This week’s lunch is inspired by a gaming friend who wanted to know if they should get hold of ‘A gentle rain’. It’s a game by Kevin Wilson that first came out in 2021 but was out of print until recently. A gentle rain is a game that encourages you to be mediative, both the box and instructions shout out at you to ‘Take a deep breath and relax’, suggesting that you play the game along with some relaxing music. The game itself it is a tiling laying game where you are creating a lake and trying to get flowers to bloom.
How it plays
The small box contains 28 tiles and 8 wooden tiles. Set up is simple; place the 8 lilles nearby then shuffle the tiles and place them in a stack. Turn over the first tile and place it in the middle of your playing area. From there, the gameplay of A Gentle Rain is straightforward yet deeply engaging. You continue to draw tiles and try to place them adjacent to existing ones. This involves matching the lily patterns on the sides of the tiles as exemplified below:
As the lake build ups you have more sides of lilies to match. If you can’t place then you have to discard but if you complete a square of four matching lilies on the corners, you can then place a blooming lily token in the centre.
You keep going until you either run or out tiles or you’ve managed to place all 8 lily tokens. You then score
Good for lunch?
It’s a tiny box and few pieces so with this portability and quick setup time it’s perfect especially since the game it encouraging you to relax, which you really should be during lunch. The simplistic artwork is both beautiful and helps create the theme of a gentle rain falling on a lake. The one downside I have is that in the limited space of my work desk I can’t always expand the lake as I want. However, it is actually a game that is always on my desk as a go to, I think because of the simplicity of the mechanics, and the fact that when you are concentrating on finding the best spot to place a tile you do forgot about much else. I am not claiming it helps you achieve meditative states but there is a definite relaxing quality the game brings. The randomness of tile draws bring an element of unpredictability and ensures that no two games are alike. That and the challenge of creating the perfect lake keeps the game interesting and replayable. Given its simplicity, short set up and playing time (around 15 minutes) it is easy to see why this game became popular amongst solo gamers so my advice to my friend is grab a copy before it sells out again!.
Lunch time solo 