The Present
Reconnect with Your Younger Self Through Journaling and Deep Play
The Present is a solo journaling experience designed to help you reconnect with your younger self with kindness, compassion, and awe.
With 32 prompts inspired by narrative, art, and play therapy, this guide invites you to dive into a written, drawn, and embodied exploration of your younger self's world. Reframe past experiences, offer the understanding and love you needed then, and reclaim your story with the wisdom you've gained.
Praise for The Present:
"The Present is a lovely solo game about supporting your younger self. The compassionate tone in which the text is written helps convey a sense of acceptance and security, which are pivotal when creating a game around such a theme. [...] The Present is a heart-warming game that absolutely nailed its execution."
— Marta "Minakie" Afonso, Designer of Hang In There, Little One
How It Works:
Your Journey, Your Pace: Before starting, take a moment to set boundaries with yourself and prepare any safety tools you might need. Suggestions are linked in the pdf.
Pass Notes Across Time: Imagine your younger self sitting next to you, excited to be heard but nervous to speak. You’ll draw out their thoughts with simple sketches using your non-dominant hand.
Revisit, Reframe, Reclaim: With each response, you’ll have the chance to offer encouragement, support, and perhaps even learn something new from the child you once were.
Inspirations and acknowledgements:
- Dr. Lucia Capacchione's Recovery of Your Inner Child informed the non-dominant hand drawing.
- This is a direct descendent of Marta “Minakie” Afonso’s Hang In There, Little One and 7skyes' The Plush Protector. If you enjoy this one, I suggest checking out the other two for slightly different mechanics and further reflection.
- All three games are variations of William Lentz’s Second Guess System.
- This game was made in the 2024 One-Page RPG Jam.
Jump In!
- I've love to bring The Present to more communities. If you’re a trauma-informed localization expert interested in sharing this experience, I’d love to collaborate.
- Have feedback? Please let me know!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Comments
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The Present is a wonderful and cathartic role-playing experience. The concept is brilliant for a solo play game, while the prompts cover a wide range of relatable childhood experiences that carry into adulthood. The aspect of sharing as the younger self through drawing with the non-dominant hand requires a lot of creativity. It also encourages going on instinct, being honest in the moment. From there, it is easy to get immersed in your past, and reflect on it in the present, and communicate to yourself.
While designed for solo play, the journaling experiences would be fascinating to share with other people.
As an artist, I already feel more introspective than the average person lol. However, I was really excited to make new discoveries and connections in my identity and life story.
thank you for sharing your experience with the game, Steven!
The Present is a lovely solo game about supporting your younger self. The compassionate tone in which the text is written helps convey a sense of acceptance and security, which are pivotal when creating a game around such theme. The younger self will express themselves through drawing their answers to prompts while their current self will write about it. This is absolutely brilliant because it not only allows for an interesting dynamic of back-and-forth communication between the two, but also alludes to the fact that kids often express in drawings or through play the things that they don't always know how to put into words. The fact the drawings are meant to be simple and made with the player's non-dominant hand, alludes to a time in our lives when things were simpler but also when we were still learning how to do things that now come so naturally to us. The drawings will be simple and probably wobbly, and that's okay. That in itself offers a valuable underlying lesson in self-acceptance: we were not always perfect then and we are not always perfect now... and that's more than okay. The fact that the player is answering to the drawings with their present-self knowledge allows them to provide their younger self insight and reassurance. The Present is a heart-warming game that absolutely nailed its execution.
thank you for this review and your support, Marta!