I first heard about the Dutch independent game development studio Vlambeer through their shoot 'em up indie game Super Crate Box. The gameplay was incredibly fast and the goal to survive despite ruthless difficulty catered to my competitive sensibilities. Since then, Rami Ismail has been on my short list of indie developers that make games I like. Ridiculous Fishing was another indie hit thats simplistic concept and over-the-top presentation made it easy to pick up and hard to put down.  I enjoy Vlambeer games because many of them include feedback loops and twitch gameplay -- a return to the days of arcade shooters and fast reactions.

Something different

But now, Ismail, one of the two key founders of Vlambeer is doing something completely different. Starting January first in 2019, the Meditations Launcher (available for download Windows 7+ and OSX 10.12+) became available to the public. The launcher promises to showcase a new game every day throughout the entireity of 2019.

These games are small in scope and simple in design; traits that Ismail enjoyed in a puzzle game, TEMPRES, that he discovered in 2017. Inspired by the minimalism and cleverness on display in TEMPRES, Ismail brought together a team of 350+ creatives to create more simple games. The team curated so many simple games, they eventually had enough for each day of the year.

"Meditations is the collection of games that followed from this project. Each project is different - some are very short, some are more complicated. Some meditations are light and curious. Other meditations might be sad or difficult, curious or introspective, personal or playful. Each day will allow you to explore another creators' work and thoughts."

- Excerpt from the Meditations website's "why" page 

Unlike modern games that wish to take up as much of a gamers time as possible, Meditations is only looking for around 5 minutes of your time each day. Meditative in nature, the launcher reminds me of the "slow food" movement that aims to change consumers perceptions about cooking and cultures growing dependency on fast, immediate culinary experiences.

Perhaps Ismail and his team see value in a slower, more thoughtful gaming experience.

My Meditation

Naturally, wanted to load up the Meditations launcher and see what type of games users can expect. One of the most fascinating aspects of the launcher is each game's availability -- only 24 hours and then the game becomes unavailable until next year. The January 1st launch game was TEMPRES and, as I booted up the game, I quickly felt the appeal of the simple puzzle genre. 

I was given no directions, no rules, and no guidance. I just clicked around until I felt I sensed a patterned. 

Nope, my guess was wrong. Back to the drawing board.

I guess Ismail is more clever than I am because it took me longer than 5 minutes to make any sort of progress in TEMPRES. Eventually, I managed to solve the puzzle and, I think I finished the game? I made it to this screen and figured it was over.

My first experience with Meditations was brief, puzzling and at times vexing. However, I felt a wave of satisfaction once I solved a bit of the puzzle and I can envision a world where I load the Meditation launcher as part of my daily PC boot-up routine. If not for the novelty of seeing what new game awaits me, but for the small mental warm-up before hours of e-mail answering.

Meditations aims to deliver a collection of 365 games in a way most gamers haven't experienced. If you are as intrigued as I am, check out their webpage here for download links and more information.