What playing the game “Two Dots” has taught me about life
A few months ago, I saw a game advertised on Instagram. It said my friends on Facebook were playing it, so, obviously, I should be playing it, too. I had long put aside prior preoccupations and older obsessions such as Angry Birds and Neko Cats. I avidly played Pokémon Go for quite a few months but quit in frustration after I could not catch a Pachirisu while on a cruise in Alaska. My wife, surprisingly, still plays Candy Crush, in all it’s myriad iterations, and is in the Level Thousands. Remember that game? Yes, you do. I’ve seen other people still crushing it on the subway, along with Fruit Ninja and others.
So I was curious about this relative newcomer with perfectly pleasing graphics and a relatively simple premise: connect two dots, and those two dots disappear. The purpose is to clear as many dots as possible, in as few moves as possible. At first I played it on the subway, one or two levels at a time. Within a week I was at Level 50, which is really not high considering my friends on Facebook were in the Level 800s. When did they start playing this game? I thought it was new? Always competitive, I decided to see how far I could go in one weekend (without paying for bonus moves or ‘extras’). It helped that every few days there would be level bonuses, like if you beat 20 or so levels in three days, you get a piñata llama full of goodies that help you on the next round. So I went. Within the weekend I was at Level 200.
Today, while on Quarantine 2020, I am at Level 663, and I feel like I play constantly (so I don’t know…
