Frank

Sometimes it’s the simplest presentations that provide some of the most interesting and impactful messages with this project, which is why this particular entry is impressive to me. It consists only of two shapes, one solid circle you control and an ever-expanding outline circle, and with a simple mechanic of getting out of the outlined circle there’s a message sent about getting out of something that restricts you and expanding your horizons.

Travel has been an ongoing topic in the series lately, and this entry adds to it by providing a simple game wherein the object is to board the train headed for another destination. While the presentation was simple, the message being sent at least from my perspective was much more complex, and there was a lot about it that struck me as part of the message. The action of boarding the train was only one part of how this entry decided to communicate its message

I’d probably never really do terribly well in the wild without much equipment or gear. I’ve always known in my heart that I was very much a city life person, so anything having to do with roughing it or camping out in nature hasn’t always been my bag. There isn’t anything wrong with those that do, but in this case this is just a realization of my own limitations when it comes to my skillset.

There’s a curious kind of ebb and flow when it comes to the pain we feel over losing someone precious to us when it is still fresh in our minds – fresh being the first few years or so. We feel that pain keenly and sharply when it first occurs, let it ebb a bit as we eventually get on with our lives, and then feel it distinctly again when the anniversary of that loss passes by us again. During this time, I’ve found that people tend to attach a bit of ritual to the process of remembering this lost person, whether it’s a visit somewhere, an activity once shared, or in the case of the developer, a changing of flowers.

There are a couple different ways to live life, whether that is isolated or with others, guarded or open, optimistic or pessimistic, and many more. But regardless of the life choices we make, there are always times in our lives when we are presented with a decision about whether or not we need to reach outside of our comfort zone to do that living. These decisions are given to us  at different points, and sometimes, can dictate the direction that our lives can go.

Not every romance can really end or be as predictable as cinema, books, or other such fictional media makes them out to be. There’s always a sense of predetermined circumstance or fate that allows the couple to get together in the end, even despite the roadblocks and inevitable misunderstandings that accompany that tentative sense of chemistry and spark that exists between them. While there are times when that selfsame couple maybe doesn’t end up together, for the most part, you can predict a couple on the silver screen from a mile away.

There’s been a few entries about new homes, moving into new homes, and journeying into a new place, but none until now that have addressed being in that home and spending your first night there with someone you’ve moved into. There’s a sense of beginning, a kind of simplicity to being in a place that is newly yours, and at the same time enjoying company with the person or persons that you’ll be living with that feels like a milestone, that feels significant.

To-do lists, especially long ones, are sometimes mountains to climb, long and arduous paths to travel, or in the case of this entry in the project, a long tunnel, with a constant obstacles needing to be hurdled in order to proceed along. These are appropriate comparisons, because sometimes, as it is with most busy people, the list can go onward and upward, down and away, out of sight ahead of you with seemingly no end in sight. At times it can seem downright intimidating.

The path to life, from beginning all the way to the end, is often seen and visualized as what is in front of you, a place where you are walking straight ahead of you on a road, making choices that fork your path and put you on the way to your goals, aspirations, and other stops on the long journey, every day, one step at a time. But more uncommon is looking back and seeing the mark that your path leaves on that same journey, to see where you’ve come from.

There’ve been a few Meditation Games entries that have zeroed in on the fact that pets are family, and are to be treated as such, but few of them handle the end of a pet’s life with such simple peace and grace. When the end is near for a pet, owners sense it. They know in their bones, in their heart that their long-time companion is on their final legs, and as they tend to try to cope with it, many owners have different types of reactions, though most if not all of them suffer emotionally with the prospect of it being the end. This is especially true if the pet has been around through different phases and parts of an owner’s life, and that both of them have grown up together because of it.