When my daughter was in the hospital, I played a lot of Gardenscapes. I was completely miserable, I couldn’t sleep, and that damned game made the time go by.
There is a silly activity narrative to Gardenscapes, but the addictive part is the best match-3 game I’ve ever played. It’s a massive time sink. And—I’m not proud of this—I spent money to play it too. You don’t have to, but sometimes you have to be patient to keep it free. And sometimes I wasn’t, so I didn’t.
I’ve picked it up again periodically in the intervening six years, though not nearly to such a great degree. I’ve just put it down again and I hope it’s for the last time. I’m doing it instead of things that higher-quality parts of my soul want to do, and I don’t want to do that anymore. (See also Reddit.)
Progress is good.
(Now if I could just get over always having to have “a show,” I might actually read a fucking book again.)