PLAYNE : The Meditation Game

I can see why this has so many positive reviews. If I had reviewed this in the first weeks I started using it, I would have given it a positive review as well. But 220 hours in and I've lost my streak for the second time. After the rage and frustration I now realize that i'm finally free of this stress-fest and couldn't be happier. At first the "game" seemed like an interesting and fun way to get into meditation. Although I did learn very quickly to ignore the whole "click the mouse button every time you have a thought" bit. This totally ruins the whole meditation. (I just had a thought. -click- Did thinking that I just had a thought count as a thought? -click- Should I have clicked for that? -click- I don't think this is any way to meditate. -click-) Otherwise, the "game" had me coming back everyday, improving, building my streak and earning some achievements in the process. Yay! I had built up a streak of 42 days when I had to take someone to the emergency room. During the long hours in the waiting room, I was able to do my daily meditation (twice even). But by the time I finally got home it was after 2 AM and too late to save my streak. That's when I found out there was no way to manually add in a meditation that you did to set things right. We're not in competition with anyone but ourselves, so this is a feature that I feel should not be missing. If anyone adds in meditation sessions that they didn't do, they're only cheating themselves, no one else. All the game said was, "Sorry! But don't feel bad. Just start again!" So I started again. Big mistake! The more I meditated, building my streak again, the more invested in the "game" I felt. Even though I would never miss a meditation session, whenever busy days or unexpected events kept me away from the computer I would become stressed about getting home in time to "record" it. Meanwhile I discovered that after finishing story mode, Fox had a very, VERY limited amount of things he wanted to tell you. And he would tell you these things over and over and over and over. When I finally couldn't take it anymore I went into settings and changed the frequency of this to "Never'. Didn't make any difference. After playing around with all the options, I found that no matter what you set it to, the setting makes no difference. Fox still keeps nagging you to tell you the same things over and over and over... Yesterday was a beautiful Summer day, and we went to the beach. Had a wonderful meditation session on the sand (up to 45 minutes now). But, like always, I couldn't stop thinking that I had to get home to "record" my session before it gets too late. Unfortunately, when we got home the power was out. It didn't come back on until well after 2 in the morning. There went my streak for the second time. 309 days this time. "Don't feel bad. Just start again." #@*&%!!! But after the anger and disappointment, I suddenly realized I was free. What had started out as a means of reducing stress, had become a huge source of stress in my life. Start again? A "game" that didn't trust me enough to honestly set my own streak right? Yeah, right! I've since found a mobile app called "Insight Timer". Although you can pay for a pro version, I use the free version which has everything this "game" has and so much more. (Including the ability to fix your streak when "life happens".) I couldn't be happier with it. Also, I'd just like to add that what's helped me more than anything else with my meditation progress is a wonderful book I found called "The Mind Illuminated" by John Yates, PhD. (Culadasa). Anyone interested in "A Complete Meditation Guide"should definitely check it out. I hope this has in some way been helpful to you!

Some days ago, I searched for "Meditation" in Steam’s search bar. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything like what I had in mind, but then I discovered Playne. Wow—what a wonderful game. At first, I was about to challenge anyone to find a negative review for this game, but then I stumbled upon stormcat215’s review. And actually, he’s right. The game works perfectly and does almost everything it promises, but unfortunately there’s no way to manually add a meditation. This means you can lose your streak if you can’t be in front of your screen for a day, which can be very frustrating. Now, the game does give you the option to remove the streak counter and play in a mode where the campfire grows slower and never goes out. In streak mode, the fire grows faster, but if you miss even one day it turns off. So the frustration of losing a streak can actually be avoided—you can either ignore it, or just keep it as a way to see how many days in a row you’ve meditated in game, instead of “living for the streak.” There’s another thing I don’t like: once a meditation has started, it can’t be cancelled. If you quit early—even after just 10 seconds—the game still counts it as a completed session and records it as your “last session.” Ten seconds is not a meditation, especially if I stopped just to change a setting. He is also right about the “click the mouse button every time you have a thought.” That feels silly and distracting. And just like with the session time, once something is logged you can’t remove it. I ignored that function from the beginning, but I still have one single thought logged. And guess why? Because I misclicked once! That’s it—and yet it stays there forever, which is really annoying. Overall, this is a very beautiful game, unique on Steam, and almost perfect. Here we’re just nitpicking because it deals with meditation—a topic where everything around you, distractions, and frustration must be flawless. Even the fact that I was able to list literally all the problems of this game in a single Steam review shows how close to perfection it is, since these issues are far fewer than what anyone would find even in the most played and highly acclaimed games in the world. Despite this, which is nothing compared to the immense number of positive aspects I could list, the game is truly worth it. If you can ignore these minor details, I highly recommend it. Just having your own mind as the protagonist, combined with incredible sounds, atmosphere, long-term unlockable goals and functions, is truly spectacular and one-of-a-kind. Honestly, I would pay 30+ euros for it… if I had them XD.

i already was intermediate at meditating going into this game, but something about setting a time limit to your meditation disturbs the peace for me, im just waiting for the timer to run out instead of just meditating, i wish it had a setting where it would just silently record your time and you could stop anytime youre ready, i would come back to this game for the meditation tips but thats all

Lost my streak for the second time. Not because I failed, but because the game simply didn't save my last one. It happened twice. First I was puzzled and I thought maybe I misremembered, but it happened again today and I'm absolutely sure this time.

PLAYNE really shows the limitations of gamify-ing meditation; you can't, really. Which is why this is not a game, but instead provides an environment to meditate in. I appreciated it for that, which is why I recommend it - but most of this review is gripes, hah. For starters, I didn't vibe with the mercilessness of the achievements. It's all about daily streaks, tied to real time, and if you miss one you start over. It was a lot to ask me to sit down at my gaming PC every day but I did make it one month before recognizing it as a chore; I think having a steamdeck would have made the experience more enjoyable to me. Outside of meditation, the fox tells you the same half a dozen sentences, over and over. The environment changes so slowly you can blink and miss it. And the story parts... I did not understand. There's no story, really, but sometimes the fox has a philosophical anecdote to share. As stories, these were incredibly unsatisfying! At least there's not a whole bunch of that. Just a story, now and then, that comes out of nowhere, connects to nothing, and then disappears like smoke into the sky. Don't get PLAYNE to play. Get it as a companion to help you get into daily meditation.

Incredibly relaxing and super helpful when you're trying to get into meditations.

Meditation is hard for most of us. This game gives us a way and a reason, to grow trees, and to grow yourself. Thank you Krish. ~Ram Ram

Its not really a game but try to be a game that teaches you meditation. In the end with all the achievements and that it Fail at both things. Its fails as a game since its not an engaging game and it becomes boring and annoying. And it fails as a Meditation helper because the achievements are counter productive. Specially the Consecutive strike days, its force an habit without being realistic.

Oh boy this game pisses me off. I don't want to read all the basics of meditation practice fox wants to tell me about. "Just breathe." "Be aware you are breathing..." Just know everything is meditation. Waste time in this game... you have to come back 3 more days to earn anything. You can't walk around. Stuck on a marshy wet lands that gaslights you to admit you know you are on an ocean that you can not witness. You might say that I should dedicate wasting my time by meditating to a bunch of pixels, but I am already a grand master meditator irl. I can't sit in front of a screen and accept it as irl, when I have so much real life in real life already. Sure. You guys should learn to meditate the way this game wants to teach you to meditate, especially if you need help learning. But I'm going to meditate how I meditate best, outside of this game. This game would be for someone on a big screen tv while they did yoga right in front of it. But I do not want to meditate on faked real world surroundings. Give me clouds. Give me multi-dimensional spacial-shifting planes. "No Man's Sky" is so much more amazing to meditate within! And I mean that!

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