Beyond The Grey

You used to wake up to a screen. Now you wake up to a window.

You had a job in the grey city. It paid, and it took. One morning you stopped, got on a boat, and came here instead.

The island doesn't ask much of you. There's soil, there are trees, and there's a town further along the path where people are pleased to see you. The rest is yours to decide, and there isn't a wrong answer.

A day here

Most people start with the soil, since it's right there. Wheat and rice go in a simple plot. A banana tree needs a bigger one, and more patience than you'd expect. None of it stops growing while you're somewhere else, so there's no reason to hover, and if watering by hand gets tedious you can buy a sprinkler and stop thinking about it.

Then the path, because you'll want an axe and the axe needs wood. Chop, mine, haul it back to the workbench. Crystal shards and forest amber turn a starter axe into one that takes a tree down in a single swing. Somewhere in the middle of all this you will put up a fence you didn't need, and a statue you definitely didn't, and a chest, so you can stop carrying your entire life around with you.

Some things you set going and leave alone. A beehive fills with honey over several days. An apple press turns a mediocre harvest into juice worth taking to market.

The people further along

Alex, Chloé, John and Kaito live here. Their moods shift from day to day, and so does what they'll tell you, so it's worth going back to someone you already spoke to.

The market opens once a week. The shopkeepers buy what you've grown and sell you the things you haven't got round to making. The supermarkt is out of bread again. Three people will mention it.

And then stop

Sit by the fountain at sunset. It's been running longer than anyone in town remembers. The streetlights come on at dusk, which is an easy way to tell the hour once you've stopped checking. When you feel like it, take the boat out to another island; every one is generated fresh, so nobody has seen the one you land on. Take the long way home. The shortcuts will still be there tomorrow.

Save whenever you want. English and French text.

Productivity isn't a personality. You can just grow tomatoes.