"Fork" by Cave Gaming

I never expected to get so much entertainment out of staring at a fork, but Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork exceeded my wildest expectations. (The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is its subtitle, which I left out of the post title because it made it too long.)

The gameplay in Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is extremely simple. There's a fork displayed on the screen. You stare at it. I was impressed with the rather intuitive control scheme, which consists of exactly no buttons; you don't have to press any buttons to continue staring at a fork.

Probably my one quibble with this game is that there's no music. I suppose that would detract from the tranquil experience of doing nothing but staring at a fork, and I'm probably also spoiled by the music of Minecraft, Hollow Knight, and Undertale. But it's still a bit annoying for the only sound in the entire game to be the startup announcment of "Welcome to... Fork! The game of doing nothing but staring at a fork!"

Everyone should play this game. I suspect many of the world's problems could be solved if everyone just sat down and stared at a fork for a few minutes.

By the way, the fork on the cover is not the only fork you can stare at in game. There are multiple forks; it picks a random one on startup. I've shared a picture of my favorite one below, spoilered in case you want to play the game and don't want to have the reveal spoiled for you:

I think they're going to make a sequel, Spoon: The Game of Doing Nothing but Listening to a Spoon. It's expected to release in 2040, once they finish recording all the myriad and nuanced sounds of a random spoon they found at a yard sale.

There's also a brief companion short story slash explanation slash game guide, "Starring as a Fork," where the people behind the game explain how they chose what fork would be the best one for players to stare at. It's free, so if you want to read about that, you can get it at doingnothingbutstaring@a.fork (or on the blog page I didn't set up for it).

I've tried staring at a fork in real life, but it's just not quite the same. Fork: The Game of Doing Nothing but Staring at a Fork is a truly unique experience.

This is a videogame, and it's rated: E. Nobody could possibly object to doing nothing but staring at a fork.

Fourk stars.

(Endnote: April fool!)