Practicing mindfulness is often an intimidating prospect. You’re tasked with being still, noticing things inside and outside of your body, and most challenging of all, not really thinking about anything. But what if you could practice that skill while also playing a little 15-minute solo board game? That’s what A Gentle Rain offers.
Designed by Kevin Wilson (Arkham Horror, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, the Kinfire Chronicles series) and currently published by Incredible Dream Studios, A Gentle Rain is a tableau-building game where one or more players pull random squares and place them on the table, with the ultimate goal of growing lotus blossoms. Each square has four half-flowers, which you must match up with half-flowers of the same color that are already on the board. A yellow half-flower links up with another yellow half-flower, for instance, to make one full flower. If you match four tiles up in a square, you’ll reveal a circular pocket that perfectly fits one of eight plastic lotus blossoms.
Technically, A Gentle Rain can be scored. But I don’t care about that. Instead, even after several rounds of the game solo and with friends, I care most about blossoming all eight lotuses in one game, which I’ve only accomplished once so far. And as I mentioned, it really functions as a way to practice mindfulness: You must take the time to notice each color on the square you pull, then take note of each square on the board. It is impossible to make the game go faster, because there are no extra steps. Instead, you just have to sit there, breathe, feel the soft matte square in your hand, and maybe turn it a few times to think about where it’ll fit. And look at that — suddenly you’re sitting still, noticing sensations, and not really thinking about anything.
I picked up A Gentle Rain during a week where I really needed it. My family was dealing with something terrible, the last dregs of my winter depression were rearing their head, and the news was unavoidable and filled with atrocities. I didn’t want to avoid those things completely by immersing myself in some fantastical world or complicated game, but I didn’t want to face them head-on, either. After a few rounds of A Gentle Rain, I genuinely felt calmer, and I spent the next few days playing a round before work, after dinner, or before heading to bed.
Is the game making me meditate? Not quite. But it is doing a great job of reminding my body what it feels like to slow down, look inward, and spend some time just being. Pretty good for a $20 board game you can grab at Target, right?
