Dear Poppy
A downloadable game
“You loved someone, and then one day they changed."
Dear Poppy is a solo journaling game about tending to someone you love after they've transformed into a small cluster of small seeds. The game walks you through a resonant, emotional journey as you accept their new form and plant them. Write your reflections once a week over the period of at least seven weeks and caring for your loved one as they germinate and grow into a beautiful, tender seedling.
As of November 25th, 2021, all net earnings from this game will be donated to support indigenous organizers in the United States. If you're interested in supporting Water Protectors and other advocate of indigenous rights, I recommend this thread as a starting point.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Exclusive content
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Community Copies of Dear Poppy
If you cannot afford Dear Poppy at the listed price, you can claim a community copy, no questions asked. Community copies are refreshed every quarter, depending on the number of sales over the previous quarter.
Comments
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I am not quite ready yet with my grief, but this concept sounds like a nice warm blanket one might need to tackle the hardship before them. I'll be sure to circle back to play this once I am ready, the soft colours and the layout of what is shown is already quite soothing. <3
Dear Poppy is a solo journaling game about discovering that someone you care for has turned into seeds.
The PDF is 29 pages, with an easy to read layout that puts a lot of focus on negative space. This will probably be the most abstract thing I ever say about a layout, but you can feel the emptiness of each page, and that's a good thing.
To play, you remember how your loved one used to be before they turned into seeds, and then you plant them and care for them.
The game isn't direct about whether this is a metaphor for death or change or any number of other possibilities that could fit with the framing and material. But it is a potent reminder that the people we know are sometimes transformed---maybe not necessarily into a handful of poppy seeds, but no less suddenly and irreversibly altered---and that the thing we can do when that happens is to care for them and care for ourselves.
I do recommend having some safety tools on deck for this, even though it's solo. If you play with high bleed and something happens to the plant you've been associating with someone you care deeply about, that's probably not going to feel great. However, I think the game also works perfectly well just as text. It doesn't hit any less hard if you don't have the time or space to do a little bit of gardening.
Overall, if you like self-reflection, as well as games about grief and change and comfort, I'd strongly recommend picking this up.