I sat down at the swivel chair by my desk. I flipped my long, dusty brown hair out of my  face and grabbed hold of my  laptop’s mouse. I was eager to get on Steam and find some new games to play.

While I waited for the program to load, I leaned back, crossed my arms, and gazed out the window. It was a Friday afternoon, and a March snowstorm was rolling in over the mountains. I sighed. It was getting to that point in the school year where I just wished each day would just move it's sorry butt along so I could get this over with. High School was an improvement from Middle School, that was for sure, but the freedom it had given me was slowly being eaten away at by the seemingly constant work and activity.

I glanced away from the shimmering sunset and building clouds to find Steam open and ready on my computer. I smiled. Video games were my escape. They always had been. No matter what was ailing me, it was nothing a trip to one of my numerous virtual playgrounds wouldn't fix.

I cracked my knuckles, or at least tried to, and swiftly dragged my mouse to the Store search bar. There was a game my younger brother had found that looked like a perfect escape from my currently boring and tiring AF reality.

I punched the name “Grow Home” into the search bar and waited through another loading screen. Soon, I was watching a trailer video for the game. The little red robot, B.U.D. rushed around the screen while happy music played and the camera panned back and forth in cinematic ways. After watching half  a Let’s Play though, I could tell there wasn’t that much more to see. I sighed again. The game only cost $7.99, but it didn’t feel worth it if I already knew what most of the experience was like. I set my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes. I was remembering why I only watched Let's Play's of games I didn't plan to buy.

I continued to scroll up and down the page, reading reviews and other bits and pieces of information. My mouse wheel finally brought me to the bottom of the screen, and I found the “more like this…” section. A logo caught my eye.

PROTEUS, it read in messy, pixelated letters. The background of the image looked to be a computer generated landscape of hills and trees. I immediately heard my name being called. I stared at the icon for a few more moments, remembering a game I had fallen in love with long ago. It was some kind of strategy game about tribes of monsters fighting and… aliens or something, I don’t remember, but the 3D world in which it took place had me coming back again and again  just to look at the view, even though I had no idea how to actually play the game. I clicked the icon.

The page popped up and I immediately saw that there were two trailer videos. The first one started automatically. Music began to play as a quote appeared on the black screen. “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” The quote faded, and the blackness parted like an eye opening, revealing a pixilated forest, full of sound and life. The video cycled through many different shots of mountains, lakes, forests, sunsets, night skies and the like. The minimalistic graphics managed to capture all the most beautiful parts of nature. The trees swayed just so, the virtual stratus clouds curved elegantly, and starlight reflecting off the water shimmered at all the right times, in exactly the right way. Not to mention the gorgeous musical score.

I had to have this game.

I looked around the screen to find the price. $9.99. Immediately, my mind shifted into logical mode. Is ten dollars really worth it? Just for a game that literally does nothing but show you pretty pictures and play nice music?, mused a little voice in my head that sounded an awful lot like my mother’s. Years of learning to save money told me that this was a horrible investment, and that I’d be bored with the game ten minutes after buying it.

Then the emotional side of me spoke up. Cynthia Newl, you KNOW you’ve got to have that game. I did have enough funds on my Steam account to buy it, and it was my money, I could use it however I wanted.

I grinned widely. Pretty soon, the game was installing on my laptop, and I was dying to scratch the itch that had been bugging me for years.