Thanks for the feedback! You’re right, the harvest timer fluctuates between 12-18 seconds (±3 seconds from the 15-second base), which adds some unpredictability until you unlock the max speed upgrade (once you reach that point, every tree will harvest in time even with the fluctuation!). I’ll look into displaying the next harvest’s timer in the upcoming update to help with planning tree growth. Good idea. Really appreciate you playing and sharing your thoughts!

Are you winning or getting a game over?

If you’re getting a game over - might need to manage $ better or plant trees faster! Taxes go up every round and rounds happen automatically if you don’t plant fast enough.

Thank you! 🤘

The Forest Grows Back!

PLAY GAME: https://aribradshaw.itch.io/the-forest-grows-back

Created originally for The Blank Jam - voting underway!

v0.2
A strategic incremental game about trees, taxes, and cosmic ambition.

Plant, grow, and harvest your way from a tiny patch of land to a vast 8x8 pixel forest empire—all while managing exponential taxes and dreaming of the ultimate arboreal achievement: a forest full of Cosmic Trees.

🎮 What’s It About?

Start with just $25 and a 2x2 grid. Plant basic trees, expand your land, unlock new species, and climb the forest economy from humble saplings to billion-dollar lumber supremacy as the TFGB Lumber Co. As your empire grows, you’ll face an increasingly complex web of growth timers, tax brackets, and strategic tradeoffs. Can you fill your forest with Cosmic Trees?

🚀 Features

🌱 Core Gameplay

• 🌲 20 Custom Tree Types: From Young Sycamores to the Cosmic Tree
• 📈 Logarithmic Pricing: Tree costs range from $1 to $1,000,000,000
• 🪓 Strategic Harvesting: Harvest early or wait for max profit
• 💰 Tax System: Exponentially scaling taxes make every harvest a decision
• 🌳 Forest Expansion: Upgrade from 2x2 to a full 8x8 grid

🛠️ Advanced Systems

• 🔁 Auto-Planting: Unlock automation and never click an empty cell again
• ⏱️ Speed Controls: Play at 1x, 2x, or 3x game speed
• 🌌 Cosmic Victory: Your grid glows purple as you approach the endgame
• 📊 Performance Stats: Track your best runs and highest earnings

🎨 Pixel Art Meets Idle Gameplay

• 🎨 Gorgeous custom pixel trees from Karsiori’s Tree Pack
• 🌿 Smooth animations for growth and harvest cycles
• 🔁 Three themes to swap between!

🔊 Immersive Audio

• 🎵 Menu Theme: “Sing To Me” by Ari Bradshaw
• 🌲 In-Game Theme: Original “The Forest Grows Back” track by Ari Bradshaw
• 🎚️ Independent volume sliders for music, effects, and overall audio
• 🎧 Sound effects for planting, harvesting, expanding, and more (Splice-obtained)

🧠 Under the Hood

• ⚛️ Built in React + TypeScript
• 🧮 Efficient State Handling via useState, useEffect, useCallback
• 🎞️ Smooth Animation Loops using requestAnimationFrame
• 🧰 Modular architecture with components like Game.tsx, GameGrid.tsx, and soundManager.ts

🏆 How to Win

• 💸 Scale wisely: Don’t go broke expanding too soon
• 🌲 Unlock trees strategically: Faster growth or higher yield?
• 📉 Watch your taxes: Every harvest makes the IRS stronger
• 🌌 Finish strong: A full grid of Cosmic Trees means victory!

🐛 Known Issues

• 🎵 Music loop currently buggy and may repeat awkwardly on Apple devices (may be fixed - haven’t verified yet)
• ⚠️ Phantom TypeScript or linter errors in development—game still runs great!

📅 Roadmap

• 🔲 Harvest early toggle
• 🔲 Balance is a little iffy right now

The button in the top left seems incongruent with the rest of the GUI

The concept is pretty fun for a short minigame and the art style is really pleasant. I would want to see some more variation and puzzle-like features for anything longer than a few levels though!

I really liked the concept for this game and the simple art style. Could easily make a full-length version of this with increasingly complex platforming and maybe some axe upgrades.

Really beautiful art style with the squares. I love the style.

Gorgeous paintings!

“Number Go Up” remains undefeated as a game concept!

Fantastic game. Finish it and publish it.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed! Did you wind up winning by getting a full screen of Cosmic Trees or lose before you could get there? First time I played it through I unlocked all trees but lost before I could win and had to replay and made it a tiny bit easier lol.

hilarious

Thank you!

Once the Jam is over if you continue the project, should change the concept to something that fits the gameplay a bit better. Something like moving grenades away from a military base or moving snow away from a driveway or moving rain off of a leaf that an ant is using for cover. Lots of ways to take it from here! Then make it fit for mobile screens because this gameplay loop would work really well on mobile.

It was a like a short, artsy, Putt-Putt! It would be cool to see a full Putt-Putt style game in this art style.

It was a like a short, artsy, Putt-Putt!

The concept was difficult to grasp and the tutorial wasn’t overly helpful as someone who didn’t know how the game was supposed to be played. Also, I was jolted by the transition to the car driving scene. When the game ended the menu button was really small so I thought it was frozen. Concept is really good and deserves a lot more time than 2 days you should keep it going.

Currently using this on https://aribradshaw.itch.io/the-forest-grows-back with credit!

Thank you!

By ignoring mobile, using a single sprite asset pack, and not doing the late game balance! Hahaha. Lots to update on it!

so many fish

Fun little game. I made it as far as I think I could before the lava got too high too fast for the player to get to the other side!

I spent the whole first day making the gameplay and then the whole second day working on optimization, assets, etc. Couldn't get mobile done in time for the Jam but will work on finishing that up ASAP!

Completing a game should take anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on how fast you progress!