Every four months, I attempt to clean my phone of any unnecessary apps, games, or utilities that I no longer use or need. In the past two years, I’ve tried a lot of mobile games. From the popular Clash of Clans and Boom Beach to the more niche games like Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Cytus, games have come and gone. The only game to stick around through the purges is Desert Golf.

The loop of Desert Golf is simple. Pull back, aim, and release to get your golf ball into the hole. I’ve repeated this process for over 1000 holes. At first, there was no plan. Just get the ball in the hole and see what the next screen brings. Time went on and the sandy landscape altered itself. Hills, sand stalagmites, and v-shaped pits generate on the field. There are many moments where your only option is to shoot off screen to reset your progress at the tee, and challenged me to actually set plans for the next swing. A common session of Desert Golf would be analyzing the screen and imagining how the ball would bounce against a sand wall. Is it too much that I’ll fall in the hole and have to reset? Is this angle too little that I’ll have to compensate for power? Why won’t this ball bounce higher on the sand so I can just chip it in? The interaction with the ball and sand was so simple, but allowed me to tackle holes in any way I liked.

I recently set course to the sand dunes once again to continue in this endless golf course and had a slight realization. Desert Golf has been my go-to mobile game which shocked me more than I claim to say. In the past two years, I’ve attended my sister’s wedding, traveled to Hawaii, and started a new job. Through all these events, Desert Golf was the perfect game to fill time, distract me through anxious moments, and spark connections I would have never started.

Hole 316: My first cactus sighting

I am horrible with dates. I track things with moments in my life, events that occur, or simply what song or album I was listening to at the time. I reached hole 316 while sitting in an alteration shop in Downtown Los Angeles waiting for a dress for my sister’s wedding. I was ecstatic when I saw that small, pixelated green plant on screen. This was the first sign of life in this desert wasteland of holes and hills. I immediately questioned myself, Why am I more excited about this fake cactus on my phone screen than this upcoming wedding? I realized I used Desert Golf to distract myself with this change. Looking back now, nothing really has changed. In fact, it’s better. My sister is happier, I have a brother, and their year anniversary just passed in December.

Hole 1266: Airplane from Hawaii

I reached hole 1266 while over the Pacific Ocean heading to Honolulu, Hawaii for a wedding this last winter season. Plane ride conversations never last more than a 15 seconds for me. From simple “Excuse me” to “Oh, she is asking would you like something to drink”, my conversations are very brief. I typically distract myself with a book or a game and the choice for inflight entertainment was Desert Golf. I set my phone flat on my the pull down table and continued my adventure in this sandy land. The passenger to the right of me, a grandma who was on the flight with her grandkids, peeked over and was curious. She mentioned how her grandkids nowadays were “always on their ipads” and “staring at screens” and did not understand. I tried to explain that it was a golf game in the desert. This sparked a conversation about her late husband, how he loved golf and plants, and how she never understood the point system for golf. She claimed the par system was “complicated” and it should be converted to a regular point system. I tried explaining it to the best of my knowledge while she nodded and smiled. This was a rare occurance for me. I’ve been on many flights before, few were solo rides, but I have never held such a long conversation with a complete stranger. Her stories about her life and how her grand kids “fill her spirit” was enlightening.

I often dismiss this game since I still have the common mentality that mobile games are just time wasters. Desert Golf has widen my view on the mobile scene and realizing games are games. Simple as that. No matter the platform or how the information is conveyed. As of writing this, Desert Golf is still installed and sits alongside Neko Atsume, but my virtual backyard of cat paradise is looking like it’ll get purged sooner than later. As for the barren land full of slopes and pits, I’ll be visiting it again very soon.

Growing up, I played a few educational games at school. I started off with the popular Math Blaster and Putt Putt games with small puzzles and challenges here and there. Looking back at it now, it helped develop a base of critical thinking that transferred over to my adulthood. Sure, the puzzles were easy and the stakes were about saving an animal in danger, but in my child mind state, nothing was more satisfying than reuniting a baby giraffe with its parents.

Human Resource Machine brought me back to this familiar feeling. That feeling of frustration but accomplishment after defeating another level. Puzzle games as an adult never felt very satisfying. I would solve them and be pushed along the way until there were no more. I either felt stumped or I built a level of frustration that I wanted to find the answer just to push along the story because the puzzle seemed poorly constructed or the payoff felt so lackluster.

In HRM, I wanted to feel that self-accomplishment because the puzzles were so interesting to me. The game is essentially teaching how to build assemblers on a very basic level, but wrapped up in a distinct art style and fun, witty dialogue from your overseeing manager. That is just enough for me to feel the frustration but not seek out the answers online. It’s the same feeling I felt playing games as a kid.

So I’ll be back soon with another post, but for now, I need to make more notes to separate my program into segments that makes it easy on the eyes, but efficient enough for me to show that this game can’t keep me down.

It's getting harder and harder to watch Overwatch streams and as the numbers show, I am not the only one. As of writing this post, Overwatch has about 3,000+ viewers. Before Blizzcon, it would easily break 10,000+ every single day. I think I finally boiled down the reasoning. I cannot relate to the game.

Since I’m not in the beta, there is nothing I can relate to with my own knowledge or experiences. With other games that I typically watch like Counter-Strike:Global Offensive or Dota 2, I learn different tactics or tricks, but with Overwatch, its just a pretty UI with interesting heroes jumping around. Sure, watching a streamer explore a new hero is interesting, but without getting to try it for yourself, it feels like a waste of time.

The most peculiar thing for me is I haven’t felt this way for any previous game. I check in on some Fallout 4 or Tales of Zestiria streams and never worry about my excitement over the game. Maybe it's because I’ve played previous iterations before and know what to kind of expect?

I’m sure I’ll pop in and out every now and then, but overall, I’ll just leave different streams on in the background.

History

I never took CS too seriously. I grew up playing early versions such as 1.3, 1.5 , and the beloved and most well-known version 1.6. I never played competitively, mostly just casual with friends in community servers. We are now at the 3rd iteration (4th if you count condition zero, which I don’t) and this is the first time I’ve ever taken the competitive side seriously. I played the game here and there but, never tried to get better at the game. CS:S came around and I dabbled in the competitive scene. By dabbled, I mean, I joined an CAL-O team with an old friend and played two matches and never touched the game again due to the team disbanding. Fast forward to CS:GO and 561 hours on my steam account later, I’m here.

When I decided to take a more serious attitude towards the game, I decided to dedicate time towards practicing my spray, learning angles, and just playing the game a lot. I placed at Nova 4, grinded to Double AK, and held for a bit. After placing there and stayed there steady for a while, I began to lose footing. Slowly but surely, I fell down to Nova 1. I could easily blame it on playing with friends who liked to throw the game, hackers, and smurfs, but at the end of the day, I was the one losing ranks. I felt at a loss but still determined to figure out what I was doing wrong. Through time and patience, I learned a few things that may be very basic, but strong fundamentals allow players to grow and learn at a quicker rate.

Tips

1. Learn to play the bomb

   1. Once the bomb is down, it’s not moving. Find an angle that’s not already taken and just sit on it. If you are playing with a few friends or a team, set up a crossfire. Post-plant plays can make or break a team. I can’t tell the number of times I am able to get the bomb plant but my team gets ran over due to everyone watching the same angle or peeking to get frags to increase the score. A 4v2 just turned into a 1v2 in a matter of seconds due to greed and impatience. Just play the bomb and you’ll get that W soon enough.

2. When to be passive vs aggressive

   1. Now this is something I still struggle with, but learning slowly. Sometimes its out of your hands and you simply get out peeked and overwhelmed. A few things that can help are listening to your surroundings, callouts, and watching the minimap. Enemies can be marked if seen and sometimes your teammates might not be as helpful as you’d like.

3. Communication

   1. If you are worried about using a mic, don’t fret. Even typing “2 b” is more than sufficient at times to allow your teammates to react. If you want to get more in depth, you could learn callouts on maps. Now this may require a lot more time and some research, but nothing a quick google search can’t fix. Learning spots in maps are super helpful for your teammates and yourself for obvious reasons.

Although at the end of the day, CS has always been about fun. Even if you don’t like playing regular 5v5 modes, there are a multitude of options in the community servers that make it feel as if 1998 never left. Surf , KZ (Climbing), Zombie, and Jailbreak maps are just a few options out there if you just want to play the game. CS is still alive and well along.

Nowadays, you can find me competing with my coworkers in a online league. It really brings me back to the days of hopping into an IRC channel, finding a scrim or match, and playing as if everything was on the line. The eSports side is a whole beat in itself, but I'll hold that off for another time.