I am already exhausted by the news cycle from the previous week. Potential overturning of abortion rights. Legitimate threats to privacy rights and same-sex marriage on the horizon. This week has been a lot for me mentally and emotionally. I was straight-up infuriated for about four days.

I’m still angry, and I’m not letting go of that. I’m just trying to step back and evaluate what exactly I can do with this anger, aside rom throwing money at a political super-pac that might not get anything done.

In any case, I downloaded a new mobile game this week, and that has largely been keeping me sane.

Distracted in Designer City

I don’t play a lot of mobile games, aside from Pokemon Go while I walk my dog, but this past week I needed something to occupy my mind.

I looked at the mobile Sim City, but I didn’t want to download an EA game, under the assumption that I would have to suffer through endless ads or pay for in-game upgrades to really enjoy it, which I don’t do as a general rule.

Then I came upon Designer City, which was incredibly highly rated on Google Play. I downloaded it, played through a brief tutorial in which a small town was already built for me, and have since expanded this small town into a bustling cosmopolis.

Am I going to tell you about it? You bet I am. My city includes:

• a central downtown that probably needs more love
• a lakeside resort/campground at the western edge
• an area of mixed agriculture, industrial, and residential use along the southwest
• a posh urbanized neighborhood on the south end with tons of parks and a monorail station
• a quaint suburb in the southeast
• a nascent but expanding NEW downtown area with high-rise residences, museums, theaters, and other communal affects
• and a more commercial-industrial northern end
• a monorail connecting all of these neighborhoods
• Oh, and I’ve expanded my land ownership halfway across the map to build a commercial port, some industrial buildings, and a railway connecting it to the city

I will definitely be adding a medieval castle district and a creepy haunted house-type district, because this game has those types of structures.

I might be addicted to this game, but it’s easy to play, completely unintrusive in terms of ads or asking you to spend real money, and can be creatively engaging if you allow it.

So what started as a political rant ended up as a positive review for Designer City. I’m going to call it a day.

Steve D