Skyrates

Since I should be studying for my exam, I have instead decided to update my blog with a small procrastination tip.  Med school is intense.  That's not news, but I'm just reiterating, it's tough.  There are days when large amount of free time are hard to come by.  As you might imagine, this can seriously cut into the usual time-wasting activities that involve an internet connection.  Especially that most addictive of time-wasting activities: the online game.

Starting a game with any sort of complexity beyond the level of solitaire is dangerous.  If it's story-based, you have to know what happens next.  If there are levels, you must defeat them all before you go to sleep.  If there's a timer, you always have to play just one more time to see if you can beat your best score.  How, you ask, can a medical student possibly play an engaging online game and still pass anatomy?  Skyrates.

Skyrates is a exercise in sporadic gameplay created by a group of Carnegie Mellon grad students.  You create a character and fly a plane between "skylands," trading goods and doing favors to make money.  Along the way, you run into pirates to fight.  And it all takes place in real time.  As in, it may take at least an hour (or even day) to reach a certain skyland.  You spend a few minutes deciding what to buy and where to go, and then you wait for your character to fly there.  You can't spend hours at a time playing this game, because it won't let you.  You have to wait for your plane to get to wherever it's going.

I started playing over the summer, and my playing time has stayed pretty much the same through my first month of med school.  Definitely worth checking out if your real life prevents you from giving too much time to your virtual one.