Mr. Pibb

Mr. Pibb is that game you buy for five minutes and end up playing for two hours. A clicker, a puzzle with simple mechanics where a costumed character navigates a maze collecting stuff. Like someone took Pacman's basics, removed the ghosts, and said: "Clicking and patience—that's all we need."

It's simplicity in its purest form. Left mouse button, objectives on screen, waiting for the character to realize where you want it to go. Sometimes it plays against you – the controls aren't precise, sometimes it feels like watching someone play without sound and you're just guessing what happens next. Plus the level themes are as basic as schoolwork: collect things, avoid obstacles, repeat.

Yet there's something to it. This game came from an era when indie games were whatever was left over from a floppy disk bundled with a computer magazine. Mr. Pibb has no sound worth mentioning, the graphics are primitive even for 1998, but somewhere in that mess is its own strange charm. Things you were supposed to avoid smoothly become part of the landscape; some levels are genuinely tough just because the design decided to be quirky for a bit.

Today it lasts as long as you're willing to invest. It plays like an old game – no mid-level saving, no creature comforts, no hint of friendliness. When it stops being fun, there are more levels you don't care about anymore. It's like playing a game just to get it over with, not because you're having fun.

Playing it in a browser only makes sense if you want to see what genuinely mediocre stuff looked like on the DOS scene. It's not bad, just boring – and boredom is the one thing a forty-something can't forgive.