I think I've had a negative bias about casual games for a long time. I've played a lot of games that would be considered "casual games" back when I was really small like Frogger, Clu Clu Land, Pac-Man, etc.; many of them being rather short and a lot of them seemed to have the simple goal of the player beating the high score. I never really cared much about score so when I got to the point where the stages started looking a little too similar or started recycling, I felt like I had little reason to go back.

I know it sounds closed minded, but I even started feeling like casual games were a waste of time because I don't like the idea of repeating actions in the same setting for no sense of purpose or progression. I know it isn't a waste of time though as long as someone's enjoying it and/or getting something out of it. I suppose most casual games just aren't for me.

I think a large part of my negative feelings towards casual games stems from my frustrations in seeing my mom playing Solitaire and Minesweeper hours on end on her computer when I was younger. Seriously, she played a LOT of solitaire. Minesweeper at least involves some critical thinking, but computer Solitaire is just busy-work; It's all just matching suites and number sets, there's no pressure to learn to work any faster since there's no time limit, you can reshuffle the cards if you get a stale-mate hand, and there's a "help-I'm-stuck" button. I just couldn't see any reason to play it!

Since I started living with Bear, he's opened my eyes to accept the fact that casual games have their place and that though there might be a lot of not-so-great ones out there, there are definitely some exceptional ones.

Bear recently downloaded Bejeweled Blitz since it was free on the iphone store. I kept my distance from it for a while since I didn't really think it was my thing, but I decided to give it try eventually while Bear was busy and though each play is only one minute-long, it's rather addicting. >.< Luckily, I have enough will-power to stop so I can do other things. ^^ On another note, I had the chance to play the demo of Harmoknight on the 3DS. It was actually a ton of fun and I kept playing the demo stages over and over again. XD -It's practically like... playing a... casual... game... >.> Rhythm games always seem to catch me. XD