Township Game Review: Addictive, Easy, and Family Friendly

Honest Township Game Review Upfront:

This game is probably my favorite app on my phone. Township is fun, easy, and family friendly. You can play it while watching t.v., talking on the phone, and hanging out with family.

Your whole family can download it and create a co-op together. I love this app.

But Township can be addictive.

For me. My children all played for a year and quit without a second thought, but I find it very addictive.

In truth, I have several apps that were too addictive for me, so maybe this is a personal problem. But this one app in particular, I simply cannot quit. Nor do I wish to quit it, though sometimes I wonder if I should.

For me, this is the most addictive app ever, except for maybe Facebook.

Disclaimer: Now don’t take all of this too seriously. I’m sitting here on a break from taking care of a house full of sick kids, so I wanted to blog about something kind of silly.

First of all, if you have no spare time, I want to warn you: DO NOT download this super addictive app. It will devour hours of your time.

Second, I need you guys to vote in the comments and tell me if I should delete the app or keep it.

I will remind you at the end, once I’ve presented all of the evidence. Of course, truth be told, I’ve already deleted it and then added it back one time, so just because I delete it doesn’t mean it will stay deleted. That’s how addictive the app is!!!

Here are all the problems with the app:

-It helps me accomplish absolutely nothing.

-It’s just a game, so it is for fun in my free time. (Not that I really have free time. I’m never done with all of my work.)

-It’s a game that I am so good at that I feel like I have to always be the first, or in the top of rankings, at every competition within the app.

-I’m getting my feelings of success accomplishment from an app game that is not even real.

-My kids used to play the game with Alan and me, so it was a family activity. But they said I made it work and not fun, so now none of the kids play it with us anymore.

-Alan loves work, so he is the one person who still plays the with me. We have this whole “co-op” that works together.

Okay, that’s not a problem. That’s the one good thing about the app, time with Alan.

-It is a time suck. I will say, “Okay, I’m just going to check on my town real quick.” Real quick can easily become 45 minutes to an hour, especially if there is a good mini-game going on.

-I started playing this game in a time in my life when I was feeling down and wanting to escape into the app. Now I’m in a much healthier mental state. I want to be productive, but this game does take some of my productivity time away.

-Escaping is not a good way to handle life.

-I even spend money on this game.

-My kids tease me about “being obsessed” with this app, which is a little embarrassing.

-It cuts out 100% of my reading time. I meant to read lots of books this year. Instead, I’m over here filling these train cars.

-In fact, I have projects I should be working on. I don’t have time to be playing apps on my phone.

OK. Good things about this game:

-It’s something I enjoy talking to Alan about and participating in with Alan, a husband/wife activity if you will.

-I like feeling accomplished, even it is from feeding imaginary farm animals and taking care of a town that is not real.

-It gives me something oddly fun to do to detach my brain from real life and chill. This is what I often do while I wait in the car line for the boys to get out of school. I also do this at bedtime, and now I never have trouble sleeping. Sometimes I accidentally fall asleep filling my trains and zoo orders.

Township: So What do you actually do in Township

It’s probably like Farmville back in the day.

You build a town, with a giant farm, and you feed the farm animals and tend to your factories. It is inexplicably addictive to my brain. My brain wants to go back again and again and take care of all of those little virtual tasks.

Maybe it’s because in real life I can never ever keep up with all of my tasks. But in my town, Momshire, I can easily keep all of the farms and factories running. There is an attainable end to the tasks. That is so satisfying!

So I don’t know. DO get this app if you are depressed and fake accomplishments will help you. Ha!

But definitely DON’T get this addictive app if you have real goals you are having trouble finding time to work on. I guarantee you I spend less time on my blog because I’m over here feeding these imaginary chickens and collecting their virtual eggs.

It sounds so sad when I say it out loud like this.

Judge all you want, but tell me in the comments.

Should I quit Township or accept it as part of my life? What do you think?

Update on my Township Game Review:

It is a year later. I still play this game. However, I am no longer addicted. I play it a couple of times a day, and I do not have to win. Making myself take days off from the game helped me reset my brain, for all of my apps, not just this one.

Do I recommend this game? Yes! It’s so fun.

Want to know how I reset my mental framework to put down my phone more? Read the article I wrote here about the No App Time Challenge.