Image via Complex Original
When you think about the kind of game you'll boot up after a stressful day at work or a long weekend with no plans, we're willing to bet trucking simulators and checking passports at a country's border aren't high on your list.
Still, you'd be surprised at how fun these sorts of games can actually be. Don't knock it until you've tried it, especially when it comes to some of the year's hottest releases. It's tough sometimes to rationalize how putting caps on pens or simulating a retail job in a video game could possibly be fun, so for some of these you just have to take the plunge and try them yourself. These games may seem droll and uninteresting in various ways, but if you give them a chance you'll soon be sucked into their weird and wonderful worlds.
Here are ten seemingly boring games that you'll end up becoming addicted to. Don't blame us for any loss of work or sleep these games may cause.
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10. Surgeon Simulator 2013
Platform: PC
Release Date: 4/19/2013
Price: $9.99
This isn't your mama's surgeon simulation game. Similar to QWOP, you perform surgeries while controlling the hand, wrist, and fingers all independently of each other. Heart transplants, kidney surgery, you name it -- it's all in here. You can even play as the Heavy, which should thrill Team Fortress fans. Surgery doesn't seem all that exciting (unless you're playing Trauma Center), but Surgeon Simulator 2013 turns it into a hilarious spectacle.
9. Euro Truck Simulator
Platform: PC
Release Date: 3/8/2013
Price: $8.99
If you have childhood dreams of being a truck driver, have we got a treat for you: Euro Truck Simulator. Drive around Europe in big rigs, making sure to keep refueled, ready for surprise inspections, and more. Yes, that's right -- this is a realistic trucking simulator. It looks hokey and silly, but don't be surprised if you start taking it as seriously as a heart attack. European truckers go hard. And just look at the scenery.
8. QWOP
Platform: PC
Release Date: 11/15/2008
Price: Free
QWOP asks you to control an uncoordinated Olympic runner and get him to the end of the 100-meter sprint event. The only problem is, you're controlling the runner's thighs and calves independently of each other using the Q, W, O, and P keys. It may sound simple, and you may get the hang of it fairly easily, but don't go thinking that you're going to master it within minutes. Maybe you'll run a few feet. Maybe you'll finish the race. Whatever the case, you won't be able to forget QWOP.
7. Cookie Clicker
Platform: PC
Release Date: 6/9/2013
Price: Free
Your job is to click on an image of a cookie. Over and over. Keep clicking. Click some more. That's basically the jest of Cookie Clicker, except there are so many milestones, achievements, and augments to work toward. All you need to keep doing is click. While this sounds as much fun as watching paint dry, there's something oddly hypnotic about tapping that mouse button as rapidly as you can. Before you know it, you'll be cranking out cookies left and right.
6. Game Dev Story
Platform: iOS/Android
Release Date: 10/9/2010
Price: $0.99
Developing video games is a tedious process, though it's undoubtedly a ton of fun with a diverse team and a goal in mind. But would you want to play a game about it? Of course you would, when Kairosoft has their hand in it. The addictive pocket sim finds you making hit titles, developing consoles, and amassing a fanbase as you create your own video game studio. You even succumb to reviews, hype, and fan opinion. All this in an adorable sprite-based atmosphere. Even training your staff is fun. Don't believe us? Drop a buck on it and we'll talk to you in a couple hours.
5. Work Time Fun
Platform: PSP
Release Date: 10/23/2006
Price: $14.99
Sorting chickens, chopping wood, putting caps on pens...it doesn't all sound very engaging, now does it? But just think of the loot you're making while performing those low-wage jobs. Not much. But at least you've got all those little baubles to unlock when it's payday! Work Time Fun is a bizarre collection of minigames that seem much more like work (as the title suggests) than anything you'd actually want to play, but it's got a strange allure that keeps you plugging on, even when you have that 3 PM tiredness creeping in like at the office in real life.
4. Depression Quest
Platform: PC
Release Date: 1/22/2013
Price: Pay what you want/Free
This impressive bit of interactive fiction may sound droll, but it's actually an educational work about understanding and living with depression. Over 150 encounters with audio and visual distortions simulate the effect of the sickness, and you decide how you should proceed. You can purchase the game or play online for free, and while you may think it impossible to properly capture the effects of something so debilitating as depression, you'll think twice after "playing" this for a little while. Not only is it not "boring," but it's a great teaching tool.
3. I Get This Call Every Day
Platform: PC
Release Date: 1/22/2013
Price: $2
For anyone who's ever worked at a call center, the asinine and infuriating customers of IGTCED will undoubtedly strike a chord in players. Choose your speech options wisely so as not to offend! Answer the same stupid questions five times in a row, slightly altering your verbiage, then repeat yourself some more! Make the smallest mistake and get fired! If that sounds about right to you, you'll get a chuckle or two out of this call center simulation. There are no repercussions to being fired in-game (except of course that it's a game over), but the game's creator actually found himself out of a job after creating this sardonic jab at the soul-sucking career.
2. Cart Life
Platform: PC
Release Date: 3/18/2013
Price: $4.99
Cart Life is a retail simulator that follows the lives of street vendors working to make a living. You need to keep track of permits, customer likes and dislikes, and what your clientele is in the market for. You'll fulfill requests in a timely fashion, all while taking care of yourself and your various addictions. It may hit too close to home for some players, but it's a rich and engaging sim that highlights the highs and lows of working in retail, trying to make a living. Boring? This is someone's life right now.
1. Papers, Please
Platform: PC
Release Date: 8/8/2013
Price: $14.99
Acting as a border agent at the fictional country of Arstotzka, it's your job to collect and examine passports, entry tickets, permits, work visas, and more all from those wishing to pass through into the country. While you work hard matching portraits, names, expiration dates, and other important details, you're making a meager salary on which you'll need to support your family. Sending through clients without proper documentation will land you without rent money -- or worse, a sick family. Its bizarre circumstances, unsettling atmosphere, and zany patrons will keep you coming back time and time again. Cause no trouble.