September 10, 2026
Games Lift Alumni Kranich Games release Garden Ink
Games Lift Alumni 2024 Kranich Games released its cozy sandbox game, Garden Ink, on September 10. The game is hitting the market with good reviews and plenty of momentum.
Few games start with a blank sheet of paper—Garden Ink does. The flat surface is just waiting to be filled with little seedlings, brought to life, and bathed in color.
The journey of these colorful little gardens now reaches its climax with the release of Garden Ink on September 10, 2026. A lot has happened since Kranich Games made the first brushstrokes of Garden Ink at the Games Lift Incubator 2024. The originally monochrome plant world has not only gained more colors; Garden Ink has also won awards in various competitions:
- Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2026: Newcomer Award – Best Prototype
- Baltic Game Fest 2026: Best Game
- Mag-C 2026: Indie Award – Best Presentation
- nominated: gamescom 2026: Most wholesome game
- nominated: German Dev Days 2026: Best Prototype
Sven Mehlhorn and Arne Jürgens are the two minds behind Kranich Games. In the Games Lift Incubator, Sven first started out on his own with his creative idea of painted gardens before teaming up with Arne, who took over the programming of the sandbox game. It’s a collaboration that’s now bearing plenty of fruit.
It’s always wonderful to watch a game that took its first steps in one of our support programs develop and, in the truest sense of the word, “bloom”. We wish Kranich Games all the best for their release and look forward to the charming landscapes and gardens that players of Garden Ink will create.
Garden Ink at steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3421740/Garden_Ink/?l=german
Kranich Games website: https://kranichgames.de
