Yahtzee – Popular Downloaded Game
We finally caught-up with the calendar and most of the North American population: We finally wrapped our minds around the fact that our mobile phones really are not so much for making phone calls as for doing all the cool stuff your laptop can do when your laptop is not there. Oh yeah, there’s still plenty of communication goin’ on, but it’s way more sophisticated than actually talking into the mouthpiece and waiting to hear a voice through your ear: it’s all about texting and leaving comments on MySpace and Facebook. We celebrated the ritual debate about “predictive text vs. no predictive text,” discovering that, just like you cannot convert a PC user to a Mac fan, the predictors and anti-predictors can agree to disagree, but they never win converts. We finally get it.
Most of all, we have figured out that our mobile phones exist more for our entertainment than for communication or transmission of vital data. And we grudgingly accept that, until we really and truly can watch episodes of “Gossip Girl” on our phones—you know, like really seeing and hearing them—games come-in as first runner-up. So, we asked ourselves, what are all the cool kids playing? We went to our favorite site, clicked on “favorites,” and—wow!—we discovered Yahtzee at number one!
We know what you’re thinkin, because we thought it, too: Yahtzee, the ol’ granny game we used to play on rainy days when we were so bored we thought we would explode—that Yahtzee?
Yup, that Yahtzee, except that on your mobile phone, somehow, it feels more like playing a slot machine, and you don’t have to wait for your bonehead cousin to figure out whether it’s a straight or one 1. As a matter of fact, that same old Yahtzee has millions, count ‘em millions, of avid fans all around the world. It earned its popularity. Oh, and it also has its high-powered students, too: A guy at Cornell University actually wrote a Ph.D. dissertation about Yahtzee. Can you imagine? The guy is Doctor of Yahtzee. Squint Squaders, rethink your positions, because it requires more thought and strategic calculation than you imagined: exactly how often will you roll a full house in the course of one game? You will roll more than one, you know.
Of course, the free download went lickety-split, and our little fingers were flyin’ in no time. Within the first free minute, we understood why it drove up the charts “with a bullet.” It’s fun. Simple as that. It’s fun.
