Chain Rxn

"One more time. I'll get lucky this round. All I need is one more try..."

-Gamblers-

I'm currently being addicted to a game on Facebook.

Chain Rxn.

It's a pretty simple game, where you try to explode as many balls as possible with just one click.

It works like this:
1. Player is first presented with a grey box in which several tiny balls are randomly bouncing about. Think atoms in a box.
2. Player clicks once anywhere inside this box, and a translucent white ball grows (think white beam of growing light), and then stays that way for a couple of seconds, in which that duration of time, another tiny ball has to hit it, before it shrinks and disappears into nothingness.
3. If said white translucent ball isn't hit by any other tiny balls before it shrinks and disappears, player loses that round.
4. If, however, a random tiny ball hits the white translucent ball, then that tiny ball grows and in turn becomes a translucent ball itself, which then provides other balls the chance to hit it, after which that other ball will in turn grow into a large translucent ball itself.
5. For every tiny ball that grows, the player collects points.
6. Each level his its' minimum requirements; in the first level, the player is required to explode at least one ball out of 5, but the number of balls required increased until in the final level, where the player is required to explode at least 54 balls out of 60.

If you were too lazy to read the above six simple steps of the game, let me just sum it up that all the player has to do is to click once on the screen, and then sit back and enjoy.

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

I spent over an hour on that game last night. Got me hooked.

I think this game is just plain evil. It makes you think:

"It's so simple; I'm gonna win this in a minute,"

and then half way through, you'd be like "Damn it, hit that freaking ball before it shrinks away!! Hit it! Hit it! Come on!!"

and then you'd go "Damn!! If only the ball would stay put for another second; there were FIVE freaking tiny balls moving towards it already!"

Then you'd curse your bad luck, and try again, telling yourself that in the next round, you'll definitely make it, because "It was a matter of nanoseconds before those tiny balls touched it!!"

It's funny how games like this trick us into staring intensely at the balls, thinking that the harder we stare, the faster they'd move towards the blown up ball and hit it; as though the human brain had some sort of special connection with the computer.

Maybe it is true that the more we tense up our muscles, tilt our bodies towards the direction we wish the balls to move, and distort our faces into constipated looks would make the balls shift that little more.

It's almost as though repeating the sentence "No, no, no, don't shrink just yet, the balls are getting close, so close, don't shrink!" in one's head would magically make the translucent balls stay there for that much longer.

*Urgh!! Just a little more! Pushhhhh!!! Go!!! Urrgh!!! Don't shrink yet! Faster!!!*

Personally, yes, I think the tiny balls do move faster when I'm looking at them; by a nanometer per second, maybe.

*Gah!!! Bad luck!! I was THIS close!!*

Before you know it, three hours have passed and you still haven't managed to beat that high score.

Why do humans have to think up of such evil games?