Title: Drop7
Format: iOS, Android
Released: 2009

Hey, you want one of those fucking list articles? Yeah, you lap that shit up, don’t you. Oh don’t worry, Games That Rocked can do pointless, numerical based, easily digestible tripe with the best of them. Who am I kidding, you’re not even going to read this. There’s an Upworthy article that YOU JUST WON’T BELIEVE only one click away.

Well, now that I’m alone, I present to you:

7 Ways Drop7 is like life

“But what is Drop7?”, I hear you bellow, foaming incoherently into your overpriced coffee, like the poorly made assumption by me that you are.

Drop7 is an almost perfect puzzle game. A modern day Tetris, it’s Sudoku mashed with Connect4, and is dangerously, cripplingly addictive. It’s 69p IT’S NOW FREE and lives on your iPhone, where it will never leave.

Oh god, we haven’t had a number yet – quick, attention spans are nosediving! So. Drop7 is like life, because:

IF ONLY THEY KNEW

1 – It’s pointless

Like any art, or indeed anything, Drop7 is utterly devoid of meaning. You drop numbered discs from the top of the screen and when four fours connect, (or one one, two twos – etc) they disappear, smashing open any blank grey discs that lie adjacent, ready to reveal their numbery goodness within. As you play, new rows rise up from the bottom, like circular tombstones.

That’s it. And yet I’ve spent longer playing Drop7 than I have learning to salsa dance, play the banjo, or learn Japanese.

2 – You think you get it, but you don’t

You start off a sack of shit, and slowly but surely, you learn to chain and link combos together, briefly slowing the inexorable rise of new discs, sending your score through the roof. You start to relax, allowing yourself to fly on autopilot while you listen to the terribly-narrated Game Of Thrones audiobook.

And then – BAM! You’re swimming in grey, ones are buried beneath a pile of their stubborn brethren, never to escape, and everything is rising high to the sky and you can’t swim and if only that was a seven no no stop please YOU’RE DEAD.

3 – It’s cruel

With its stark, simple, gorgeously clear aesthetic, Drop7 seems the epitome of cold logic and hard reason. Then five twos appear next to each other and a one drops from the sky which is of no use to anyone, could never be of use and you realise there is diabolical machinery at work, stopping you from ever really climbing higher, and maybe it exists in your own mind or maybe it’s so deeply hidden no one can ever uncover it, but you feel its constant presence bearing down on your soul.

Grind down grinddown grindown

4 – It’s passing you by

All those moments on trains when you could be reading; lying in bed where you could be planning your next day; on your lunchbreak when you could be plotting your escape, you’re instead sucked into this benumbing world of colours and numbers which is a prison of an infinitely more seductive shape.

You’re not really even playing Drop7 properly; you’re just mashing buttons. And you’re not really listening to that song or podcast either. You are wasting away. One more turn!

5 – It’s hard

Obvs as a middle-class white guy, I’m uniquely qualified to discuss this, but life is hard. So is Drop7. No one cares about you, you are alone, and the numbers keep on falling. You are going under, day by day.

6 – You will die

This is final, painful truth that Drop7 rams home every few minutes. There is no escape. You can fight, you can struggle, you can pull off the most miraculous escape from the top right corner and burrow a path right back down to the bottom of the screen, but at best, you are buying yourself a little more time to spend on the carousel.

Death comes to us all, and no amount of fighting will change that. I’m not saying don’t fight, but accept your eventual defeat with grace. Because it will come, no matter what you think now in the sunny meadows of youth.

Give in to the calming sounds and precise visuals with dignity, as you slowly slip into the night. Ultimately, you were a tiny, meaningless speck on the face of existence, and you changed nothing. And in the end, isn’t that the greatest lesson of all?

7 – Oh that would be really fucking neat, wouldn’t it. Well I couldn’t think of a seventh one. I don’t even know if this is a parody or not. I love Drop7. I hate Drop7. I deleted Drop7, but then it came back. I know I reinstalled it. I can’t stop. Don’t go near Drop7. GET DROP7. Kill me.