irene02 2024-10-07 22:42
Absolutely adore the watercolory, old winnie the pooh vibe of it! Very unique and satisfying gameplay too, definitely one of the best ones I've seen so far!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD56 → First summer - a bee story
By chocolat-endive and mystr
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 223 | 3.89 | 67 | |
| Fun | 451 | 3.51 | 67 | |
| Innovation | 361 | 3.52 | 67 | |
| Theme | 199 | 4.09 | 68 | |
| Graphics | 161 | 4.30 | 68 | |
| Audio | 155 | 3.85 | 67 | |
| Humor | 828 | 2.43 | 57 | |
| Mood | 168 | 4.00 | 66 |
Absolutely adore the watercolory, old winnie the pooh vibe of it! Very unique and satisfying gameplay too, definitely one of the best ones I've seen so far!
The game has an interesting design, the music is relaxing and the game itself is calming. The theme was revealed quite interestingly)
A lovely, relaxing game!
wonderful art style!
The graphics are really cool! The music very calming too, it feels like a true adventure but with bees awesome job!
Fun zen game about bee-ing a hive and visiting flowers. A chill experience but I ran out of things to do before I reached winter. I found it a bit frustrating how being "locked in" to a specific colour flower made it difficult to move around the level. Style points for letting me build bee pyramids though.
@irene02 @crozzy @mael-rios and @anekich glad you enjoyed the art! i spent quite a lot of time on it while bouteille was working on the code.
@ferelily thanks!
@riocide yeah that is the main issue with our game in my opinion: it's chill and nice at first but a little boring at the end. I had not enough time to make the economy of the game more interesting. I love the little bee pyramid too. :D
The art looks really nice. Getting to see the trades at the other hives would have been nice to help plan my routes better, but there was still plenty of time to get everything. I ended up having all the upgrades with 14 or so days left and managed to get a final score of 146150754 points with 122623082k bees and 19527672 total honey.
Cool twist on this sort of gameplay. I love the overall vibe, especially the art style, and the music was nice too. Great work!
Nice game! I really like the ambiance, and its a pretty original game concept! Although I manage to get myself locked by taking all upgrades but the astrology center and administrative center, I couldn't find any new hive to get upgrades from, or i didn't have a big enough inventory to get them! Otherwise awesome job!
I had a lot of fun exploring the world and upgrading my hive. I was a bit worried that I would run out of tokens before I was fully upgraded, but that didn't happen. The pacing of exploring and upgrading seemed pretty good.
Once I got all the upgrades I wasn't really sure where to go from there. It felt like I'd already won, and just needed to click through the next 15 days, but I wasn't even sure whether I'd lost because I don't know exactly how much honey I need to get to support the bees over winter, but I'm also not sure what I can do about it anyway.
The art was great, very pleasant to look at, and the music was enjoyable too.
@theyflower & @istaera The way we implemented the upgrades, the countdown to the end and the point system is... less than great, I agree. Hope you've still enjoyed it!
@phyrocast Oh I'm really sorry, I tried to make a level design "challenging" but without blocking choices. I guess I didn't try everything. Thanks for letting us know that's an issue.
@ratly thanks!
This game was a vibe! I enjoyed figuring out how to unlock the different beehive enhancements and getting access to more areas. Great job!
Beautiful relaxing game, in the end I had about 4 trillion bees in my colony. The window size was a bit weird which made me scroll up and down a lot, but other than that it was a fantastic game.
EDIT: I found the fullscreen button and the window size is fine there.
Nice Game with really chill music. Sadly i managed to get all upgrades with 14 days until winter; so i had to click on the same flowers over and over again until i made it to winter with 284 billion of my closest bee-friends. Recommended
@vipaka thanks!
@supersayafynn that's quite an impressive hive. :D The issue you describe with the windows size seems a little weird. Did you try to put it on fullscreen?
EDIT: @supersayafynn i may have an idea about the issue. Is your monitor resolution inferior to 1280*720?
@frozendude We may push a version tomorrow with a "skip the current day". This should be a better way to handle the endgame. Thanks for your feedback!
I had a good time with this! there isn't a lot of content, but everything here feels really polished, and the upgrades feel really worthwhile. Great work!
(i just made 1 little bee sound and i receive all the positive feedback i feel like the office's picture with young michael scott handshaking his boss)
@mystr you deserve all the hand shakes in the world
Cool idea! Super!
Lovely game - the graphics really are nice. The music is chill and vibey. Had fun understanding the 'hopping' mechanic. Was looking for the last hive for a bit! Unlocked all stuff with about 20 days left orso. I had to do very tedious rounds to get the the 'summer' end screen. Good 🐝ez
Screenshot_15.png
Nice work! Your game was a delightful experience! The hand-drawn graphics and calm music worked together beautifully to create a relaxing vibe. What did you use to make the music? It sounded like it was recorded?
A couple of things I had challenges with: I had a little trouble understanding all the mechanics. "Swarm endurance" was clear, but I wasn’t sure how "swarm size" worked (=how much pollen could be carried?). Autoharvesting? Would have been great to have explanations on the "End of Day" screen. I managed to lock myself out of the last upgrade token: I only had space for 40 pollen after unlocking everything except the "Honey processing facility" and "Administrative Center." (see screenshot) Screenshot 2024-10-08 202504.png
Overall, well done!
Didn't read your warning beforehand and ended to get myself hard stuck, overall really relaxing game.
Artwork is great as well as the music, impressive ! the concept is quick to get. Really polished and chill experience, well done !
Really nice presentation and feeling. Thanks
@joror yeah the endgame is... well, there is no engame, just aimless clicking
@istaera thanks! Yeah, the mechanics are not well explained. At first we wanted to make a nice step by step tutorial to explain how the game works, but we had a ton of issues and it was to late to make one. For the music: - one of the track is make with a flute (recorded with a zoom handheld recorder) a massive amount of delay and reverb, a drone made by a synth, and sounds of birds recorded from our window (with the same handheld recorder) - the other one is just a bunch of synths (korg volca keys, fm and bass, with a yamaha pss 470, and nanoloop mono on gameboy) synced together and recorder on my trustworthy yamaha md-8. It's a real time recording without any kind of postwork, so it's really not my best work, but I guess it's ok for a game jam!
@plasticsword that's a real issue, sorry for that!
@lofipop & @galaxybat thanks!
pretty good, I did get stuck near the end game because I could store enough pollen to get the 3 upgrades in order to progress further, but art is lovely, game is simple and understandable and the sounds and atmosphere is also very nice.
Fun, nice ambience
Graphics are awesome! A few bugs (maybe)? - it seems the swarm is kinda "spread out", as if there were many of them? See the attached image - pressing "esc" while in full screen mode in the web export will bring you out of fullscreen, and not display the tips. Overall very nice and lovely, congratulations!
Capture d’écran 2024-10-09 à 09.53.28.png
interesting gameplay, but graphics leaves much to be desired
Great game. Had fun playing it. Few things to improve. (see itch.io comment) Well done!bee.png
I love the graphic style. The drawings are beautiful!
@magopian Good catch for the esc key! That's something to remember for future games! I agree the swarm is a little too spread. We wanted to change the settings a little but already had a hard time making the game work before the deadline!
@tw9nty happy you enjoyed the gameplay. Concerning the graphics, they're indeed far from perfect, we'd love someday to make a game with someone who really knows how to draw.
@ollibanjo thanks a lot! I agree with everything you said in the comments. If this game was a bigger project, we'll need to work *a lot* on the UI. For the tokens, there's a indication but like everything else in the UI, it's easy to miss.
Screenshot 2024-10-09 13.51.12.png
@cherwood thanks!
Wow, this is pretty cool. It's like those ant colony games, but here you're managing bee colonies instead.
I particularly liked this style of art, as it truly makes it stand out.
I found the choices for these evolutions quite interesting, such as the astrological tower. It steers in a different direction compared to games like ant colony simulations, where you're drawing from real ant concepts. Yours includes a certain element of fantasy it seems.
The artwork is absolutely gorgeous! The music also fitted the mood really well, like kind of calm but a little bit foreboding so it's a relaxing play but there's also a sense of "Winter is coming and we need to be prepared"
Initially I also found the restriction of one type of flower a day a bit frustrating, but once I started to understand it was more of a way of making the player have to remember / figure out routes a bit more (at least that's what I got from it) I had a bit more of an appreciation for it! Was a nice level of engagement having to go "ahh, if I want to get the token at this hive I need to make sure I'm following these flowers"
Really liked this!
Great idea, love the watercolor hand drawn artstyle, sound was great too, though I had to turn it off (played it at work :upside_down:)
I was also one of the unfortunate ones that didnt got the astrology tower last and locked out to get the last toke at the Honey Collector Hive, where it cost 60 pollen but I could only carry 40 pollen :cry: Game could be shorter, as mentioned before, I had 10 days left when I had everything unlocked and was just farming the most efficent way (purple flowers going down to Honeymoon Hive and trade the 1 pollen for 10 honey and get 2 more purple flowers for 20 pollen to trade for 200 honey and repeat)
It has a puzzle feel, to find your ways to navigate that are most efficent, that triggers my inner perfectionist gamer :sweat_smile: could see having various "islands" where the Bee hive expands and you have to do the same cycle but with different paths, maybe adding each island a new tech building, which you can then as well unlock on the previous islands (to boost autoharvest/hone production) Endgoal would be to collect at least XXXX Honey before the said Winter after e.g. 120 days, but you can always travel between Main hives, for each new turn (day). Unbenannt.JPG
really creative game. awesome menu design!
wow that is so beautiful! i liked your game! first of all it feels nice just to travel around. the visual style is stunning and so cosy. i needed a bit of time to get used to the mechanics and understand how i actually should play, but that wasn't a problem :) i probably wish that there was more impact from the upgrades, or maybe that they changed the way my hive looks even more. the numbers also grow drastically, i think it would be cool to get a visually bigger hive once in a while :) the ways how you should move were also quite easy to grasp, as when you switch to "expensive" flowers there isn't much choice of which path you can choose, maybe have more options would be cool. i struggled a couple of times as i managed to visit a trader with high prices before i found all the low prices around. once i also couldn't trade after one trade attempt, though it seemed to me that i have the required items..attached a screenshot, cause maybe i missed something there: 74c18ab667ced7312e90a8432101e411.jpg
a couple of times i had to reach for the edge of the screen to get to the flowers, as i couldn't see them well, but have enough "fly powers" to go there :)
i also think that the ui was fine, it is just a lot happening simultaneously (deservedly so). it it was a bigger, not a game jam game, it would be probably nice for all ui elements and new tasks and abilities to be presented not at once, but one by one as the new game days start :)
all in all, it is such a complex game! i am impressed how you managed to do all that during the game jam.
Very charming game! I'd personally favor some in-game pop-ups to show relevant information over the wall of text, though this may have just been a time issue. Overall it was fairly intuitive and relaxing to play!
@velvetlobster there is definetely a fantasy element in there, happy you enjoyed it!
@jhax and @eric-shaun The design of the game follow some puzzle-game rules indeed. Unfortunately we were not able to balance it really well so a lot of people locked themselves out of further advancement. I'm glad you enjoyed this aspect of the game! And yeah, I feel that it could really be a bigger games with more maps and structures and different paths to understand and unlock.
@angrybeard thanks!
@gamayun-games On the screenshot, it's one of the *many many* UI issue we have. It's not clear at first why you can't buy more pollen even if you have enough honey: it's just because you already have 58 pollen and you can't carry 68. A visually bigger hive is a great idea! We did'nt even think about it! We planned to play on sound fx to add more buzzing but did'nt have enought time for it. I think your idea is even better!
@jadecabbage Oh yeah, 100% a time issue. We planned from the beginning to make a pop-up tutorial but that was really not an option: we added the wall-of-text-thing something like 1 or 2 hours before the deadline while we were still implementing some of the mechanics. This has not been the most relaxing LD for us, but it was fun! I can't say how much I'm happy to see people understanding and enjoying the game. At the end of the third day we almost decided to stop everything, because it seemed at this time that we would never be able to make a playable game. Glad we decided to persist!
The game looks great, sounds wonderful and has a very cool concept. I struggled to understand what to do even with the hints on the escape screen at first, but I came back to it a second time and figured it out. I feel like you had all the information that I needed to understand what to do, but it needs to be laid out in a more clear manner.
Mood was excellent and it was very zen.
I liked to play the game. The audio and visuals create a nice cozy feeling. Great job
great job, very cute, I liked it a lot thanks :-)
画面很吸引人，音乐也很好听，模拟经营游戏很难开发，
Loved playing this one, sound, art and gameplay all come together really well. I got all the things:
Screenshot 2024-10-10 101609.png
Great Job!
atmospheric art style!
Nice management game. Love the art and music. I think it would be helpful if hives with tokens available were indicated somehow, same for flowers that I can use in the current move. And I was not sure if I should navigate back to my hive by the end of each turn or I am going to lose all my bees.
Here is my playthrough:
https://youtu.be/YRM4aTVxkeI
@minibobbo Since we did'nt have time for a "real" tutorial, we tried to pack as much information as we could on the intro screen and the pause/help screen but I agree this is not a good way to make your game understandable. Thanks!
@joshua-reumann @kevin-meissner @wenyu-bao and @sf2 thanks a lot!
@glaikunt thanks! It's always fun to see player's ending screen and their insane amount of bees :D
@icxon yeah, I agree. The whole thing could benefit from a lot of polish in UI, animations and information display. Thanks for the video, it's super interesting to see other people play a game you made.
Wow that was extremely enjoyable! One the most entertaining games I've played so far in the jam. One issue I had was that I couldn't figure out what happened if you didn't make it back home before running out of moves since I didn't see it written down anywhere, and I was worried about taking a risk and getting a game over (although after starting the game again to see if I missed anything I noticed there were tips in the escape menu).
This meant that I played the whole game being very tactical and calculating my routes so that I always had enough turns to get back. I played the whole game without running out of turns up until the very end where I ran out while trying to get the southernmost token. Luckily the penalty was negligible and I got my final token lol
Overall I felt the game was very polished and well balanced. I really loved the game design elements here. From having to choose one flower per day and having fixed turn counts to forcing the player to explore the whole map by limiting the stock of tokens at each neighbor hive. My only issue was not being able to click some flowers/hives that were at the edges of the screen and covered by the UI.
I think a good idea for expanding on the game would be if you had to build something with the honey like turning them into honey barrels or whatever. Something that required a lot of honey to make so that the player actually has a reason to keep making honey after they buy all the upgrades. Maybe to survive the winter they need a minimum amount of honey barrels and then after winter, the surviving bee population would be tied to the number of barrels you accumulated.
bees.png
I totally botched my first run lol, but the rules made sense by the end of it so my 2nd run was pretty fun. I was a little frustrated that the UI panel at the top of the screen was covering some flowers, but I don't think that every actually hurt the gameplay.
Overall I truly had a good time with this, nice job!
Bees economy, wow! That actually felt like a complete board game but made didgitally! Love the art style, love the bees in general, they're awesome! Gameplay loop works quite well, I found it interesting trying to make my route through the flowers while maintaining the distance between them and the resources I could get in the shops. As you mentioned in the description, you're right, at one point you don't have to play, just skip days - at least I can do it quickly by jumping straight to the hive after the first turn. And I think economic aspect of the game is broken by one particular shop that gives you just insane amount of honey for a little pollen. I just got it in bulk and never felt any reason to think about my future routes to get all the upgrades. Still, I felt a bit smart for using that shop in such a way, thanks for that :smile: The game is awesome, cool that you've made it just in time!
Incredible game! Beautiful graphics and addictive gameplay. The only difficulty i've had is reaching some areas because there were hidden by the ui and i couldn't click Thans for making this game, it's awesome!
I had a great time! All of the aspect of the game were high quality. UI hiding some locations is the only main problem, possibly some faster paced gameplay at times too
Pretty cool and relaxing game! Love the aesthetic, and the background track, it really fits the calm gameplay!
The upgrade system is pretty cool and well implemented. One thing I'd maybe add to it is better marking of your current range, like maybe making the flowers out of range (and maybe of different type of pollen than you have) darkened / greyed out, so you can see at a glance where you can and can't go.
I made a lot of bees, I hope that's not too many and that it's enough food for the winter. :P bee_story.png