No kids allowed

No-Kids-Allowed

I had only heard of what I’ve experienced for the past two days with this blog. People warned me about it, they had been there and it sucked. You think and you think and you think, but it’s all blank. Yes, I was experiencing the infamous writer’s block.

All I was able to think about was that I was in my bed at 10.30pm, still working for school while I should’ve enjoyed the last Thursday night before revision started. I should have lassone to a bar, ordered countless Martinis on the rocks with a lemon slice and that was it. No, instead I was thinking: “What else do I have to say about games to these lovely readers?” And whilst reminiscing about that very blurry Sunday night/morning last weekend, I had an epiphany. That was it, that shots-shots-shot-shotswas what I had to talk about. Drinking. But of course there was the problem that was our topic: games. It took me probably about 0.078 seconds to just think: “drinking games it is.” And that, my dearest readers, is what my final blog post will be about.

You’re probably experiencing your aha-erlebis when you think back about the title of this post, and maybe this is not appropriate for a school assignment, but let’s just wing this. As we’re all 18+, I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there. We’re going to a friend’s house, we’re expecting fancy dinner so we suit up, spend an hour in front of the mirror, arrive to have, indeed, that fancy dinner and after dessert Lisa decides to speak up. “Oh my God you guyssss, I just had the best idea ever. Let’s do shooooots.” Congratulations, Lisa. You just had the worst. Idea. Ever. But of course we’re like 1) shut up, Lisa. No one asked you, and 2) yeah, let’s. And so you’re taking out 4 shot glasses and 4 regular ones, because who really has shot glasses at home? And you pour that nasty tequila in those glasses and then we’ve come to yet another problem because congratulations Lisa, you just had the worst. Idea. Ever. You can’t just go and do shots, you’re not 14 years old anymore. No we need a game to play that makes us feel as if we  e a r n e d  to do shot.

So what do we have? 4 shot glasses, 4 regular glasses, nasty tequila and of course the next problem. Congratulations, Lisa. You just had the worst. Idea. Ever. “What game do we play? Of course the game with the cards, Lisa.” God damn it. Do you remember the rules to this Game, Lisa? Of course not. No one does. And so we have to look it up and it is the worst buzzkill ever and the entire room starts to smell like tequila. Congratulations, Lisa. You just had the worst. Idea. Ever.

And that is in fact why I wanted to write this blog post. Because right before you have your drinking game, you have to look the rules up. And I don’t ever want to experience that anymore. I want to know the rules. (Actually, I want to make the rules, but there’s always this one guy who sort of knows the rules but forgot a key element. Stupid Mark.) I went on the Internet, looked the game up and it turns out it’s actually quite simple. Drunk people are dumb people, exhibit A. You need: a deck of cards, people who may or may not already be drunk and alcohol. And here is how it goes…

Warning: know your own limits when playing this and make sure you don’t have to drive anymore. That’ll be all, enjoy it! 

You sit around at a table or just in a circle. Everyone takes one card off the deck and the card you took stands for a certain assignment/rule. The assignments or rules are explained underneath. The most important rule of all is that you cannot go to the toilet. If you break this rule by going anyway, you have to do a certain amount of shots. I opt for 5. It’s my lucky number. Or 13. It’s my second favorite number. But that might be lethal, so let’s stick with 5.

A: Switch rotation in which people take a card off the deck
K: Drink 1 shot
Q: Have someone else drink 1 shot
B: Give an assignment to someone. If not completed, they have to drink 1 shot
10: Bathroom card. Only with this card you may go to the bathroom. You can keep this card until you need it.
9: You have to name a brand in a certain category, e.g. cars. Everyone has to name a brand within 3 seconds. The first one to fail has to drink 1 shot.
8: Everyone has to point a finger at one person in the group. The one most pointed at has to drink 1 shot.
7: Everyone has to take cards off the deck, the one who has the fourth 7 has to drink 1 shot.
6: When you have the number 6, you can make up your own rule. The first one to break it, has to drink 1 shot. E.g. forbid to say someone’s name.
5: When you have this card, no one is allowed to answer your questions. The first one to do so, loses and has to drink 1 shot.
4: Pick one word no one is allowed to say anymore.  The first one to do so… (you know the rest.)
3: With number 3 you can eliminate the rule made with 6.
2: Multiply. Pick a number between 2 and 9 (apart from 7) and say it, the next person has to multiply it by 2 and so on. E.g. I say 3, the next person has to say 6, the next 9 etc. The first one to make a mistake has to drink 1 shot.

And that was it! I’m warning you though, you might have forgotten the rules again by the next morning. Truth of the matter is, you might have forgotten all that happened that evening. (Congratulations Lisa, this is why you had the worst. Idea. Ever.) So keep our blog close at all times when alcohol is present and you’ll be alright. There is nothing more for me to add.

Last love, Hannelore.

P.s.: Some of you may think Lisa and I are not friends. This is where you’re wrong. I don’t even know Lisa and this is an Internet joke you should get accustomed to. Also, don’t call your child Lisa. She’ll suffer. F-cking Lisa. 

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I’m addicted to you

Hooked on your game, like a powerful drug I can’t get enou-ou-ough. Someone, stop me. I’m this close to actually making this entire song into a gaming parody. I shouldn’t. I know.

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As you could tell, or not, this blog post will be all about being genuinely addicted to gaming and what to do. Because you see, “they” (my so-called friends) suggested I should seek help after reading my blog post about the guilty pleasure games. Little did they know that there are in fact people who are actually struggling with gaming addictions. And no, I don’t mean me. Shut up. You’re addicted.

All jokes aside, I effectively did some research on this subject and there’s tons of information and facilities available. I’d like to briefly explain what a gaming addiction actually is and how to recognize it. At the end of my blog post I’ll leave some contact information in case you’d want to ask for help or just extra information.

What is a gaming addiction? 

A gaming addiction can actually be defined by the compulsive need to win or simply play. This newly created obsession displaces the notion of basic needs. They “forget” to drink, eat, and even sleep. In most cases even hygiene has lost its importance. Lastly, gaming addicts get into a complete social isolation.

Characteristics of gaming addiction 

  • The game comes before everything
  • The need to improve or win increases gradually
  • Restlessness when not playing
  • Social isolation and unaware of what is going on in the real world
  • Denial

Consequences of a gaming addiction

As mentioned before, the main consequence is the social isolation. Gaming addicts can’t perform in the real world, whether this is at home, school or at work. In many cases, drugs and alcohol also play a role in this addiction. They use these substances to perform better in their games.

Seek help, you’re not alone in this. 

If you feel as if all this can be applied to you, perhaps you should consider seeking help. There are facilities built especially to treat this. Most of us think that there’s only a cure against alcohol or drug addictions, but this is a common misconception. This has become an increasing modern problem, we can asure you you won’t be the only one battling this.

A well-known addiction center in The Netherlands is the U-Center. You can reach them on 0800 22 24 446. To all our fellow Belgians out there, SolutionS may give you the help or information you need. Call them on 03 202 08 80.

Love always, Hannelore.

DIY: Sudoku

Hello, Hello. It’s me again. H. No, just kidding, it’s Hannelore. I told you this could get confusing! I also told you I wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry.

I can literally hear you thinking when reading the title: “What do you mean?” In the Biebs singing voice. “DIY means Do It Yourself, right? What? What do you mean?” Calm down, my dearest. All will be explained, but first I want to tell you a story. After all, this blog is for our subject Storytelling. Things wouldn’t feel complete without me telling you stories, am I right? Yes, I am.

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My grandparents used to own an apartment right at the beach in Ostend. The view was amazing and the colors of the apartment’s walls were the color of the sand that had never been touched by the sea. We were always accompanied by Max, the koekoeksklok categorie productwooden cuckoo clock that would let us know his batteries were still working every 30 minutes. There would hang a huge painting of the Mercator and a poem I can’t seem to remember of a writer I can’t seem to remember. Still, I can remember reading it every time I’d pass it and I can remember how, as I grew older, I was able to understand what he meant. The writer had lost the love of his life and he had put his excruciating pain into a poem. It was beautiful.

The last time I spent a week in the apartment was when I was 9. It was summer and the sun would continuously make us smile. My grandfather and I had the same routines. We would wake up before the sun did and so he would put on my jacket and shoes in the early morning and we would walk on the beach as the sun slowly rose from the sea. Once it was 7.30am we would go to the bakery and get his newspaper, some pain français and croissants for us, my grandmother and whichever brother (I have three) accompanied me at my stay in Ostend.

When we finished breakfast, my grandfather would take his newspaper and read it entirely. From the first letter until the last one. And when he’d get to the last page, there would always be a Sudoku to solve. My grandfather was a mathematician and so these Sudoku’s were a piece of cake to him. He also thought that, because i was already 9 years old, that I, too, should be able to solve them. And so he had spent all week of that summer explaining me what to do and that’s where and when I learned to love to solve Sudokus.

You’d think that, as I’d grow older, I would stop solving them. But I didn’t. It would always take me back to that summer at the beach and I think that is why I love to solve them. But you know, after a couple of years it got less and less exciting. I would solve them in a couple of minutes and that was it. Until one day in the summer of 2007 I wondered how difficult it’d be to make one myself. Turns out it’s peanuts.

mm0blIf you think I am the only one who would ever do this, you are mistaken. Because first of all, who else would make all these puzzle books? And second of all, if there is anything I learned from 9gag, it is that I am never the only one who does something.

And so what I’d like to do next is explain to you just how to do it. Because in fact it is so simple I can tell you what to do in just, like, 3 sentences. These attributes will come in handy: a piece of paper, a pencil, an eraser, a ruler and a normal functioning brain. Here’s what you need to do:

  1. You make a big square (9×9) and make the edges very bold. After that, you draw a bold line after 3 rows, both horizontally as vertically. Now you should have 1 big square of 9×9 and 9 squares inside of 3×3. Next to the big square you write the numbers 1 to 9.
  2. You now need to fill in the numbers from 1 to 9 in the 3×3 squares. You can fill in the numbers randomly, but I advice to first fill in all the ones, followed by the twos and so on. You can place them randomly, but make sure that each number will only appear once in the 3×3 squares, but also in each horizontal ànd vertical line. You’ll notice that when you’re reaching “7”, it’ll get more difficult. That’s what your eraser is for. Switch numbers if it doesn’t fit.
  3. Once you were able to fill in e.g. all the ones, you cross over “1” in the sidebar. This will keep you more organized. Repeat with each number until 9.

Look at the screenshots I made for you to see what I actually mean. I am very much aware that my explaining skills aren’t on point. One of the many reasons I’d suck at teaching. Also, I very much dislike teenagers and humans under the age of 10 are filled with snot and dirt and that’s just gross.

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TADAAA! This is how you make a Sudoku. It took me exactly 16 minutes.

So if you’re in the car, sunbathing or just plainly bored: try it out. It’s a great brain trainer! Perhaps if you make enough you can send them to the Sudoku puzzle booklet maker (is this a thing? Probably not but let’s just go with it) and make some mad $$$ out of it. I think I deserve at least, like, 15% all your $$$ though. No? Yes… Please?

This was my nostalgic Sudoku story. I hope you enjoyed reading it and I hope it gave you some context and perspective to why I love making Sudokus. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m some sort of crazy woman who doesn’t comb her hair. Because I do.

Love always, Hannelore.

Hannelore’s guilty pleasure game (featured)

awk-momentOkay, this is awkward… I have to admit something. Hasmik’s time management is on point, which means she was first to upload her guilty pleasure game. When I saw the article, I internally screamed. Loud. For, like, 5 minutes. You guessed it, my guilty pleasure is coincidentally Facebook’s Tetris Battle as well.

It all started 3.5 years ago, when I was still young and innocent. I had just started studying Event- and projectmanagement at the University College of Artevelde in Ghent. It was the middle of the first semester and I had just finally found a fairly large group of people I felt somewhat comfortable with. I was happy and all was right until one day something out of the ordinary happened.

My group of friends and I were in class, getting lectured about event logistics. As I was in my first year and still filled with ambition and endless motivation, I payed attention to what the teacher was saying. Believe it or not, I would even close the Facebook tab on my laptop. It was the era where I had heard of Collage_Fotorlskdj_FotorFarmville and received countless invitations to play CandyCrush. But I had never ever in my life visited the mysterious Facebook Games pages. It was unknown territory for me and we all know that everything unknown is just very scary and unsafe.  So I continued my days by ignoring invitations and just regularly stalked people’s profiles but that was it. Facebook did not reach any further for me.

Until the brief moment I lost focus during event logistics and looked at my friend Joyce’s laptop next to me. I could see the logo of Facebook but there was no regular news feed… No, Joyce was obviously playing a game. I knew what it was, it was shareIconTetris. I had played it over a million times when I was even younger than I was back then but it didn’t look like my Tetris. It looked way cooler and faster and more exciting.

There it was, my first introduction to Facebook’s Tetris Battle. As I had never seen this game in my life, I was stunned, perplexed, petrified but most of all: intensely fascinated. But this is not where it ends. As I looked to my friend sitting next to Joyce, I saw the exact same screen on his laptop. They were playing against each other! Of course that was when I realized why it was called Tetris Battle, you competed against either a complete stranger or you could invite a friend to compete against you. Honestly, at that moment I felt more passionate about a game than I had ever felt about a living human being. And so trying to keep my cool, I “casually” asked Joyce where I could find the game because it looked “alright.” Little did she know that when she showed me where I could find the game, she actually showed me to a game I would from that moment on get addicted to. My family has not forgiven her, I have. And so it all began right then and there, in classroom L02.08 of our campus Kantienberg in the beautiful hippy city (no offense) that is Ghent.

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You see, there’s yet another embarrassing fact you should know about me. Think of that one person in your social circle you just know is the most competitive of every single one you know. Well, I’m roughly about 13 times worse… I’m not proud of this, but for my upcoming paragraphs you should know this sad little fact about me.

In the beginning of my Tetris Battle days, I would only play this at home. I sucked too much to play it in public and I was scared my friends would ask me to battle against each other. You see, I didn’t want to lose against them. I was new to this, they would laugh, I would get angry and things would get very ugly real quickly. So the only safe environment to play and practice was home. But after a while, I finally understood the Tetris tactics. Oh yes, you read it correctly. It’s all about your technique and tactics. And man, did I get better fast. Please allow me to explain this game to you just in case you’d like to try it out.

Disclaimer: I am not to be held responsible for potential addictions to this, or any other, Facebook game. You might lose control of your life due to the constant need to level up or compete against other friends. Be warned. 

First of all, there’s the top area with all your general information. The first number is the number of coins you received. You can receive coins by playing games. If you win your game, you gain 25 coins. If you lose, you win 10 coins. With these coins you can pay for game enhancers (more info later). The second number is the amount of notes you have. In my case I have 4, you can’t buy sh*t with it. It’s absolutely useless. The bar in the middle shows your energy. For each game you play, you lose 5/30 so technically you can only play 6 games in a row. Every 5 minutes there will be 1/30 added up to your energy. The last number is the level you’re in. I’m in level 66 and with each game I play there’ll be 25 xp added. This is all you need to know about that upper bar.

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Fun fact about the energy bar: in my beginning days of Tetris Battle there was an energy bar of 60/60 and each game would cost you 1/60. I remember those days as the days where I would say “no” to having dinner with my friends because I still had 36/60 energy. Of course I would catch up with them at night in our favorite bar because wine was just as important. Sadly, I’m afraid it is because of people like me that they changed the energy bar. We lost our lives to it and my mom would complain a lot. Let’s not say this out loud though, can we? 

Before you play, you can choose to use enhancers; to make it easier to win. The shield protects you from your opponent’s sent lines, the next icon sends extra lines to your opponent in the last 40 seconds, and the last icon makes it easier for you to destroy the lines sent to you by your opponent.

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Lines? Huh? What are you rambling on about woman? Please remain calm… Once you press the “Start” button, it’s time to focus and destroy your opponent. Schermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 14_FotorHere’s how. At first you need to make a nice construction, as high as you possibly can (see image for example). Once you’re almost at the top, you need to start eliminating them by making lines. The higher you can make your construction, the more lines you can make. Once you were able to make TetrisBattle_Fotor2 lines in a row, you will send a line to your opponent. The more lines you can make in a row after the second one, the more lines you can send. These lines start piling up and soon his construction will reach the top of his board. Once he’s reached that top, you’ve “knocked him out.” Schermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 14_FotorUnfortunately, your opponent can also send lines to you. By placing a block on the radioactive sign, you destroy that line. And just like before, when you’re able to destroy more than 2 lines in a row, there will be a line sent to your opponent. The main goal of the game is to cause as many knock-outs as you can within two minutes. The one with the most knock-outs won the game. As you can see in the last image, I knocked my opponent 4 times out. I won that game. Take that, sucker.

Alright this was quite harder to explain than I had thought. If you understood and followed my instructions, maybe one day you’ll get where I am now. Because I am at rank 110. And If I can believe the Internet, and we all know the Internet neverSchermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 14.11.29 lies, this is the final one. So in a couple of days I’ll be finished with playing this damned game and I can finally go outside again.

You see, this is where I am three and a half years later. Still playing this game. My friends had all grown tired of the game after they reached rank 45 or something, but I didn’t. I must and will finish this game. By writing this all down, I can see now how sad this actually is. Though, I have the best rank of all my Facebook friends. That makes the competitive devil in me more satisfied than I care to admit. Take this, too, suckers.

But thank God for me, Hasmik already covered her Facebook’s Tetris Battle guilty pleasure. This means I don’t actually have to confess this and I can leave the embarrassing feeling that comes along with confessing this for her to live with. Sadly for me though, I have to discuss another guilty pleasure game. You can easily compare it with talking about having a sex buddy (yes, I said it). Society and your mom tells you you should feel guilty for having it, and you sort of do, and so you keep it quiet, but it doesn’t stop you from doing it anyway. And so it is time to reveal my second guilty pleasure game: Mahjong 4. Stop laughing at me.

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So if I’m bored and I’ve had enough of Tetris for a couple of days I go to www.spele.nl and click on Mahjong 4. I understand perfectly that this is most likely the most boring game ever made but I. Love. It. This probably says more about me than I’m willing to admit. But perhaps we should not discuss that right now…

P.s.: this game is listed in the category of “popular games.” This makes me feel better about myself. Also, I’m very much aware that it is a dark time to live in when games like these make it to the popular category. Again, let’s not speak of this out loud. Please. 

This game is the absolute opposite of Tetris Battle. It is for non-competitive, normal people a calm game and you’re only battling up against the time bar. The meaning of the game is to link two of the same tiles by connecting them with a line. The line can only make 2 turns, though. Once those two tiles had a connection they dissapear. When you were able to make all the tiles disappear, that’s when you can go to the next level. At the first few levels, time goes by slowly and there aren’t as many kind of tiles. At the final levels there are 3 times as many kind of tiles so it is more difficult to make a connection and time goes by way faster. If you can’t seem to make a connection, you can ask 6 times for a hint.

Schermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 15.51.38In each level, the tiles move in a different way. This is what makes this game more exciting and after a while more difficult. It’s never the same. As I told you, there are twelve levels. In the first level, the tiles just drop down without leaving any spaces in between the horizontal rows. In the second level, the tiles don’t move whatsoever. So if you can make two tiles disappear, two Schermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 15.56.01holes appear. The remaining tiles don’t move. In the third level, your field of tiles will get spilt up in the middle horizontally. In the fourth level it’s the same but vertically. Level 5 will work the same as level one but instead of dropping down, all the tiles will move to the left side of the screen. Level six works exactly like level two. In level 7 the tiles all move to the top of the screen. Up until level eleven, the way the tiles move have all occured in a way it has before. Level twelve, on the other hand, is a special one. There, all the tiles will move towards the middle. That is the only time it will do so. I must admit I have reached level twelve only a couple times. I wanted to reach there to make screenshots, but I couldn’t and so I got upset and frustrated. So yeah, the game gets on my nerves but I can’t keep myself from playing it… Why, I ask myself?

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I feel obligated to warn you about three things, though. First of all, turn your volume off. There’s always music playing in the background and it’s the kind of music they would play at a spa in India. So if you play it in public, you might have some explaining to do. Second of all, to finish the entire game, it takes up some time. So if you just have 5 minutes to kill and you’re not the kind of person who gives up on a game just because you’re running out of time, do not play this game. Lastly, you will get upset at some time in this game. It’s not a suggestion or a warning, just a mere fact, that at a certain point in this game you will see the time bar move up and up and up and you can’t find a Schermafbeelding 2016-05-18 om 17_Fotorcombination and you will get angry. We’ve all been through this, so don’t feel out of the ordinary for getting to that point. It usually happens at level 6, but don’t give up. You can do this, I believe in you, Hasmik believes in you, the whole world believes in you. And if you fail, just blame Obama. We all do. Thanks, Obama.

I secretly hope you’ll try this game out. If you do and you enjoyed it, please leave a comment in the comment section bellow. Perhaps we should form a closed, secret group and have meetings and tea time in my old tree house (no worries, I’ll tell you the password to get in) on Wednesdays. And preferably after that go to the Prof or Den Echo here in Antwerp to play beerpong and do shots.

And here we have landed. Because I have had some time management issues lately, I poured my soul out about not one but two guilty pleasure games of mine. I feel very awkward right now for admitting all this to you, my dearest reader. Something in me says: “Ah Hannelore, now you’ve embarrassed yourself plenty already, why stop here?” And I would’ve if not for two things. First of all, I am not nearly as drunk enough to spill all my embarrassing secrets out. In fact, I am not drunk at all and it is a Wednesday evening. My peers will be ashamed of my behavior. And this is the second thing: this is the Internet. It’ll be on here for quite some time and at a certain point in my life I’d like to get a decent job where, for starters, I will get hired, and I’d greatly appreciate it if people would not laugh at my face as a result of reading this blog post. Also, I hugged the floor a lot lately in public and that was apparently also not really socially acceptable. Okay, I didn’t hug the floor. I punched it hard with my face and I suffered. Same concept, not socially acceptable. So I figured, instead of showering you with my embarrassing stories, perhaps I should spill the dirt of someone else’s guilty pleasure game. And that special someone evidently is Joyce. It only seems fair that, since she introduced me to the hellhole game that is Tetris, she should suffer, too. Am I right? Of course I am.

Are you wearing a pair of socks? If not, please put some on. So that I can knock. Them. Off. Her guilty pleasure game is: The – wait for it – Sims! The Sims!

Okay, this is not embarrassing at all. But I tricked you good, didn’t I? You even went to your closet to put some socks on just for me to be able to knock them off your feet, all for nothing. Call me sadistic, I don’t mind! But the fact that she doesn’t understand the concept of guilty pleasures certainly is embarrassing. This is literally how the conversation went: “Hey Joyce, this is for school. Can you tell me your guilty pleasure game?” And she answered: “Oh, uhmmmm, I like to play The Sims!” End of conversation. I facepalmed so hard that it almost seemed as if my hand went all the way through my skull and came out at the back of my Facepalm-Meme-Gif-19head… Good ol’ Joyce, she will always make you laugh. Once, when we were still class mates, she ripped her pants open at a very unfortunate place. This was funny, too. Absolutely unrelated to the story, but I don’t buy the concept of oversharing.

I think we can all agree that this anekdote is the perfect way to end my story about guilty pleasure games. So this will be where I leave you. Right here, Right now. It was a pleasure writing this all to and for you. I hope you had a laugh every now and then. Thanks for sticking around.

Love always, me. (You know, Hannelore.)

P.s.: the only way to really get into my super awesome and cool tree house club on Wednesdays is when you tell me your guilty pleasure game. Make it juicy. I feel that this’ll be the only way for us to bound properly. And please do not say “The Sims” or “Fifa” or “League of Legends”. These won’t work, you will not get accepted when I hear you say this nonsense. “Dungeons and Dragons” is OK. By the way, the secret password to the tree house is “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” You’ll have to sing it.
Over and out. 

Games to secretly play in class

To all lecturers, teachers or any members of educational institutions, this may not be your favorite post. Unless of course you’re supervising the detention class/study groups/activists/demons and you, too, should find something to keep yourself occupied with.

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This post is for all our peers. We know your struggle is real, we feel your pain when the teacher’s first sentence is “Don’t worry, this PowerPoint will be posted online this evening.” The first thing that comes in mind is “Why the f-ck am I here then”, immediately followed by “How will I spend the upcoming 120 minutes?” We. Feel. Your. Pain.

I have two main pointers for you to consider when you’re playing games

  1. Make sure your game does not cause you stress or make you angry. This may be notable to your peers and teacher and you’ll get caught. Certainly when you have self control issues and tend to make grumbling sounds or have the tendency to punch the nearest object around you when you’re losing your game.
  2. Make sure that the key combination you’d have to use to play this game isn’t too obvious. If all you’d have to do is press enter, the game is not for class. It’ll make too much noise and you’ll bet busted. So for example Tetris is not the game you’d want to play here.

Some examples of games you can play:

  • Bubble Shooter
  • Mahjong
  • Bejeweled

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This should at least help you out a bit already. If you have any suggestions for us, place it in the comment section below! Eternal gratitude in return, what else?

Love always, Hannelore.

iOS Games

July = vacation. That’s what you’ll find in my dictionary. Sun, beach, culture, music, games (duh!) and doing nothing. What the hell is she talking about, is what you’re all thinking right now, right? Well, bear with me boys and girls. I will get to the point. So my trip to Los Angeles is booked and that means 10+ hours time to kill. What do you do then? Well, first of all come at me bro, I’m ready for the sun. I’ve been ready my whole life. But back to killing time. What I do is, yes you’ve guessed it right, I play games on my iPhone. And that’s where this post idea comes from. I want to make your lives easier on vacation so keep on reading this post and you’ll thank me later.

So now we’re just going to get straight to the point. You iOS lovers are going to find a list at the end of this post with games you can download on your iPhone, iPad, iPod and everything starting with an i. This post will probably be read more by the iOS users, hence title of this post, but most games you can probably download on your Android or Windows phones too so don’t go away just yet.

I know what you’re all thinking. Oh no, not another list, there are enough lists with iOS games. But what we actually want to do is … we would like to make a list with iOS games our readers like. So not the most downloaded games or the most expensive games or something like that. No, we want to make a list for our readers, made by our readers. So this way we have a list with games we can all come back to if we need time to kill while we’re on the plane or just waiting for our vacation to start.

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We’re going to start by putting our favourites on the list so if you would like to add one or two or even 10, just let us know in the comment section and maybe, if they are fun enough, we will add them to the list. Just one catch. No paid games. Free games for the win.

So this is the list in random order:

DrawSomething – a game for all you creative souls out there.
QuizUp – one for all the quizzers (obviously).
Subway Surfers – for all the subway surfers? Just kidding, don’t do that, that’s not safe. Just download it because it’s a lot of fun.
Solitaire – for all the old-school card lovers.
Stack – for the stackers?
Faily Brakes – ride or die bitch.
Angry Birds – for the angry boys and girls out there.
Charles – weird gamers?

Let us know what you think of this list and don’t forget to let us know what your favourite iOS games are by leaving a comment in the comment section. Have fun checking out our fun and free games and don’t forget some sunscreen 😉

How to win the game 2048

You know that one game the whole world was suddenly obsessed about and then woops before you even played it, the obsession was gone. Well, I’m pretty sure there are a lot but I’m talking about the game 2048. At first this game was only available on our phones but for a while now it’s also available online. This game has been around for almost 2 years but it’s still being played by a lot of people.

2048 is an extremely addictive puzzle game with a very simple concept. The goal is to slide numbered tiles on a grid to combine them to create a tile with the number 2048. It seems easy right? Well then, apparently you don’t know what game I’m talking about so check out the original game on the site and come back. Don’t worry we won’t be going anywhere. We’ll be waiting right here.

So if you’re back or you’re still reading this blog it means you still haven’t figured out how to win this silly but weirdly easy game right? Well don’t worry, at one point in our lives we felt exactly like that. We searched the internet for clues and we found them and now we want to share them with our lovely readers. So keep reading and by the end of this blog post you will know how to win the game 2048.

Without further due we’re going to give you the 2 most important tips that will help you win this addictive game so you can finally go on with your life.
1) First of all, don’t use every corner, so don’t move the blocks to every direction but just move the blocks in maximum three directions.
2) The second and final thing is that while you’re just using two or three corners you have to keep your highest number(s) in a corner of the grid. So don’t move that shit to much.

So that’s it actually. When I heard about those 2 tips, I played the game keeping those tips in mind and I won the game straight away. But I’m not going to lie. The second and third time, I didn’t win so you’ll probably just have to get lucky too. But just go ahead and try it and maybe you will win. Who knows?

Good luck and let us know in the comment section if you won by using our tips because we would love to know. See you later game lovers.

Hasmik’s guilty pleasure game

So you’ve had a really long day and it seemed like that to-do list would never get finished. But now you’re in your bed all cuddled up, ready to relax and escape to … anywhere. Let’s say your dog is sleeping or your cat isn’t talking to you and of course Netflix isn’t working at the moment (HELP!). But what do you do now? You play your guilty pleasure game right? Well that’s what I usually do. This guilty pleasure game isn’t a game you talk about with your friends. It might not even be good, but it’s a game that when you play it you can unwind and enjoy yourself. I’m pretty sure every gamer has some games that they like to play and, for various reasons, they are embarrassed to share with others.

So back to the title of this post right now. What’s my guilty pleasure game you ask? Well, drumroll please, my guilty pleasure game is … Tetris. Yes, I said it. I play Tetris. On Facebook. If I have to be honest a few years ago I used to play Tetris all day. Like every day. But now it’s my guilty pleasure game and no one knows it. Well now everyone knows it but still. I’m not really a gamer so if I have to unwind or enjoy myself I usually just read a book or watch a movie but sometimes after a long day, I like to come home and get in bed and just play Tetris. I know, I know, it’s not that exciting and there are probably better games out there, but who cares. I love Tetris so that’s all for today.

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What’s your favourite guilty pleasure game? Let us know in the comment section and tell us why you like that game so much? We would love to read them all and maybe we will make a list with guilty pleasure games later.

Microsoft Windows Games

Remember the good old days when we used to play games on our Microsoft Windows computers? If you’re a nineties kid, just like me, you’ll definitely know what games I’m talking about. Oh, the good old ‘95 and 2000 Microsoft Windows computers. They really were the best right? A computer that was so freaking slow and you actually couldn’t do much with it. Just Paint here and wait there, game here and wait there. I’m pretty sure you all know the games we’re going to talk about very well.

We didn’t play those games because they were so much fun. No no no, we played those games because we didn’t have much of a choice. We didn’t have 10,000 games to choose from. We just had Minesweeper, Solitaire, FreeCell and 3D Pinball. And if you were lucky, and you had rich parents who had an Internet connexion, you had some additional Windows games. Games like Hearts, Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Hearts, Internet Reversi, Internet Spades, Spider Solitaire, Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purple Place.

Back in the day when we had one computer for the whole household, I’m pretty sure we were all obsessed with those games. So read on and don’t forget to check out the games. You can actually find similar Microsoft Windows games online but of course they are all modernised now.

First up is Minesweeper. Windows Minesweeper is a game that has been included with all versions of Microsoft Windows up through Windows 7. The goal of the game is to locate each of the mines and safely mark the mines with a flag. Once all bombs have been marked and all other squares have been cleared the player wins the game. If a bomb is selected and not marked it explodes and the player loses the game. That’s it. Easy peasy.

Our second game is Solitaire. Windows Solitaire is just like the classic real-life card game. The goal of the game is to go through a deck of cards and arrange the randomized cards in order and by suit, starting each suit with the Ace card and going all the way up to the King.

Our third game is FreeCell. Windows FreeCell is a card game that is similar to Solitaire where all cards are randomly placed into eight piles. The user must organize those piles by suit starting with the King card and going up to the Ace.

Last but definitely not least is 3D Pinball. Windows 3D Pinball is a simple Pinball game included with Microsoft Windows 2000 and above. In this version of 3D Pinball the user can play the Space Cadet pinball table.

What do you like about those games and do you still play some of them? Let us know in the comment section because we would love to hear from all of you. Don’t forget to come back and check out our other blog posts about games. See you game lovers later.