I spent a lot of time on the game, on both (grid) versions I think as sometimes I managed to get all the hints while I think in the first version I possibly never managed to beat governor's wife and discovered in your comments that the difficulty was lowered between the versions.
The times I managed to reach the right place with the shovel I didn't manage to put the clues together to find the treasure (like the bright colour or the sweet thing I was really not sure what to look for). I expected at some point to stumble upon one generation that I could beat but it didn't happen during my numerous runs. That's perfectly fine.
The game is very fun. Environment is quite detailed and the dialogs are funny, it controls well, I like the silly chicken races and the placement of most objects by hand while the treasure and shovel are randomly placed. The time you get (including the rum of course) feels right to me.
It's funny, and possibly connected, that last year you made a quite easy game and this year a very hard one, I sure prefer the latter but opinions may differ.
Possibly the one thing I didn't like in the grid version was how the tiles you can sail on were often not obvious enough, I guess it's not relevant anymore as while typing I just got a notification you just removed the grid.
Cool one!