Ah Monday, the jewel in the crown of our human suffering. All days are not born equal, and Monday is definitely born worse. I'm sorry Monday, it's not your fault, you just ended up in the worst possible place.
To try and alleviate some of the malaise, Monday is when we here at AppSpy like to have a muse about things. It might not be funny, it might not be right, and it might sound a lot like a stream of consciousness, but that's all you can really expect from us on this most miserable of days.
And since nuclear war is on everyone's minds at the moment, I thought I'd take the opportunity to muse about a game that made nuclear annihilation fun, but also absolutely terrifying. You can click on the emboldened name of the game below to download it. And if you or someone you know is scared about dying in a nuclear holocaust, watch the film Threads.
First Strike might seem like a neat mobile strategy game, but it's a little more than that. Scratch the surface and you'll find it's actually about making horrific decisions that are going to impact, in some cases literally, the lives of millions of people.
It's like a choose-your-own-adventure, but the choices you're making all involve murdering large swathe of the population with nuclear hell fire. And the end result is always the same. Sadness and death.
There's a lot going on here, and it's all controlled with a few taps. But there's such a weight behind those taps that you can't help but become invested. But these are the same actions that could unleash a new kind of hell on the real world too.
Nuclear weapons are fired from distance. They land thousands of miles away. The actions that unleash them involve pushing buttons. Like you're doing in the game. But here the connection between action and outcome is even clearer.
This is the sort of game that the people making these life and death decisions need to play. Imagine War Games, the Matthew Broderick movie, but with the computer replaced with Trump and Kim Jong Un, and Broderick replaced with First Strike. No one wins. That's the point I'm making. No one wins.
It's highly unlikely that the President of the United States is going to be reading this article. But I would like you all to pick up First Strike and play it. Yes it's a great game, but look a little deeper and you'll find some ideas that might make you question how you look at the world. And right now, that's more important than ever.
