For me, writing is the strongest form of magic. The simple act of journaling carries me into an extraordinary adventure deep inside my heart. There are dragons there, and I have learned to never fear them. There are endless perils that sometimes keep me from my joy - but whenever my thoughts turn into written words, I find courage and hope. And there are treasures, so many treasures buried deep inside of me. I seem to summon quite a few of them into reality whenever I put my thoughts down on paper.

However, even though I have always sensed the extraordinary power of the written word, journaling has not always been easy to me. To venture deep into my own heart, I need particular conditions: the peaceful beauty of the forest, the companionship of magical friends, my very own enchanted writing room and plenty of curious trinkets to inspire me. So I am making all of this, as a video game on Steam!

This has not always been so. In fact, I was born very far away from here, in a city called Brașov in Romania. I grew up during the worst years of the communist regime and witnessed some really interesting historical events. As a young adult, I became a journalist specialised in technology, which later pushed me towards game development. Games took me from Brașov to Bucharest, then to Milano, Italy and finally to Sweden. 

I moved to Sweden in September 2011. Swedish video games are renowned worldwide, and most of them are developed in Stockholm, Malmö or Gothenburg. Yet despite all odds, my job took me to Lidköping, a charming little town some two hours a drive away from Gothenburg. Here, I fell in love with the beautiful nature surrounding Kinnekulle. From Lidköping to Trollhattan, I spent every spare moment wandering in the forest, hugging trees and finding a profound sense of joy. I understood this was home. But even if the place was right, the time was not.

When the studio I was working for went bankrupt, I moved to Skövde, a city

well known for its game development university and incubator. There, I became a game production coach and later, a conference organizer. As my career evolved, I decided to move to Stockholm and co-found my own game studio. 

And then Covid started.

During isolation, I turned a very small and windowless wardrobe into a tiny office and started to dream. I exited my then company and started my solo studio. To have a perpetual reminder of hope, I called my tiny new company Pronoia - the opposite of paranoia, a philosophy that the world is set up to secretly benefit people. With Pronoia, I published a board game called Zestrea and a fairytale inspired comic book about working too much, called The Lost Sunday. 

I also embraced the idea that I do not belong in a city - I never did. I wanted to be close to the forest and to live slowly and sustainably, with the earth being my guide. So I went home. I moved first back to Skövde, and then to a remote farm close to Götene. I call it Fairyland and it is the place where The Merry Fairy comes to life.