Plant trees in minutes in relaxing free gardening game Meditation Forest

(Image credit: Tom Sykes)

I was a little startled when the otherwise relaxing Meditation Forest suddenly began to fade out, and then to shut down, as I don't find time limits to be all that calming. Still, nothing lasts forever, and you should definitely play around with this tactile forestation game while it lets you.

It begins in an empty stretch of dirt. Well, it's empty aside from a bush, an elephantine watering can, and a chunky seed. Plant the seed (using the wonderfully swishy mouse controls), feed it a bit of water and it will soon grow into a tree shrub—you know, one of those shrubs with legs, and a mouth. Before long you'll have a lovely multicoloured forest before you, as the baby trees set down their roots and grow, in a matter of minutes. The type of tree depends on the fruit you feed to it when it's a toddler—I was enjoying figuring out the ins and outs before it quit on me.

This is a small game, however. An experience made for the Meditations project that gives you a digital space in which to unwind for a short while. On those terms this is a delightfully tactile, cute, and slightly mysterious little thing.

For more great free experiences, check out our roundup of the best free PC games.

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.