Lately, I’ve been tracking something alongside my menstrual cycle…the games I’m drawn to during each phase. I’ve noticed I have different gaming needs depending on where I am in my cycle. This might sound random (or a little TMI), but it’s been fascinating to see how my inner seasons line up with the kinds of games I actually want to play.

I’ve been tracking my cycle for years now, after discovering the idea of the “inner seasons” through the book Wild Power and Claire Baker’s work. Their approach to cyclical living completely changed how I understand my energy, and now, apparently, how I play games too.

For anyone new to this concept, the “inner seasons” are roughly four phases of the menstrual cycle.

• Inner Winter: the menstrual phase: around the first six days, when energy is lowest and your body kinda naturally wants to rest.
• Inner Spring: the follicular phase: days 7-13. When you start to feel more curious, growth, and trying new things.
• Inner Summer: the ovulatory phase: days 14-18: high energy and social connection
• Inner Autumn: the luteal phase: days 19 - bleed: introspection, detail focus, wanting to dive deeper into things, completion energy.

Of course, not everyone menstruates or experiences a regular cycle, but I think everyone has their own natural rhythms — energy highs and lows, creative bursts and slow-downs — that might mirror this in their own way. For me, tracking my cycle has helped me understand myself and my creative patterns in and out of games.

🌨 Inner Winter — Menstrual Phase

When I am in my inner winter, I crave comfort, warmth, and low-pressure play. It’s my cozy gaming era. This is when I reach for familiar, nurturing, slow paced games like Animal Crossing or, this month, Echoes of the Plum Grove. There’s something about tending a garden or running errands for NPCs that feels deeply soothing. It’s like curling up with a blanket, but digital.

🌸 Inner Spring — Follicular Phase

As I move into inner spring, my energy literally blooms again. I feel more adventurous and curious, ready to explore new things. This time around, I suddenly dropped Echoes and got obsessed with Luigi’s Mansion 3. Inner spring feels like: “let’s see what’s out there.” I want to experiment, wander, poke at corners. But the moment I hit resistance, like getting stuck on a boss fight, I was out. This phase is for spark, not for grinding.

☀️ Inner Summer — Ovulatory Phase

Then comes inner summer, my social season. I didn’t feel like gaming much at all, which tracks because this is when I want to hang out with people, talk, collaborate, or be outside. I do remember at one point really wanting to play some sort of online multiplayer game, but I didn’t. I guess the best game here would’ve been something shared and fun (Mario kart? Mario party?).

🍂 Inner Autumn — Luteal Phase

And then autumn arrives. This is when I want depth, focus, and a sense of order. My energy turns inward; my inner critic wakes up; I want to make sense of things. That’s when Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom called to me. It’s all about structure, planning, puzzle-solving. The perfect match for autumn’s introspective, analytical energy. Completing shrines feels like crossing off inner to do lists before winter’s rest.

🩸 Late Autumn → Winter Transition

In those final days before my period, as I slid from inner autumn into winter (usually the like last two days before I start my bleed), my brain just says NOPE. I’m done with complexity. All I want is what I call a brain rot game. All I want is Vampire Survivors. It’s pure chaos and release, zero emotional labor, maximum explosions. After weeks of holding everything together, it was exactly what I needed: Low effort, big payoff, complete control through power-ups. It mirrored that end-of-cycle feeling of “I’m tapped out; let it all burn (in pixels at least lol).”

Conclusion

This was the first cycle I started tracking the games I was playing mostly because I was feeling so bad about the fact that I kept starting and dropping games all the time. Sure, I would come back to them later, but I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just stick to one game and finish it. Look, I’m still collecting data and experimenting with this. But so far it’s been eye-opening to see how even my play habits follow these inner rhythms. Games are such a mirror. They can meet us where we are, if we pay attention.

Maybe the trick isn’t to force myself to play (or create, or work) the same way all month, but to notice the phase I’m in and meet myself there.

This was originally posted in the Loading.exe issue of the Level Up Journal Zine