My life’s purpose is to spend every single free minute consuming game after game. The wise sugar free beverage container perched in front of me preaches that “Getting there is half the fun” but in my case it is most definitely all the fun, as there is never going to be a time that I “will get there” and experience all that is on offer. Unlike my immortal rendered friends I will not be around forever so accomplishing such a feat is merely a figment of my warped imagination. This alone greatly saddens me thinking about all that I will miss, but death has no place in this blog post so I must trumpet on.

However, as I traverse through the weird, the wacky, the bold, the stunning, the clever and just about every other adjective known to man I always learn something during my travels. The teachings usually vary and encompass many things from understanding about game design to understanding facts about myself. But, instead of going all Buddha on everyone I will stick to one that relates to game design ... the one that has to do with how challenging to make a game.

I was always a firm believer, being a self proclaimed hardcore gamer back in the day, that I had to prove my manliness with each game I played by beating it on an above average difficulty setting. This is after all what sets a true above average man apart from the rest of the average pack. But as I get older, I have less time and patience (with everything it would seem) and as the arthritis starts creeping in I have found that sometimes I just want a game that is relaxing, simple but yet still enjoyable.

I no longer want to die fifty times before I reach the next checkpoint a la Call of Duty 4, nor do I want to complete three full laps of a cone slalom on a narrow race track with a 500 bhp Italian supercar without touching a single cone and I don’t want to have to stop playing an otherwise great game because I can’t beat the second Boss fight, that would be Devil May Cry 3 for those this reading.

There comes a time in every soon to be geriatrics' life that all you want is to sit down and let yourself be taken away to a place were you can enjoy yourself no matter what your ability or your mood. That time for the sober me is now.