You're bored, browsing the app store on your new fancy phone, desperately looking for something to kill the time. Snapchat's great, but when your crush opens your bland "strk" snap without even replying, you realise the only apps you need are mobile games. But were you ready to be so sucked in you can't get out?

Denial: The first step in your road of long suffering began when you found that little cute/cool icon on the top games list. You read the description and you see it's free, but then the fineprint says "free to play, however microtransactions exist". You brush it off thinking, "Pssh, who pays to play a mobile game?" It's free, you'll just play to kill time. You won't be one of those types.

Anger: PvP really sucks when you're a noob with the default character and items facing off against some veteran who's probably invested several months and some goat sacrifices into this. Maybe you just wanted that cute skin for your character, it couldn't hurt to spend some money on it right? Or that unit who's hard to unlock without some $peeding up? But you have self control, all till the frustration kicks in. "THAT'S IT, I'M GETTING ME WALLET!" you say.

Bargaining: It's been a few days/weeks now. You're making good progress; you're happy. But you want more out of the game. xx_XXSLayR569's on your friendlist and he's better than you in two days without using microtransactions. You start to question why your units aren't good enough despite being the ultra rare limited event bonus purchase. Or why you're missing every cat type despite having paid for them once, but hey, wait new skin just released, but it's premium! Time to break out the wallet!

You need to pay more and pray more to RNGesus.

If your friends had to call an intervention on you for being wallet happy for your in-game waifu, but not treating them, you have a problem. "DON'T TAKE AWAY MY ALLOWANCE PLEASE" you beg your mom after your friends tell her you're in too deep.

Depression: It's over. You've spent so much there's a burning hole in your wallet, and a bigger hole in your heart. But you're still not good enough, or you just haven't collected enough. You know playing the game makes you sadder, but you're more depressed not playing it.  The withdrawal from not playing is real, but you're not an addict you still protest.

Now you just have to figure out whether the tissues will be used to wipe the tears from your eyes or your phone screen, so you can see better.

Acceptance: At this point in time, you've finally come to recognise you are an addict. Free-2-play became Pay-2-play, and while you're disgusted at becoming the same kind of people you said you wouldn't be, you've come to accept it. I mean, look at your No. 1 status among your friend list in the game, everyone wants a piece of your rare goodies because they're scrubs who can't pay to win. Hope you're happy with yourself and your premium paid-for pixels.

Nuhan B. Abid is someone who actually thinks puns and sarcasm are top class forms of humour. Tell him that "sar-chasm" is TOTALLY the best thing ever at nuhanbabid@hotmail.com