Inward

About

Inward is a single player casual simulation game. It was developed by Krish Shrikumar and was released on February 2, 2023. It received positive reviews from players.

Discover, grow and name your own species of trees. Watch as the seed transforms from a sapling to a majestic tree. Water the tree with your mindfulness, habits and insights. Grow and discover yourself with the help of a stray dog called Samsara.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

82%

Audience ScoreBased on 103 reviews

graphics6 positive mentions

optimization3 negative mentions

Inward is a fantastic tool for meditation and mindfulness, providing a calming experience that helps users develop a daily meditation habit.
The game features beautiful visuals and soothing audio, creating a peaceful environment that enhances the meditation experience.
It offers a unique gamification aspect, allowing players to grow their sanctuary as they meditate, which serves as a rewarding incentive to return daily.

The game suffers from poor optimization, causing high CPU usage and overheating issues on many devices, which detracts from the overall experience.
Mandatory email registration and login requirements for a single-player meditation app are seen as unnecessary and frustrating by users.
Some users find the guided meditation voice and content to be distracting or unappealing, which can hinder the relaxation process.

graphics
11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
18%
27%
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews; while some players praise the stunning visuals and ambient sound, others criticize the high resource demand that causes performance issues, particularly on higher-end PCs. Additionally, the bright colors can be overwhelming, detracting from the overall aesthetic experience. Despite these concerns, many appreciate the unique and satisfying visual elements that enhance the game's mindfulness theme.
- “Stunning graphics, great music and a wonderful game!”
- “The visuals are stunning, the ambient sound is crispy, and overall this is a great tool for meditation.”
- “Clearly inward takes playne's core idea - a mindfulness game, as a starting point but fixes *every* issue i had with playne, making this a good game to recommend for mindfulness, with nice visuals and feedback (visual growth) on your efforts.”
- “Nothing as basic as this when it comes to graphics should make your PC (well above and beyond the recommended requirements) sound like it's about to take off.”
- “It's really not normal that a meditation game with these graphics makes my laptop enter jet engine mode.”
- “It's nice talking to a wolf and all, but why does my graphics card run at 100% while doing a meditation?”
music
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The music in the game is generally praised for its beauty and ability to enhance the meditation experience, with soft sounds and accompanying tracks that complement the guided sessions. However, some users have reported issues with volume control and muting options, leading them to seek alternative background music. Overall, the combination of music and visuals contributes positively to the game's ambiance.
- “Stunning graphics, great music and a wonderful game!”
- “Music and scenery of your world you create is beautiful and adds small additions the longer days you meditate.”
- “The guided meditation is very good, the soft sounds, accompanying music, and narration all blend together in a highly complimentary fashion.”
- “One gripe I have, which is more of a bug issue, is that the guided meditation volume does not actually change the audio played during the session. Enabling the mute for it also does not apply, and I've found myself just muting the program altogether through Windows, as I don't want to hear 'let's take a moment to... breathe, follow the bubble on the screen or close your eyes and keep your mind on your breath' for the umpteenth time. I'll just play some new age/meditation music in the background instead.”
- “Not something I'd spend hours on since it appears you're just 'meditating', but the sounds/music is pretty (somewhat sad...) and the world is created with a bright nature-type appeal.”
- “The music and scenery of the world you create is beautiful and adds small enhancements to the longer days you meditate.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is widely criticized for its poor optimization, causing significant performance issues that resemble running a heavily modded game. Many users feel it is unfinished and unpolished, expressing hope for future improvements in optimization.
- “It's insanely poorly optimized; my whole computer starts running like I've turned on my Sims game with 15 expansions and a terabyte of mods.”
- “This meditation simulator is still unfinished, unpolished, and poorly optimized.”
- “I hope the plan is to make it more optimized.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the emotional aspect of the game to be heartwarming and uplifting, highlighting its wholesome concept that resonates positively with them.
- “Such a wholesome concept”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The initial release of the game faced significant bugs, but the developer quickly addressed the major issues within a few weeks, leading to improved stability.
- “The initial release was quite buggy, but the developer resolved the most glaring issues in a matter of a couple of weeks.”