Happy Tree Harvest scored 4th place in Theme!

I truly couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the rankings posted. I'm completely awestruck that I got into the top 100, much less the top 10. But here I am, with 4th in Theme, and 62nd in Innovation too!

I can thank everyone who played, and most importantly, who connected with my game this round. It was really special and humbling to see and hear the reactions of players, and to receive comments on how they experienced everything I hoped they would, and appreciated many of the little details I put into the game.

To be honest, I was in an especially dark place going into this game jam, having just suffered through a natural disaster that destroyed many precious and treasured things. I was originally going to make the game much more dark spirited and mean to the player. However, I had a really good conversation with a dear friend of mine, who convinced me to work in some positivity and hope.

The message and core of the game didn't change, but I altered some of the rules to offer players a path to a good end, if they choose it, instead of just doom. All of the feedback from you all in the comments reaffirmed to me how important it is for games to be fun and rewarding, not just punishing and full of ire. This is probably painfully obvious to most of you, but for some reason, I have a tendency to want to twist and hurt the player when I design games. I'll do my best to make sure there's a path to the light in my games going forward!

Well anyways, from the bottom of my heart, thank you all once again for connecting with my game, and for reading through my ramblings.

Looking forward to playing with you next time,

Sakura Magika

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