packs) on every deck just because they're all around too useful to not add. I always say sorry to my opponents whenever I assassinate their Sunwalkers and other worthwhile taunt creatures. I can pretty much state it's the same thing as Loatheb being in almost every deck since it's pretty good to just put down a 5/5 against decks too reliant on spells for removal.

While I see that Leeroy Jenkins is still swarming pure offense decks, I find it quite bizarre that the recent meta decks or even the higher rankers I've fought lacks Cairne, Ysera, and Ragnaros (the supposed all-around legendaries). Must be because of all the Loathebs, Silvanas, and Kel'thuzad.

Right now I'm experimenting on a Hunter Deck which uses no traps in favor for more Tracking and Flares. Burning through my deck has been the cause of a lot of my wins, and the loss of secrets has been the cause of a lot of losses for my opponents.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Yeah I guessed as much with the Warrior deck, though I did check the forums and the thread discussing her viability was pretty much unanimous against her with only Ironforge Rifleman being worse cuz the mana cost is far from worth it. The old "you can add her but why would you if you could replace her with something better?" line was everywhere. My one friend hates on Big Game Hunter with this logic too but he's in every one of my decks just for the removal.

Hah! I'm also one of those guys who just keeps Ragnaros (Crafted) and Black Knight (Obtained from Packs) on every deck just because they're all around too useful to not add. I always say sorry to my opponents whenever I assassinate their Sunwalkers and other worthwhile taunt creatures. I can pretty much state it's the same thing as Loatheb being in almost every deck since it's pretty good to just put down a 5/5 against decks too reliant on spells for removal.

While I see that Leeroy Jenkins is still swarming pure offense decks, I find it quite bizarre that the recent meta decks or even the higher rankers I've fought lacks Cairne, Ysera, and Ragnaros (the supposed all-around legendaries). Must be because of all the Loathebs, Silvanas, and Kel'thuzad.

Right now I'm experimenting on a Hunter Deck which uses no traps in favor for more Tracking and Flares. Burning through my deck has been the cause of a lot of my wins, and the loss of secrets has been the cause of a lot of losses for my opponents.

I think I disenchanted my Leeroy, I crafted all of my legendaries aside from Ysera (who I really wanted the moment I saw her) I crafted Leeroy for fun before he was found to be scumbag God Tier, Sylvanas because I drafted her in Arena and liked the look of her then Alextrasza now Deathwing. I run these in almost every deck, Warlock can benefit more than most from Alex cuz he's going to be low health by turn 9 if you spam your hero power which almost every Warlock does.

Yeah Traps can be abused if you just throw them down carelessly, there's only like.. three? of them, no four if you run Snake Trap but I see that rarely so you can guess which ones they are easily. Mage has loads so there's actual guesswork there, especially with the addition of Duplicate (just had a game with 3 Sylvanas.) Oh I have a few 2 health things down and Hunter played a secret? Hang on, Nerubian Egg, Nerubian Egg, Baron Rivendare if i'm lucky now hit to the face! Thanks for the stupidly good board obvious Explosive Trap.

 

[Euryalus]

I played Minecraft for a while.

The edge! It cuts like a shiv

OT: The only casual game I've ever played (assuming we're defining it as phone games) is the impossible game, and I don't find that embarrassing. The music is great, the levels are hard, and the game in general is just fun.

The only embarrassing thing I ever played through was a "sexy" Romance choose your own adventure game with a friend. It was hilarious, and awful, and I deleted it from my xbox as soon as we got our yucks out of it because it was terribad.

 

[sageoftruth]

Not sure really. Minesweeper I guess. I got so good at it, I was able to rebuild it from scratch for a college Java project.

 

[Ratty]

Unless you're supporting a company that's blatantly evil like King or it was a porno I dunno why you'd be embarrassed about playing a game. That said I'm not really have any games that qualify as casual. I like Tetris and I've played a few hours of Puzzle Quest.

 

[Tanis]

What counts as a 'casual' game, because I guess Civ5 is a 'casual' game given that it's not extremely hard unless you make it that way.

I've probably put WAY too much time into Gundam vs Zeta Gundam.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I've been putting a large part of my free time into Tomodachi Life recently, now that I think about it...

 

[MHR]

The only casual game I play on occasion is Minecraft, but I'm not embarrassed about that, and there's nothing casual about playing on perma-death hardcore mode in nihilistic celebration of life's fleeting misery.

What counts as a 'casual' game, because I guess Civ5 is a 'casual' game given that it's not extremely hard unless you make it that way.

I've probably put WAY too much time into Gundam vs Zeta Gundam.

Nah brah, no way is Civ5 casual. I haven't played it, but if it's anything like the other civ games, it has all kinds of complicated facets and requires hours and hours just to get one game done.

Setting a serious game on an easy difficulty doesn't make the game casual, it makes you casual XD

 

[lechat]

idle games... like 90% of the ones that are released.
seriously a good idle game is like the programmer compressed all the cool grinding, leveling and acquisition of a game into a tiny package and then said " don't worry buddy if you have other stuff to do i'll play it for you"

what's even better is if you can get 3 going at once!!

 

[Callahan Connor]

I've been playing a free action-RPG called Brave Trials on my smartphone for the past three days. It has cute characters and fun combat and all of these fantasy tropes whizzing by in a really cheap and rough kinda way. I've been binging on it, and it still feels good.

However, I was introduced to Brave Trials through an even more compelling metagame... I've been downloading a bunch of free apps on my Android phone and testing them out for like a minute at a time and earning points for doing that. Then I redeem the points for real PayPal money or iTunes gift cards or other rewards. I can highly recommend THAT game.

It's called Featurepoints. If the idea of real money for free apps stirs caution/interest then google about it so you know I'm not trying to swindle you.

It can be a little slow to earn money at first, but it totally works, and you can accelerate it by getting some other people to use the app too. If you give someone your referral code and they use Featurepoints, then they earn points and you ALSO earn 50% of their points. The math of that appeals to me quite a lot. I crunched some numbers. 400 people using my code to download one 50 point app a day (or 200 people with one 100 point app a day, etc.) would cover my rent each month. That seems well within reach of a little patient online marketing.

If you're feeling devious about these numbers too you should get in on that! It's kind of like an idle game, in that you can make it 'run itself' through your referrals and you can 'optimize it' which will actually make you money.

P.S. If you give Featurepoints a try, do consider using my referral code 5MBAC4. Thanks!

 

[clippen05]

I'm a 'hardcore gamer.' I mostly play competitive mutliplayer games on PC, one that I built myself. I also recently discovered Angry Birds Epic; its basically a simple turn based RPG. I really enjoy it; haven't played it all that much yet but I can see myself sticking with it. Shouldn't always write off 'casual games', I suppose.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

LoveLive School Idol Festival, everyone of my anime fans are playing it. So may as well become one with the madness

 

[FPLOON]

Well, in these kind of scenarios, I'm either Bejeweling like a ************ or Peggling like a ************...

Then again, the word "embarrassment" usually doesn't come up in my dictionary...