I watched Hive Time‘s growth final yr with barely restrained pleasure, however then it got here out on the identical day because the election and, nicely. Things occur, you already know?
It is a pleasant little game about constructing a hive of bees, and I’m totally lined in bruises from kicking myself for pushing aside writing about it for therefore lengthy. But fortunately, it’s simply been up to date, including extra methods to customize issue, and a “beepedia” stuffed with suggestions, tutorials, and BEE FACTS. There’s additionally an enthralling new trailer.
Although very pleasant and completely about having a great time, Hive Time has some fairly good administration chops. You want to regulate the proportion of bee castes to fulfill your colony’s wants, as bees continuously die of outdated age, and even the speed of hatching is dependent upon the variety of nursery bees. Pollen and nectar are robotically gathered if in case you have sufficient foragers, and changed into wax and honey at manufacturing cells if in case you have sufficient storage cells, which implies extra builders, and generic staff, and oh no now your inhabitants is dropping eeek. Your queen will finally cark it and have to be changed, however to try this it is advisable to produce priceless royal jelly, and is {that a} bear assault? Oh god oh god.
The Informational Update makes issues a bit of easier if you’d like, including numerous minor usability options, new particle results, and throwing in some actual world bee trivia only for enjoyable. As lead developer Josh Bush says:
“The number of ‘find your own fun’ options has been expanded. If research isn’t your thing, or you’d rather not wait for bees to construct cells, the Informational Update has got you covered.”
It’s a mild, pleased game, through which little flavour texts pop up telling you about your bees’ mini-adventures and day by day struggles, and you may click on on a wobbly wee bee for a pop up which may learn “activity: bumbling. Carrying: dark thoughts”.
Hive Time is pay-what-you-want on itch.io for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
