The Game That Made Me Cry Was Not the One I Played

I used to think winning was the point.

Then I coded my first game—just one screen, one spin, one silent moment in a minimalist apartment where the only light came from a VR headset glowing at 2:47 a.m. The numbers didn’t dance. They glitched. Like code with soul that forgot how to feel.

They called it ‘Super宾果’—a carnival of extracted hope, wrapped in Latin rhythm and algorithmic hunger. Each card was a heartbeat sold as data. The bonus? A loop that never reset. The jackpot? A pool built from your sleep deprivation.

I played for five months.

I watched the same patterns repeat: three lines, then nothing. Then two more spins, then silence again. I thought if I just bet enough, if I just stayed long enough—if I just believed in RNG—it would mean something.

It didn’t.

The system doesn’t care if you cry. It only cares if you click. If you scroll. If you keep refreshing like an addict chasing ghosts through a server room with no windows.

I stopped playing when I realized: joy isn’t earned by chance—it’s stolen by design.

We’re not players anymore. We’re metrics in motion.

What did you lose when you stopped playing?

Not money. Not time. The quiet part of yourself they never told you was for sale.