Gacha Gotcha- A Poem on Gacha Games and Identity

Written by: Asish Sridhar

Edited by: Bipasha

Illustrated by: Spoorti Gowda

__________________________________________________________________________________

Clarity when thoughts are muddled,

A breath of air when in struggle,

A way to nurture imaginations,

A way to vent out frustrations.

Another World to explore, another person to become

-the excitement, the anticipation and the fun.

A new mask to wear that you carefully decorate,

No need for the dress to be appropriate.

New tricks of the trade regarding new systems

New ways to play with new mechanisms.

Escape when unsafe, 

The thrill of risk, when wearing the cape-

A chance to live and many chances to die.

Resistance drops as you are free to fail and retry.

King of the world and a pawn to the game,

Freedom to make your own choices and yet a slave to the meta,

As you embark on the endless grind to become better.

A new world, all too different, but still the same.

A trade for burdens of expectations is the feeling of missing out.

God-given, fate-driven, gambling for a chance.

The pressure vanishes for a bit, 

Before it comes back with an even harder hit.

Getting deeper into the world, finding your own way- exclusive-

As you escape from the restrictions of your world, reclusive.

Characters to rejoice, your identities shared,

A sense of bonding, a feeling of care.

Shared triumphs and defeats.

For the possibilities, you spend,

Praying for meaning but no returns, 

Your gut unlucky-hollow, a desperate feeling.

Sacrificing bites for bytes just for a bit of that feeling.

You got lucky, probably.

Your favourite character may come home,

But the house always wins.