Game On
By Chaya Nessa Krycer, Featured Writer, DOJLife.com
Warning! This article contains high levels of sarcasm. Best to be taken with a cup of salt and a few sips of apple cider vinegar. Taking the author’s statements literally can be hazardous to your health, happiness, and general sanity.
Contrary to popular belief, video games are extremely educational and prepare children for life’s unexpected occurrences. They help strengthen the brain and open the mind to hypothetical possibilities we never could have dreamed existed. (Well not quite. Someone obviously did imagine them or they would not be in existence today). Still skeptical? Here is a list of games guaranteed to prepare you for the future.

Firstly, we have the wildly popular game Brick Breaker. There are many versions and names of this game, but they all contain the same essential factors. The objective is to break all the bricks that are somehow suspended in the air with a little ball. (I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a David and Goliath vibe over here). However, the ball must never ever touch the ground. If it does the world will evaporate and all the plants will shrivel and die. Therefore, you are kindly provided with a small beam, whose purpose is to volley the ball back to its mission of destroying bricks.
This skill is imperative for all young children, nay all of humanity to obtain. For example, what if it starts hailing and you can’t let the hail touch the ground — because there are fire and water in the hail and it might flood and burn down Dallas at the same time. It is only those enlightened people who play Brick Breaker who can save us from this horrific fate. With just a measly two by four, they can rescue us all from a fate that only the Egyptians have encountered. The hail, once midair, will burst the ominous clouds, causing the hail to cease to fall.

Next up is the all exciting game of Temple Run. There are many forms of this game, such as Subway Surfers and Minion Rush. (We await the day for the newest version of this enticing thriller to be named Minyan Rush. But, that is neither here nor there.) This game compels your digital avatar to streak past the authority and endlessly break record after record in the most lengthy marathon that ever existed. But this game is also imperative for the younger generation’s development and education. People can never tell when they are suddenly pursued by a person who throughout the entire chase remains a soothing distance away.
This gives you the chance to concentrate on jumping over or ducking under the various hazards that threaten to trip you, thereby ceasing the thrilling chase. This teaches the important life lesson to never give up, even when everything seems hopeless. When we are chased do we duck into the nearest building and lock the door behind us? No, we keep running and never give up hope of escaping, even if we are traveling in a straight line where our harassers can easily keep an eye on us. No, that is truly a worthy moral that we should all apply into our everyday lives. (Well, in less extreme examples, we actually should).
The third noteworthy game is of a completely different category. It is known as a role-playing game. The importance of these games is even more obvious, as you’re putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and trying to help them out with their personal problems. Imagine how much this will enhance your dan l’chaf z’chus skills (giving others the benefit of the doubt).
For instance, let’s say you’re role-playing a farming game. You are assigned the responsibility of making sure everything on the theoretical farm runs smoothly. By playing this game, those of us who decide to move out to the country, away from civilization, grocery stores, and corona germs, can prepare for this new and baffling lifestyle. This game teaches us that it takes exactly twenty minutes for all the cows to be milked. (The milking isn’t generated by a worker or a machine. It just happens naturally. Since this is the impression one gets in the game, we can infer that we would see identical results in real life as well.)

Not only that, each variety of crops resemble each other perfectly in every way, except for one thing — the amount of time it takes to grow. This is also true off the screen and in the authentic world as well. It doesn’t matter where you plant the seeds, or how fertilized the soil is, or any of those unnecessary details. As long as you treat each plant equally, and do not discriminate, everything will turn out perfectly, and you will be surrounded by peace and harmony.
The morals that can be learned from these games are mind-blowing. They’re almost as good as Disney’s ‘happily ever after’ theme. So now that I have assuaged any guilty feelings you may have in wasting the day away with electronics, you may as well improve your mind and just game on.