- Machine Yearning is a game to boost your memory
- It's quick to play and makes you feel good about remembering your choices.
- Think of it as an alternative to learning a language or watching silly dances.
Your overall attention span has dropped so much that you probably didn't notice that I misspelled “overall” at the beginning of this sentence. But fear not! There are ways to keep your mind sharp, and one of them is to test your memory.
You might not remember what you had for breakfast nine days ago (why would you), but Machine Yearning can help, maybe. Tiny Little Keys gives us a 2D pixel game to test our memory with the twist that we are creating memories to remember. If you are still with me, we can dive into why this might be a good thing.
What is mechanical desire?
Some games make it hard to know if there is a lore or story going on, so sometimes you have to fill in the blanks yourself. Machine Yearning is one of those games, and it gives us the ripe opportunity to invent an entire plot for it.
In an unknown future on a planet where machines and organics live in harmony, the juicy collective brain is in danger of forgetting. To solve this problem, the Robotic Board of Education and Ethical Experimentation decided to create a program that would help strengthen memory. You are one of these organics who has been called to test the program and see if it works.
Car wish fulfilled
We spend so much time mindlessly scrolling and swiping on our devices that we need something to stop us in our tracks. Machine Yearning is one of those things, and it helps us in a number of ways.
The first is its eye-catching presentation. Any form of feedback is enjoyable if it is flashy and energetic, which is what this game does.
When you play, the screens quickly convey information while the surrounding environment provides a pleasant backdrop to keep you focused. You want to reach the end of each level just to prove that you can do it and earn all the sweet fanfare.
Then there's the fact that the challenge is created by you. The game works like this: you get a screen with a made-up word at the top and random shapes on the screen below. You have to assign a shape to that word and then remember it every time the prompt asks for it. It gives you insight into your own thinking patterns and those essentially become your strategies.
Do you focus on the letters or do you associate them with different words? Do you assign an idea based on the word structure and then choose a shape that fits? Do some letters and shapes just go together? It's up to you, with the challenge increasing as more shapes and even colors are added to the mix. You also get power-ups to help you keep playing, but it's more satisfying to see how far you can get with your own skills alone.
Lost Machine Desire
This is another one of those games that is hard to criticize because it walks the line between game and tool. It is essentially an activity to test and train your memory with different ways to apply different limits that change it in small ways. It does what it is supposed to do and encourages you to continue.
You get a bunch of little cosmetic and gameplay rewards frequently, until all you have to work towards is the next milestone. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this model, but it runs the risk of feeling like a chore or a task that nags you from your mobile device’s vast library (*cough* Duolingo *cough*).
Desire for a car Desire for a car
Machine Yearning is a learning game that tests your memory by assigning shapes and colors to silly words and seeing if you can remember which is which. It's quick, simple, and effective because it makes you want to do more.
This may start to feel like an activity that just begs to be postponed, but it can work as a nice alternative to mindlessly scrolling through videos of people making the same joke until the end of time. If you have any urges, you can turn to the Robotic Board of Education and Ethical Experimentation for a machine that can help you remember why.