Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10502460-20180123073024

This was inspired pretty much entirely by this story by Slimebeast, which I misguessed the twist for and pretty much wrote this based on what I thought the twist was going to be.

Note: I'm aware that I tense-jump a lot in this story when describing events in the game, but I'm not sure if using a single tense would be fitting.

There was an interesting PC game from an indie developer I played about ten years ago. The game was titled “Meditation” and it was a weird combination of a dating sim with some RPG elements thrown in.

You lived as a male protagonist of 16 years on a secluded farm/ranch (I’m fuzzy on the details) working for an old farmer. I think the premise is that your character was ordered by a youth court to work there for a year under some corrective apprenticeship type deal due to being caught stealing or something. I think the game was set in an era a few decades ago where that would have made some greater kind of sense. I do remember that your character is an orphan who has lived under several sets of foster parents and that your last foster parents basically abandoned you.

When you arrive at the farm, the old farmer is a very harsh master. He makes your character do hard labor on the farm, and does sometimes administer physical discipline. However, as time goes on, your character begins to bond with him. He begins to see you as a sort of adopted grandson, though the relationship is still very tense.

The strangest thing I remember about the game was that it had a leveling system, which I found very odd given that the game rarely had your character leave the farm, only sometimes going into “town” to buy supplies for the farmer.. You started out at Level 0, and the goal was to get to Level 10. What’s more, the leveling was based on an RPG-like skill system with sub-levels for each skill. I don’t remember the fine details of how it all worked, but there was a skill for speech/charisma, as well as skills for things like hunting, fishing, equestrianism, and skills related to repair and upkeep of the farm.

It all went into some kind of point-accumulation system, but in order to level you also had perform specific actions along the way. You would be presented with a problem or situation, and correctly guessing and performing the best resolution would either progress you to the next level or unlock the next level if you didn’t have enough points to level up yet.

Example: One scenario involves the farm dog getting caught in a fence and you have to select, without being prompted, clippers out of your inventory (yes, you have an RPG-style inventory as well) to free him. That was a simple one, early on in the game at like Level 2 or something, but these events would get more difficult to figure out each time. There’s one fairly complicated one involving saving the old farmer from drowning. You’re out on “the lake” fishing with him, and he falls from the boat. At first you try “activating” him in order to grab his outstretched hand, but he is too heavy. Neither of you have life-preservers, so you can try throwing him something else to use as a floatation device, but that doesn’t work out either for reasons I don’t recall. The correct resolution is to throw him a rope and pull him to shore by starting the boat back up.

I don’t think there was an actual time limit for this task, but once completed the farmer thanks you and praises your tenacity, saying he would have drowned after a few more moments since he can’t swim well.

There is another game mechanic I haven’t mentioned yet. Your character keeps a journal, and you can open it to read his reflections on various events and accomplishments throughout the game. After you save the farmer at the lake, I think the journal entry was something like “I think Mr. Greene is finally starting to like me. I save his life today, and since then he seems to respect and trust me more.” The journal also mentioned how the protagonist was thinking about applying to the state for legal emancipation once his disposition on the farm was completed.

At some point during the game, the farmer becomes sick. He depends on your character more than ever. You basically are in charge of the farm for a few weeks, even taking care of some business with the outside world. The farmer is only approaching 70, but he worries that he may not recover from this illness, and instructs your character to make preparations for the estate in case he passes. He only has one heir, a granddaughter, who he says would not be able to take care of the farm by herself.

A couple weeks later, the granddaughter came to the farm to help take care of the farmer. The granddaughter is about a year older than your character and as you can probably guess, she and your character spend more and more time together and become more and more mutually attracted.

Flirting and conversing with the farmer’s granddaughter awarded points for your charisma skill. Eventually, having your first kiss with her got you to Level 7.

Under your leadership, the farm begins to turn around. When you arrived, the place was in disrepair and debt, but making the right decisions causes it to look better and turn a profit.

After a couple more weeks, the farmer recovers, and things become more glum. He tries to keep your character and his granddaughter from seeing each other, clearly jealous and protective of her. Still, you sometimes have moments with her in secret.

At Level 8, there is a non-graphic sex scene between your character and her. Completion of this scene is followed by progression to Level 9.

The farmer finds out somehow, and...beats her. There is a cutscene where you can hear her cries and him yelling from behind a closed door.

From then on, your character and the farmer rarely exchange words, and you no longer earn points for level progression. According to the menu, Level 10 is unlocked and all you have to do is complete one more challenge event.

I remember the last few minutes of the game more clearly than any other part of it. The player character was taking a walk and heard the farmer calling for help. He found the farmer at the dock on the lake, clutching a mooring line, having fallen into the water.

I tried activating the rope to pull him in. Nothing happened. I looked through my inventory and couldn’t think of anything that would help.

Then something clicked. I noticed how the developers seemed to have gone out of their way make the rope look noticeably old and frayed. I remembered how the farmer had said how he couldn’t swim. I reflected on how the game went out of its way to give you intimate insight into the workings of the farm, and how it rarely got any visitors. I remembered how, despite the subpar animation and not-all-that-well-written script, the game had managed to make the moments with the farmer’s granddaughter feel genuinely intimate. I remembered how the farmer had said the house would have to be put up for sale if he died since she couldn’t manage it by herself.

I realized that the developers were trying to have some kind of psychological or moral impact with this game. I didn’t really care too much about what that point was, but I knew then what resolution the player was supposed to reach for this challenge.

There was no cutscene or followup for this moment. The protagonist’s action wasn’t shown, and there was no animation of the result. Instead, the game ended as soon as I selected “pocket knife” from my inventory. The screen just faded to black and then there was a white text message saying “You have reached Level 10. Thank you for playing Meditation”, followed by the short credits. 