Here is a bunch of random feedback. Just brainstorming...
- After completing a couple of hive, what is my incentive to keep playing? I would like some challenges, or some bosses to beat!
(Challenges could be optional. There could be a list or tree of challenges, any of which could be achieved on purpose or by accident.)
- Perhaps some kind of a story or journey, where I can place each new hive on a different part of the forest, and each part of the forest has a specific challenge to meet / threat to overcome.
- How do I know what could be improved about my hive? Perhaps show me efficiencies of current cells, so I can see which ones are performing better or worse. Then I can try to work out why!
(For example, this could be achieved with a heat map, so I can see which cells are efficiently hot, and which are inefficiently cold. It might help to flip through the different heatmaps for each different type of cell.)
- Similarly, let me compare the performance of different hives, so I can see if there is something about the current hive that could perform better (has performed better elsewhere).
- The spots on the exits are very small, so it's hard to see how many are taken and how many are free. Maybe extend the dots into bars, so they are larger and easier to see? (Or some other way of showing when they are over capacity. Maybe they could turn red when they are full.)
- Since the queen is the boss, perhaps she could give occasional instructions (challenges) which could yield a reward if they are achieved within the time period.
- Consider tweaking the menu: After a click it opens in a circle. How about after sub-click, the next circle appears centered around the clicked item, rather than centered around the original point.
- A recreation cell, which is a place where idle bees go to. This might be useful to 1. see how many idle bees there are, 2. position idle bees so they are near to where they might need to be in future, 3. give the hard-working bees a little break.
- If you wanted to simplify the game, you could skip the construction of empty cells and let specific cells be created directly. (Although empty cells might still be needed to extend the hive into new areas.)
- Building lots of the same type of cell becomes tedious. How about right-click on a cell to build the same thing as the previous?
Ah I see now that it's Shift-click. This was introduced right at the start of the tutorial, but that was a bit too early, before I needed it. I did eventually see it in the Settings (and the second time I started a new game.) Perhaps the optimum time to teach this to the user would be when they have just built 4 identical cells.
- Offer keys '?' or 'F1' to pop up a list of the keyboard/mouse shortcuts.
- Fighting the bear was not very exciting. I couldn't see anything happening. Some possibilities: 1. add some scary music, and 2. show a progress bar for the bear's attack, and a progress bar for our defence. Whichever one fills first will decide the outcome.
- I feel I have too much freedom in how to arrange my hive. How about bonuses for putting certain cells in certain places (like Scrabble or Infinitode have)? Then I would have to think a bit harder about where I want to put stuff, to make the hive optimal.
Advanced levels could have lots of obstructions, so it's more challenging to lay out the necessary shapes.
- Ideally the mouse wheel would zoom into the place where the cursor is pointing, rather than into the center of the screen.
- When spawning a new queen in a new hive, my system reports a lot of memory is consumed. Perhaps it might help to ensure the old hive is freed from memory and garbage collected, before spawning the new one. I'm on Linux. "ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details)"
- You told me that all cells are equidistant (bees travel equally fast no matter the distance). Would you consider changing that, to make positioning more important? ^_^
For example (and just for sharing) the following game Islanders is a curious redux. It increases the player's score for creating layouts with good proximity. And it doesn't even use any actors!
- Rendering: The bees are cute but their colours are sometimes similar to the cell behind them, so I cannot see them clearly. How about a thin border around each bee? Like cell shading, which seems popular in games these days. (Maybe a transparent grey outline, which would contrast with the white jelly and also with the black beeskin.)
- Rendering: Light diffusion would really help to make the bees and the cells look more real. Not easy to implement though.
- Rendering: I think the Depth of Field option looks odd because the projection is isomorphic. If you could switch to perspective projection when zooming in, the DOF might look better.
- Rendering: When completely zoomed out, you could switch to a top-down view, with no projection. (I am not desperate for this. It's just a thought.)
For example, the video game Carcassonne offers a perspective view mode and a top-down view mode. Players can choose whichever they prefer.
Thanks for the fun game! Interested to see where it goes in future.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Glad to hear that you're enjoying the game! I'll try to answer the direct questions and cover anything that is already in the game.
The core incentive to continue playing is whether or not you find that fun for its own sake. I've made and positioned Hive Time as a play-as-long-as-you're-having-fun type game in the vein of 1989's SimCity. I am wary of making the game more attractive to people who aren't finding the experience of playing intrinsically rewarding, since this will invariably lead toward experiences that are more negative than just not finding the mid to late game interesting. I have done some early design work on a goal tracking interface and loadable scenarios as part of a possible future update, but they'd be framed around inviting players to explore and discover creating their own goals/ways of playing rather than shifting the mid to late game's focus on to gameplay-extrinsic rewards (Beepedia entry unlocking is probably the closest the game gets to that).
Regarding bee efficiency and bees taking breaks (referred to as "bumbling" in-game), that already happens, though there is intentionally no specific cell type dedicated to or required for that. The Activity screen accessible from the upgraded Throne Room shows the ratio of idle bees to working bees over time for each role, and can be used to track that once playing at a scale where this can no longer be observed for a reasonable portion of the hive when zoomed in.
The Upgraded Workshop has a cell list that can be useful for seeing the number of given cell types (such as exits) and when viewed with the "three bees per cell" rule in mind, can give an idea of infrastructure load/redundancy.
I'm wary of doing anything that specifically guides players toward highly optimised play - one of the concepts that Hive Time is built around is that too much optimisation creates opportunities for risk and instability. There are efficiency cues and a little feedback there for players who want to pursue that sort of thing (and it can be fun), but I'm not sure that explicit framing would be a good fit for Hive Time's identity (this is why the Activity screen has the name it has, while it's is called "EfficiencyMenu" internally).
I'm not intending to make relative cell position more important - making layout primarily cosmetic was an intentional design choice aimed at simplifying the simulation and giving players freedom to make hives that look and feel interesting to them without having to work against the game. As a self-embraced constraint, designing layouts where storage needs to be near exits and production facilities is wonderful, but I don't want to impose these things beyond the adjacency requirements/bonuses that some cell types have. "Triple letter score" tiles have been on my todo list since the original jam prototype, but have been lower priority than all other development.
When we spoke last night, I think you mentioned that you were running an older version and needed to upgrade. I fixed some memory leaks recently - could you send me a copy of your game log when run with --verbose if you still continue to see the object leaks warning with a current build of the game?
I am not very familiar with sandbox games, although I am in favour of games that let the player express their own creativity (Minecraft and Captain Forever spring to mind).
I'm also fascinated how simple rules can produce unforeseen consequences, emergent phenomena. (Game creators do not always know the optimal strategies. It may take years for the players to discover them.)
I can certainly set some of my own placement goals. Thanks for the suggestion! I would like to balance optimal positioning along with redundancy, so the hive is not too fragile to attack. (So far I have managed to withstand all bear and wasp attacks, so I don't actually know what an attack looks like. So I think absorbing and surviving an attack should be one of my goals! Yay!)
I certainly wouldn't want to eat away at the sandbox style of the game. I was wondering if there might be a best-of-both worlds, so a player could choose whether to set their own goals, or achieve those suggested by the game. But perhaps the existence of one option negates the other.
On Freenode IRC you gave me some nice suggestions:
"What's the fastest you can get 600 jelly from scratch? What's the smallest population hive you can get 600 jelly with? Can you get 600 jelly without researching a jelly refinery? Can you get 600 jelly without upgrading anything but the Workshop?"
These are interesting ideas which I hadn't considered. Perhaps some suggestions like this could appear in the game, even if they aren't explicitly coded as challenges, as a starting point for people like me who never imagined setting their own goals.
I'll go back to the game with this new point of view (and --verbose) and see how I get on. Cheers!
Sorry for the slow response! I'd written a reply out last week, but it appears that I forgot to post it. Here's the vague gist!
Expectation management is tricky, and I try to be conscious about what I potentially lead players away from by having the game explicitly frame things as important.
I was hoping that the final tutorial, which shows a bunch of aesthetically different hive layouts would lead players toward considering aesthetic constraints, and organically discover the idea of exploring the simulation's boundaries from there. I'm open to supplementing that with a Beepedia topic in the Help/Tips section that suggests some of the kind of things I'd mentioned on IRC, though.
There are a couple of events within the game that require the player to do something within a time limit in order to avoid negative outcomes, though their presentation would benefit strongly from that goal tracking UI. If it happened, that update would bring in a number of new events with conditional outcomes along different axes, and it would also include loadable scenarios as another way of exposing alternative ways of playing (you can read a little about that here, but that's a large scale change, and outside of smaller patches, Hive Time's future is currently uncertain).
I found out about this game from Delta's Youtube channel. Hive Time is a nice time! It's one of the big boys in Delta's channel. I plan on playing this soon!
You have you build that storage and have 600 Jelly at once to spend on a new Queen. The game is pretty forgiving and will let you keep playing if you don't make it (unless you ticked the "Unforgiving game over" FYOF option when starting a new game). It feels big at first, but it's designed in a way that makes it trivial for experienced players to reach and (hopefully) guides new players toward the skills they need in order to find positive experiences when building subsequent hives.
Played the game for about 2 hours which was enough time for me to complete the main cycle of it. Really fun and absolutely love the hex and art design as well as the upgrades you can do with joined tiles.
The population system took me a bit to get used to but in the end I was able to find the perfect balance and complete all upgrades.
Thanks for the game! It was a very pleasurable experience!
And now that I've got the game running without accidentally disappearing my own progress (debug with caution, folks), I can say that this management game definitely scratches my itch. It's cute, it's satisfying, and it keeps you on your toes without driving you nuts. It is, as they say, the bee's knees.
One change I'd like to implement, if it is possible: earmarking resources for an expenditure. On a few occasions, I had almost enough stuff to buy something, like a research project or a refinery upgrade, and when I got enough to get it, I went to click the button to make my purchase, but then the resources got used (usually pollen) and I didn't have enough. I would like some system to earmark resources so that they can't be used, or so that they get used immediately and automatically once they're available. Is this possible?
There are two options included in the game for managing these sorts of situations. The first is that you can pause production - this is fiddly, but allows for some control early on and provides some opportunity to understand the value of the second option before it becomes available.
The second is to use the reserve sliders that are enabled by upgraded storage cells, which set aside an amount that can't be used by production. At some point, I'd like to add a shortcut for setting reserves based on a build action or research item's cost, but that's low on the priority list for now.
A curious bug: the research that I did is disappearing. I put in the time and resources to research how to build just about everything, but now it's saying that I haven't done the research, and now I can't build cells I used to be able to build. Is anyone else having this issue?
Just in case anybody else experiences something similar, after reviewing logs, it turned out that a debug shortcut that resets research (among other things) was pressed while debug mode was enabled.
Played my 1st game fun I lost..was doing fine a bear and lax gameplay got me behind the ball and wasnt able to catch up! lol My 2nd time around will be different. I got this game in the
This is a really good game! However, the Mac version of the game crashes randomly (it may crash when I try to open a save. It also may crash during the game) It also sucks too much battery out of my mac. If you can fix these issues, I will rate this game 5 stars.
Hi! Sorry to hear that you're experiencing crashes. If you can email me a copy of a game log from a play session that included a crash, one of the saves that the game has crashed while loading, and your system specs to the email address listed under the technical support section here on the store page, I'll be able to dig in and take a look.
I might not be able to do much about battery performance, but I've got some ideas to try and can give you a link to a test build once I've got some more details.
Godot Engine v3.2.2.stable.official - https://godotengine.org OpenGL ES 3.0 Renderer: Intel(R) Iris(TM) Plus Graphics 650
Setting up population menu Loading external resources Loaded Queen portraits: [portrait_03.png, portrait_02.png, portrait_08.png, portrait_07.png, portrait_05.png, portrait_06.png, portrait_01.png, portrait_04.png] Done Checking settings file version Found: v1.1-54-g54da5fc0 Game version: v1.1-54-g54da5fc0 Running on OSX Loading fonts from /Applications/Hive Time.app/Contents/MacOS/../Resources/./fonts/ Loaded HUD font as [DynamicFontData:4211] Loaded misc font as [DynamicFontData:4212] Loaded bold misc font as [DynamicFontData:4213] Reminder status 0 Setting action list Unable to load user config. No custom bindings defined. Checking for new builds **ERROR**: getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname. At: drivers/unix/ip_unix.cpp:112:_resolve_hostname() - getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname. Unable to connect to game's website to check for latest version. Displaying unable to check for new version notice Loading from 2020-09-24_21-42-55_autosave.save Clearing existing data Loading external resources Done Loading queen count at 0 Checking effect conditions {min_stock:{jelly:600}} New queen name is Carmen Queen actions: 9 Queen idles: 5 Using suggested target [Spatial:17745] Using suggested target [Spatial:17745] Using suggested target [Spatial:16795] Using suggested target [Spatial:17755] Queen count after importing at 1 Showing event Loading zone Playing default event track Finished loading saved game. Playing music track background/QuietEvening.ogg Next event should occur in 220 Showing event This means something Next vignette should occur in 56 Finished finishing building cell Displaying research Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Displaying research Activating vignette3 on [Spatial:16745] Showing event My kingdom for a harder carapace Next vignette should occur in 61 Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Displaying research Completing research of Honey Storage Trying to update research when no research is selected. Displaying research Spawning a special bee Faith Activating vignette2 on [Spatial:15725] Finished finishing building cell Showing event Slow lane Next vignette should occur in 60 Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Displaying research Activating vignette5 on [Spatial:17795] Showing event Does it have your name on it? Next vignette should occur in 51 Playing music track interstitial/beeback-ukeg1a.ogg Checks passed Showing event Comes with a "figurative guarantee" Playing music track [AudioStreamOGGVorbis:60080] Next event should occur in 234 Checking for 13 Checking for available upgrade Displaying research Activating vignette5 on [Spatial:16785] Showing event Occupational hazards Toggling debug stuff Null Next vignette should occur in 61 Queuing special event The foundation of a successful hive!in -1 Checks passed Showing event The foundation of a successful hive! Checking effect conditions {min_stock:{jelly:600}} Next event should occur in 245 Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15795] Showing event The fanciest of seats Next event should occur in 268 Showing event An accident Next vignette should occur in 70 Playing music track background/AfternoonBreeze.ogg Displaying research Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15775] Showing event Sometimes it just don't work out Next vignette should occur in 49 Displaying research Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15805] Showing event Honey all the way Next vignette should occur in 45 Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Showing event All they ever make is candles Next event should occur in 258 Showing event Sweet, sticky, and 100% made by bees Next event should occur in 240 Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15775] Showing event Come by and check it out sometime Next vignette should occur in 70 Spawning a special bee Freya Finished finishing building cell Showing event Gateway to a world beyond Next event should occur in 242 Finished finishing building cell Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15735] Playing music track interstitial/beeback-marimba1.ogg Closing radial menu? Showing event It's not that bad Next vignette should occur in 53 Saving to 2020-09-24_21-42-55_autosave.save Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Activating vignette2 on [Spatial:15705] Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Next vignette should occur in 74 Playing music track background/MorningBuzz.ogg Showing event Wide open spaces Showing Beepedia category cells Showing Beepedia topic grid Using img_9712.png for fact Programatically hitting event's right button. Next event should occur in 241 Closing Beepedia? Showing Beepedia category leave Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15815] Next vignette should occur in 65 Spawning a special bee Yoshi Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Finished finishing building cell Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15755] Finished finishing building cell Showing event I'm lichen this Next vignette should occur in 51 Returning to main menu Reminder status 0 Checking for new builds **ERROR**: getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname. At: drivers/unix/ip_unix.cpp:112:_resolve_hostname() - getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname. Unable to connect to game's website to check for latest version. Displaying unable to check for new version notice Saving to 2020-09-24_21-42-55.save Showing event What a save! Playing default event track Playing music track [AudioStreamOGGVorbis:113678] Next event should occur in 235 Returning to main menu Reminder status 0 **WARNING**: ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details). At: core/object.cpp:2135:cleanup() - ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details). **ERROR**: Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details). At: core/resource.cpp:477:clear() - Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details).
Hi again! Thanks for the system specs (you may want to edit out the UUID and serial number as that could end up being personally identifying). Unfortunately, that log does not appear to be from a play session where a crash occurred. The game was quit from the main menu after saving.
If you can send me a copy of a log from a play session where a crash has occurred via email as requested, then I'll be able to look into it for you and correspond to identify possible solutions.
This email address didn't work. (nevermind I found out that it is bush not brush) I want to send a .txt of a crash log that appeared after Hive Time crashed. (It actually crashed 2 times). It was made by Apple software, not by Hive Time itself. (Apple makes a crash log after an application crashes)
I've received those and have been looking into it. I sent a reply requesting some extra information. Hope fully we'll be able to work out what's going on!
I didn't play the game that much yet, but one thing that makes a bad first impression for me at least is the "tutorial". Since the first thing you see when starting your first new hive is literally a bunch of controls with a little long explanation for it, I feel overwhelmed with information and a step by step of who the controls work basically would be way easier to follow up. Also, the fact than when you start a new hive, all the option of how to configure it shows up even if it's the first time you play is kinda weird since you literally can't know what the options do.
Horses for courses! I've had new players say they appreciate knowing that there are options that they can come back to fiddle with if things aren't working for them, but it's normal for one solution to not be a good fit for everyone and it's OK to not appreciate the way that Hive Time does things. Sorry to hear that you haven't had a pleasant experience!
I find that step-by-step controls tutorials introduce gratuitous gating that I don't think is a good fit for this style of game, but I'll have a think about whether an optional detailed controls tutorial makes sense. The first tutorial's main purpose is to prime players to later think, "Oh yeah, that first tutorial mentioned a repeat shortcut - I should check in the Controls Settings menu to see what that was," rather than to have players memorise all four of the buttons that the tutorial talks about.
In case knowing makes things feel less overwhelming, you can revisit past tutorials at any time in the Beepedia (the left icon in at the bottom of the screen). You can also find out a bit more about each "Find Your Own Fun" option on the New Game menu by hovering the mouse over it, though they all have more context once you've played a little.
If it's a better fit for you, you can disable tutorials entirely from the New Game menu (which will unlock all tutorials in the Beepedia) and explore/discover things as you play - that's how I designed the game to be played from the beginning. The tutorial and research tree are mostly there to help make the game more accessible to people outside of its core audience or who aren't interested in the kind of self-directed experience that Hive Time is intended to be.
Hi! Last time I tried a GLES 2 export, the game didn't look or behave properly (colours/lighting will be wrong, particle effects will be missing), but if you want to try, you can run the game from a terminal with the following command line argument:
This game is so sweet. It has a nice and simple, yet beautiful, art style. The challenge level of your play through is can be customized too, so if you like being tortured that's fine, but you can also just vibe. I love that the bees seem to have personality and the random events made me happy. Just a really warm happy game.
Okeydokey. I found a bug where the Queen could climb if a game was saved while the Throne Room was "popped" on mouse over, and then that game was loaded with the mouse cursor not being over the Throne Room, resulting in the Queen being spawned at her higher "popped" position. I also found a possible bug where switching between inspect mode while having the mouse over/not over the Queen and Throne Room in certain combinations (combinations more likely when the camera is tilted) could also result in some oddness.
I've got fixes for both of these, and something to check for bad saved Queen positions that will go out in the next patch. Unless something more specific rears its head, I'm happy to assume for now that these will address what you've experienced.
Hi! Sorry to hear that you're experiencing problems.
Without knowing what it says about OpenGL, I can't offer any advice. You will probably also need to give me version details for your operating system, graphics card, and graphics driver. If you can send all of that along with a copy of the game log to the address listed under the Technical Support section in the F.A.Q. here on the store page, I'll be happy to look further into what's happening.
When enabling the option to customize any bees, then renaming the Queen, the new name does not update for the Queen portrait at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Hi! It will not be possible to translate all of the game's text. Unfortunately, Hive Time began life as a game jam project without localisation in mind, and many of its strings aren't exposed externally. The game also generates some pluralisation and punctuation, which will be wrong in other languages.
It's best to think of the json folder as a template for the game's data files. If you copy this folder to your Hive Time user folder (see details in the FAQ or click the "Open user folder" button in the Settings menu), then it will override the built-in data files.
Very fun yet simple game. First thing that stuck out to me was how the game has such a cohesive aesthetic, a lot of time was put into the art style especially. I'm sure it has been suggested before but I think for me it would be a lot easier to wrap my head around population control if it was limited to a number of bees instead of a % of the population. It's easier for me at least to say I want 5 builders instead of I want 17% of my population to be builders. Otherwise though it was a fantastic experience.
Population count is a little too transient for that kind of treatment, I think. Consider that in the short term, a slider position that represented "5 builders" would no longer represent 5 builders the moment that an existing bee died or a new bee spawned. Longer term, since going from 0% to 5% Builders for a hypothetical stable population of 100 means a lower allocation of Beesitters, the resulting new stable population would in turn be fewer than 100 bees, making 5 Builders account for more than 5% of the population by the time that stability was achieved (similarly, decreasing Builder allocation from 10% to 5% in a population of 100 would result in more Beesitters and an increased population size, making 5 builders less than 5%).
Inviting players to understand and work out how to manage proportional diversity in a scaling/fluctuating population using ratios/percentages was one of my specific goals for Hive Time, but I understand that that's not going to be comfortably accessible to all players. I hope that the explanation helps contextualise why it is the way it is.
That's a completely legitimate point that I hadn't previously considered and I absolutely understand why you did it that way then. It definitely seems like a lot more thought went into it than I initially realized.
No worries! There are so many things happening in the game that I had to pick and choose what I gave specific attention to and what I let players discover/work out on their own. I figure that what's immediately obvious as intentional will vary a lot from player to player, so there'll always be some bits that make more sense than others off the bat.
I loved the game, the art style, and the game mechanics. I came to check the game out and was amazed that the game was free. I can't thank you enough for releasing the game with a free version, its gives people like me who don't have money to check games out and the experience was amazing. I promise one day I will release my own games on itch and earn some money, and when that happens I will pay you back double! Again, thank you for making this game free for everyone!!
Hi! Thanks for your kind words. I tend to avoid using the word "free" since I'd like people to view and judge Hive Time as a "$10 game" (whatever that means), but it's important to me that people who can't afford it aren't excluded.
I'm glad to hear that that's helped you, and wish you the best of luck with your own games!
Hi! Thanks for the suggestions. I intentionally steered away from the kind of complexity/concurrency that layered verticality would add, but something similar could be on the table for a sequel if Hive Time ever makes enough money to justify one!
You can hold middle click and drag to move the camera around as mentioned in the very first tutorial. You can rebind this in the Controls Settings menu (also mentioned in the very first tutorial).
It's probably best to not speculate about what's easy or hard for games that you haven't worked on ;)
I'm saying that you don't have the technical perspective to offer meaningful technical advice. Telling me that shipping my game on another platform should be easy is not critique.
For actual critique, I think it is important to recognise that unsolicited critique carries the burden of needing to be delivered in a way that the intended recipient can be receptive to, otherwise it's just noise and is a bit rude.
Developing for mobile is much more different from developing for desktops. Project Catalyst that allows iPad apps to be ported to Mac can't do it in reverse, so the only way left is the hard way.
Thanks for playing and for sharing. Glad to hear it resonated with you! :)
I'd be keen to know more about the crash you experienced when maximising the game. If you could send me a copy of your game log from a play session where this crash has occurred (details on where to find and send logs are in the FAQ here on the store page), that would be super helpful!
Edit: I just spotted that you're still the 1.0 branch. The 1.1 update has some changes that might address the concerns you had about the duration of some actions not being readable.
I feel like the current bee population management system doesn't work very well I keep trying to get the population self sustaining but never did Idk really know what a fix would be but I feel like a system where each nursery has independent chance sliders might help but there's problems with that system as well maybe a system where it will produce bees that are not at full capacity but you can choose which type of bee it will produce more often. The game looks really good it has a lot of potential I will definitely keep up with the progress and wish you good luck
There won't be any dramatic changes to the population mechanic/interface - it is intentionally about population diversity being a balancing act, and independent role sliders would move away from that in a way that I don't think would resonate with Hive Time's themes or its target audience.
Based on your comment, I'm suspecting that your hive and population are small enough that lifespan fluctuations are playing a large role (smaller populations are higher maintenance and represent one way of chasing increased difficulty for experienced players who want to consciously avoid growth). This becomes increasingly less pronounced as your population moves up above 50 or so. It's also worth keeping in mind that sometimes achieving a particular diversity ratio can require overcompensation in order to arrive there - as in real life, there's a big long gap between saying that a population is equal and it actually getting there. There may be other situations where the best way to achieve a particular population shape is to scale population and infrastructure rather than change balances.
If you just don't like the way that the population mechanic works, you can set the Beesitter slider above 40% and more or less ignore it for the rest of the game.
I really enjoyed this game, last time i played it! That was 3 months ago and i wanted to play again. But when i went into the load save menu it said i had no saves. I checked and in the \AppData\Roaming\hivetime folder and i found my old saves (\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\hive-time is where i have hive time installed). I tried to open the user folder through the settings but whenever i clicked the button nothing happened. what should i do to get my saves back?
Hi! Sorry to hear that the game is unable to find your saves. If the Open User Folder button isn't doing anything, I'm guessing that means that it can't open the user folder and that's why it's unable to find your saves.
Does this happen when running the .exe directly instead of through the Itch client?
Hi! I'm still keen to follow up on this. If you're able to let me know whether anything's different when running the .exe directly instead of through the Itch client, that will start to help narrow down what's going on.
I really enjoyed this. It does currently feel like a lovely 2 hour game, not something to go back and optimise like the Factorios of the world - and that's fine, it's great that way. I know Royal Decrees add some variance, but perhaps there's room for something like challenge maps for new queens - maybe extra small, or filled with obstacles, or lacking some upgrades. The always-cumulative nature of the current system is very kind, but it also gives it an end point where the risk is gone.
Challenge maps are something I have planned for a future update (you can read more about that here), but the core of the game will always be about finding your own goals/constraints and pursuing them as long as they're interesting. It's totally OK that some players prefer the run to first Queen over the rest of the game - that's what the new hive option is there for :)
Hello! I completely fell in love with your game. It's incredibly charming with really good balance and pacing. One thing I would like to suggest is having the option of a "sticky note" population slider where you can have it as a permanent part of the hud. Like maybe under the resources bar on the upper right? It was a little bothersome having to click a nursery and then the population button everytime I wanted to adjust the sliders. Maybe it was my weird playstyle but I used the population sliders obsessively and it would have been nicer just to have it out there as part of the hud.
Anyway! I sound more complainy than I actually feel because I feel nothing but warm honey thoughts for your game. Cheers!
At this stage, I'm not planning to expose any gameplay controls via the HUD, as that would move away from the notion of the hive itself being your interface into the game. In my mind, the game is about finding balances and responding to things that try to interrupt those balances rather than continuously micromanaging sliders, but I am open to considering a modifier key that will immediately display the Population screen when clicking on a Nursery, the Research screen when clicking on a Workshop, etc. for players who would like to play that way.
That's unbee-lievable! (I know.. super cringe :D ) I just played the latest version and the shortcut is a great way to streamline the game without compromising your vision for it. Thank you!
Though a bit shallow, once you hatch your first queen there is no real point in playing more, I basically had the entire tech tree except bee/queen upgrades at that point, and they cost way too much to be worth making before your queen, but once you have the means to make a queen there is no real failure possible anymore so they are a bit redundant.
The thing is that after first queen you either keep going with a hive that is capable of producing everything it needs or you start over with such a massive tech advantage that there is no risk of failure if you already did it once.
I wouldn't see it as a problem to have a short focused experience like that if "making your first queen" wasn't presented as the end of the tutorial, when anything beyond that is in fact new game +
Aside from this nitpick it was a very wholesome and enjoyable experience! And the way building upgrade did keep me playing a bit to satisfy my optimization obsession =p
Oh I guess I can add another thing, I think the map is actually a bit too big. At first I wanted to do a second hive and just fill the map in a beautiful optimized pattern, but I ended up just giving up in boredom after I did about half the map and had enough ressource production to create way beyond any ressource I'd ever need (by that I mean I could make the 600 jelly for a queen in a matter of seconds)
I think a map 2/3 the current size would fit more with the scope of the game without being excessively restricting.
Well I hope that was useful and interesting feedback!
If you haven't spotted, the Royal Decrees upgrade provides a mix of positive and negative effects that last the duration of that Queen's lifespan, providing more variation in the kinds of balances the game asks you to find. This is particularly impactful for new hives, but can also shake things up for larger hives depending on the combination of effects (particularly with the increased number of concurrent Queens that the Royal Apprenticeships upgrade allows).
First Queen represents a sustainability milestone rather than the "end" of a game. There's nothing wrong with not finding enjoyment playing beyond that though - every player's subjective experience is different!
I'm not sure that reducing the playspace is of any real value outside of possible challenge scenarios. I've been considering allowing the playspace to expand infinitely, but at this stage, that's lower priority at this compared to other changes I have planned.
It's un-bee-lievable how nice this game is. The vignettes add a lot of charm, as do the cute events. As much fun as it is to watch the bees in real time, it'd be nice to have a speed up for when I'm just waiting for things to happen.
Your game is awesome! Just found a small bug, it's not breaking but limits gameplay a bit, if a screen pops up while moving the camera around it'll end up with the mouse cursor dissapearing until you open the game again.
I'm having some trouble reproducing this. Could you please email through your system specs and a copy of the game log from a play session where this has occurred to the address listed under the "Technical help" section here on the store page?
Heyo! Yes I was playing for a bit and it seems that the problem wasn't from the tutorial screen popping but rather moving around the camera, it seems to get fixed whenever I move the mouse outside the game window.
I am getting this issue as well but I am not sure what's causing it. Sometimes I think it's the mousewheel scroll to move the screen but then it doesn't happen at all.... Cursor comes back into visibility after leaving the game window and coming back.
Thanks for the report. I really need to see game logs and system specs before I can look further into this. If you could send something through to the address listed under the "Technical help" section here on the store page, I'll be happy to look into it.
this game was awesome! as a huge lover of bees, i knew i had to give this one a try and it's been excellent. thanks for the fun and adorable experience! i've had a hard time putting this one down.
Absolutely love this game! Thank you for adding it to the charity bundle. I will definitely be paying for this game individually when I have the resources.
I don't see the game as free - it's $10, but still accessible to people who can't afford that. If you haven't checked the FAQ here on the store page, there's an item discussing that.
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Really cute and positive-minded game!
Here is a bunch of random feedback. Just brainstorming...
- After completing a couple of hive, what is my incentive to keep playing? I would like some challenges, or some bosses to beat!
(Challenges could be optional. There could be a list or tree of challenges, any of which could be achieved on purpose or by accident.)
- Perhaps some kind of a story or journey, where I can place each new hive on a different part of the forest, and each part of the forest has a specific challenge to meet / threat to overcome.
- How do I know what could be improved about my hive? Perhaps show me efficiencies of current cells, so I can see which ones are performing better or worse. Then I can try to work out why!
(For example, this could be achieved with a heat map, so I can see which cells are efficiently hot, and which are inefficiently cold. It might help to flip through the different heatmaps for each different type of cell.)
- Similarly, let me compare the performance of different hives, so I can see if there is something about the current hive that could perform better (has performed better elsewhere).
- The spots on the exits are very small, so it's hard to see how many are taken and how many are free. Maybe extend the dots into bars, so they are larger and easier to see? (Or some other way of showing when they are over capacity. Maybe they could turn red when they are full.)
- Since the queen is the boss, perhaps she could give occasional instructions (challenges) which could yield a reward if they are achieved within the time period.
- Consider tweaking the menu: After a click it opens in a circle. How about after sub-click, the next circle appears centered around the clicked item, rather than centered around the original point.
- A recreation cell, which is a place where idle bees go to. This might be useful to 1. see how many idle bees there are, 2. position idle bees so they are near to where they might need to be in future, 3. give the hard-working bees a little break.
- If you wanted to simplify the game, you could skip the construction of empty cells and let specific cells be created directly. (Although empty cells might still be needed to extend the hive into new areas.)
- Building lots of the same type of cell becomes tedious. How about right-click on a cell to build the same thing as the previous?
Ah I see now that it's Shift-click. This was introduced right at the start of the tutorial, but that was a bit too early, before I needed it. I did eventually see it in the Settings (and the second time I started a new game.) Perhaps the optimum time to teach this to the user would be when they have just built 4 identical cells.
- Offer keys '?' or 'F1' to pop up a list of the keyboard/mouse shortcuts.
- Fighting the bear was not very exciting. I couldn't see anything happening. Some possibilities: 1. add some scary music, and 2. show a progress bar for the bear's attack, and a progress bar for our defence. Whichever one fills first will decide the outcome.
- I feel I have too much freedom in how to arrange my hive. How about bonuses for putting certain cells in certain places (like Scrabble or Infinitode have)? Then I would have to think a bit harder about where I want to put stuff, to make the hive optimal.
Advanced levels could have lots of obstructions, so it's more challenging to lay out the necessary shapes.
- Ideally the mouse wheel would zoom into the place where the cursor is pointing, rather than into the center of the screen.
- When spawning a new queen in a new hive, my system reports a lot of memory is consumed. Perhaps it might help to ensure the old hive is freed from memory and garbage collected, before spawning the new one. I'm on Linux. "ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details)"
- You told me that all cells are equidistant (bees travel equally fast no matter the distance). Would you consider changing that, to make positioning more important? ^_^
For example (and just for sharing) the following game Islanders is a curious redux. It increases the player's score for creating layouts with good proximity. And it doesn't even use any actors!
- Rendering: The bees are cute but their colours are sometimes similar to the cell behind them, so I cannot see them clearly. How about a thin border around each bee? Like cell shading, which seems popular in games these days. (Maybe a transparent grey outline, which would contrast with the white jelly and also with the black beeskin.)
- Rendering: Light diffusion would really help to make the bees and the cells look more real. Not easy to implement though.
- Rendering: I think the Depth of Field option looks odd because the projection is isomorphic. If you could switch to perspective projection when zooming in, the DOF might look better.
- Rendering: When completely zoomed out, you could switch to a top-down view, with no projection. (I am not desperate for this. It's just a thought.)
For example, the video game Carcassonne offers a perspective view mode and a top-down view mode. Players can choose whichever they prefer.
Thanks for the fun game! Interested to see where it goes in future.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Glad to hear that you're enjoying the game! I'll try to answer the direct questions and cover anything that is already in the game.
The core incentive to continue playing is whether or not you find that fun for its own sake. I've made and positioned Hive Time as a play-as-long-as-you're-having-fun type game in the vein of 1989's SimCity. I am wary of making the game more attractive to people who aren't finding the experience of playing intrinsically rewarding, since this will invariably lead toward experiences that are more negative than just not finding the mid to late game interesting. I have done some early design work on a goal tracking interface and loadable scenarios as part of a possible future update, but they'd be framed around inviting players to explore and discover creating their own goals/ways of playing rather than shifting the mid to late game's focus on to gameplay-extrinsic rewards (Beepedia entry unlocking is probably the closest the game gets to that).
Regarding bee efficiency and bees taking breaks (referred to as "bumbling" in-game), that already happens, though there is intentionally no specific cell type dedicated to or required for that. The Activity screen accessible from the upgraded Throne Room shows the ratio of idle bees to working bees over time for each role, and can be used to track that once playing at a scale where this can no longer be observed for a reasonable portion of the hive when zoomed in.
The Upgraded Workshop has a cell list that can be useful for seeing the number of given cell types (such as exits) and when viewed with the "three bees per cell" rule in mind, can give an idea of infrastructure load/redundancy.
I'm wary of doing anything that specifically guides players toward highly optimised play - one of the concepts that Hive Time is built around is that too much optimisation creates opportunities for risk and instability. There are efficiency cues and a little feedback there for players who want to pursue that sort of thing (and it can be fun), but I'm not sure that explicit framing would be a good fit for Hive Time's identity (this is why the Activity screen has the name it has, while it's is called "EfficiencyMenu" internally).
I'm not intending to make relative cell position more important - making layout primarily cosmetic was an intentional design choice aimed at simplifying the simulation and giving players freedom to make hives that look and feel interesting to them without having to work against the game. As a self-embraced constraint, designing layouts where storage needs to be near exits and production facilities is wonderful, but I don't want to impose these things beyond the adjacency requirements/bonuses that some cell types have. "Triple letter score" tiles have been on my todo list since the original jam prototype, but have been lower priority than all other development.
When we spoke last night, I think you mentioned that you were running an older version and needed to upgrade. I fixed some memory leaks recently - could you send me a copy of your game log when run with --verbose if you still continue to see the object leaks warning with a current build of the game?
Thanks for the responses.
I am not very familiar with sandbox games, although I am in favour of games that let the player express their own creativity (Minecraft and Captain Forever spring to mind).
I'm also fascinated how simple rules can produce unforeseen consequences, emergent phenomena. (Game creators do not always know the optimal strategies. It may take years for the players to discover them.)
I can certainly set some of my own placement goals. Thanks for the suggestion! I would like to balance optimal positioning along with redundancy, so the hive is not too fragile to attack. (So far I have managed to withstand all bear and wasp attacks, so I don't actually know what an attack looks like. So I think absorbing and surviving an attack should be one of my goals! Yay!)
I certainly wouldn't want to eat away at the sandbox style of the game. I was wondering if there might be a best-of-both worlds, so a player could choose whether to set their own goals, or achieve those suggested by the game. But perhaps the existence of one option negates the other.
On Freenode IRC you gave me some nice suggestions:
"What's the fastest you can get 600 jelly from scratch? What's the smallest population hive you can get 600 jelly with? Can you get 600 jelly without researching a jelly refinery? Can you get 600 jelly without upgrading anything but the Workshop?"
These are interesting ideas which I hadn't considered. Perhaps some suggestions like this could appear in the game, even if they aren't explicitly coded as challenges, as a starting point for people like me who never imagined setting their own goals.
I'll go back to the game with this new point of view (and --verbose) and see how I get on. Cheers!
Sorry for the slow response! I'd written a reply out last week, but it appears that I forgot to post it. Here's the vague gist!
Expectation management is tricky, and I try to be conscious about what I potentially lead players away from by having the game explicitly frame things as important.
I was hoping that the final tutorial, which shows a bunch of aesthetically different hive layouts would lead players toward considering aesthetic constraints, and organically discover the idea of exploring the simulation's boundaries from there. I'm open to supplementing that with a Beepedia topic in the Help/Tips section that suggests some of the kind of things I'd mentioned on IRC, though.
There are a couple of events within the game that require the player to do something within a time limit in order to avoid negative outcomes, though their presentation would benefit strongly from that goal tracking UI. If it happened, that update would bring in a number of new events with conditional outcomes along different axes, and it would also include loadable scenarios as another way of exposing alternative ways of playing (you can read a little about that here, but that's a large scale change, and outside of smaller patches, Hive Time's future is currently uncertain).
I posted a video on my channel. very nice game. I would be glad if you check my channel. I wish you success cheese.
Thanks again for playing and for sharing! :)
I found out about this game from Delta's Youtube channel. Hive Time is a nice time! It's one of the big boys in Delta's channel. I plan on playing this soon!
Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed Delta's previous coverage of the game so much that I hid a little reference to their channel in the game :)
hmmmmm i wonder where..
Thanks!
You have you build that storage and have 600 Jelly at once to spend on a new Queen. The game is pretty forgiving and will let you keep playing if you don't make it (unless you ticked the "Unforgiving game over" FYOF option when starting a new game). It feels big at first, but it's designed in a way that makes it trivial for experienced players to reach and (hopefully) guides new players toward the skills they need in order to find positive experiences when building subsequent hives.
Hope that helps!
Thanks again for playing and for sharing!
Played the game for about 2 hours which was enough time for me to complete the main cycle of it. Really fun and absolutely love the hex and art design as well as the upgrades you can do with joined tiles.
The population system took me a bit to get used to but in the end I was able to find the perfect balance and complete all upgrades.
Thanks for the game! It was a very pleasurable experience!
Thanks for your kind words. Glad to hear you've had fun with the game so far!
And now that I've got the game running without accidentally disappearing my own progress (debug with caution, folks), I can say that this management game definitely scratches my itch. It's cute, it's satisfying, and it keeps you on your toes without driving you nuts. It is, as they say, the bee's knees.
One change I'd like to implement, if it is possible: earmarking resources for an expenditure. On a few occasions, I had almost enough stuff to buy something, like a research project or a refinery upgrade, and when I got enough to get it, I went to click the button to make my purchase, but then the resources got used (usually pollen) and I didn't have enough. I would like some system to earmark resources so that they can't be used, or so that they get used immediately and automatically once they're available. Is this possible?
There are two options included in the game for managing these sorts of situations. The first is that you can pause production - this is fiddly, but allows for some control early on and provides some opportunity to understand the value of the second option before it becomes available.
The second is to use the reserve sliders that are enabled by upgraded storage cells, which set aside an amount that can't be used by production. At some point, I'd like to add a shortcut for setting reserves based on a build action or research item's cost, but that's low on the priority list for now.
Hope that helps!
A curious bug: the research that I did is disappearing. I put in the time and resources to research how to build just about everything, but now it's saying that I haven't done the research, and now I can't build cells I used to be able to build. Is anyone else having this issue?
Just in case anybody else experiences something similar, after reviewing logs, it turned out that a debug shortcut that resets research (among other things) was pressed while debug mode was enabled.
Yep, that was me. Thank you for spotting that!
No worries. Glad that we were able to sort it out!
Played my 1st game fun I lost..was doing fine a bear and lax gameplay got me behind the ball and wasnt able to catch up! lol My 2nd time around will be different. I got this game in the
Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
. THANK YOU!
How do you middle-click on a Mac without a mouse?
The game supports two finger touch scrolling for panning if you're on a Mac with multi-touch gesture support. It also supports pinch zooming.
This is a really good game! However, the Mac version of the game crashes randomly (it may crash when I try to open a save. It also may crash during the game) It also sucks too much battery out of my mac. If you can fix these issues, I will rate this game 5 stars.
Hi! Sorry to hear that you're experiencing crashes. If you can email me a copy of a game log from a play session that included a crash, one of the saves that the game has crashed while loading, and your system specs to the email address listed under the technical support section here on the store page, I'll be able to dig in and take a look.
I might not be able to do much about battery performance, but I've got some ideas to try and can give you a link to a test build once I've got some more details.
Godot Engine v3.2.2.stable.official - https://godotengine.org
OpenGL ES 3.0 Renderer: Intel(R) Iris(TM) Plus Graphics 650
Setting up population menu
Loading external resources
Loaded Queen portraits: [portrait_03.png, portrait_02.png, portrait_08.png, portrait_07.png, portrait_05.png, portrait_06.png, portrait_01.png, portrait_04.png]
Done
Checking settings file version
Found: v1.1-54-g54da5fc0
Game version: v1.1-54-g54da5fc0
Running on OSX
Loading fonts from /Applications/Hive Time.app/Contents/MacOS/../Resources/./fonts/
Loaded HUD font as [DynamicFontData:4211]
Loaded misc font as [DynamicFontData:4212]
Loaded bold misc font as [DynamicFontData:4213]
Reminder status 0
Setting action list
Unable to load user config.
No custom bindings defined.
Checking for new builds
**ERROR**: getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname.
At: drivers/unix/ip_unix.cpp:112:_resolve_hostname() - getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname.
Unable to connect to game's website to check for latest version.
Displaying unable to check for new version notice
Loading from 2020-09-24_21-42-55_autosave.save
Clearing existing data
Loading external resources
Done
Loading queen count at 0
Checking effect conditions {min_stock:{jelly:600}}
New queen name is Carmen
Queen actions: 9
Queen idles: 5
Using suggested target [Spatial:17745]
Using suggested target [Spatial:17745]
Using suggested target [Spatial:16795]
Using suggested target [Spatial:17755]
Queen count after importing at 1
Showing event Loading zone
Playing default event track
Finished loading saved game.
Playing music track background/QuietEvening.ogg
Next event should occur in 220
Showing event This means something
Next vignette should occur in 56
Finished finishing building cell
Displaying research
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Displaying research
Activating vignette3 on [Spatial:16745]
Showing event My kingdom for a harder carapace
Next vignette should occur in 61
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Displaying research
Completing research of Honey Storage
Trying to update research when no research is selected.
Displaying research
Spawning a special bee Faith
Activating vignette2 on [Spatial:15725]
Finished finishing building cell
Showing event Slow lane
Next vignette should occur in 60
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Displaying research
Activating vignette5 on [Spatial:17795]
Showing event Does it have your name on it?
Next vignette should occur in 51
Playing music track interstitial/beeback-ukeg1a.ogg
Checks passed
Showing event Comes with a "figurative guarantee"
Playing music track [AudioStreamOGGVorbis:60080]
Next event should occur in 234
Checking for 13
Checking for available upgrade
Displaying research
Activating vignette5 on [Spatial:16785]
Showing event Occupational hazards
Toggling debug stuff Null
Next vignette should occur in 61
Queuing special event The foundation of a successful hive!in -1
Checks passed
Showing event The foundation of a successful hive!
Checking effect conditions {min_stock:{jelly:600}}
Next event should occur in 245
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15795]
Showing event The fanciest of seats
Next event should occur in 268
Showing event An accident
Next vignette should occur in 70
Playing music track background/AfternoonBreeze.ogg
Displaying research
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15775]
Showing event Sometimes it just don't work out
Next vignette should occur in 49
Displaying research
Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15805]
Showing event Honey all the way
Next vignette should occur in 45
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Showing event All they ever make is candles
Next event should occur in 258
Showing event Sweet, sticky, and 100% made by bees
Next event should occur in 240
Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15775]
Showing event Come by and check it out sometime
Next vignette should occur in 70
Spawning a special bee Freya
Finished finishing building cell
Showing event Gateway to a world beyond
Next event should occur in 242
Finished finishing building cell
Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15735]
Playing music track interstitial/beeback-marimba1.ogg
Closing radial menu?
Showing event It's not that bad
Next vignette should occur in 53
Saving to 2020-09-24_21-42-55_autosave.save
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Activating vignette2 on [Spatial:15705]
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Next vignette should occur in 74
Playing music track background/MorningBuzz.ogg
Showing event Wide open spaces
Showing Beepedia category cells
Showing Beepedia topic grid
Using img_9712.png for fact
Programatically hitting event's right button.
Next event should occur in 241
Closing Beepedia?
Showing Beepedia category leave
Activating vignette9 on [Spatial:15815]
Next vignette should occur in 65
Spawning a special bee Yoshi
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Finished finishing building cell
Activating vignette8 on [Spatial:15755]
Finished finishing building cell
Showing event I'm lichen this
Next vignette should occur in 51
Returning to main menu
Reminder status 0
Checking for new builds
**ERROR**: getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname.
At: drivers/unix/ip_unix.cpp:112:_resolve_hostname() - getaddrinfo failed! Cannot resolve hostname.
Unable to connect to game's website to check for latest version.
Displaying unable to check for new version notice
Saving to 2020-09-24_21-42-55.save
Showing event What a save!
Playing default event track
Playing music track [AudioStreamOGGVorbis:113678]
Next event should occur in 235
Returning to main menu
Reminder status 0
**WARNING**: ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details).
At: core/object.cpp:2135:cleanup() - ObjectDB instances leaked at exit (run with --verbose for details).
**ERROR**: Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details).
At: core/resource.cpp:477:clear() - Resources still in use at exit (run with --verbose for details).
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro14,2
Processor Name: Dual-Core Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 3.1 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 8 GB
Boot ROM Version: 428.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.44f5
Hi again! Thanks for the system specs (you may want to edit out the UUID and serial number as that could end up being personally identifying). Unfortunately, that log does not appear to be from a play session where a crash occurred. The game was quit from the main menu after saving.
If you can send me a copy of a log from a play session where a crash has occurred via email as requested, then I'll be able to look into it for you and correspond to identify possible solutions.
Thanks!
This email address didn't work. (nevermind I found out that it is bush not brush) I want to send a .txt of a crash log that appeared after Hive Time crashed. (It actually crashed 2 times). It was made by Apple software, not by Hive Time itself. (Apple makes a crash log after an application crashes)
I've received those and have been looking into it. I sent a reply requesting some extra information. Hope fully we'll be able to work out what's going on!
Will this ever come to Switch or mobile?
No, sorry.
I didn't play the game that much yet, but one thing that makes a bad first impression for me at least is the "tutorial". Since the first thing you see when starting your first new hive is literally a bunch of controls with a little long explanation for it, I feel overwhelmed with information and a step by step of who the controls work basically would be way easier to follow up. Also, the fact than when you start a new hive, all the option of how to configure it shows up even if it's the first time you play is kinda weird since you literally can't know what the options do.
Horses for courses! I've had new players say they appreciate knowing that there are options that they can come back to fiddle with if things aren't working for them, but it's normal for one solution to not be a good fit for everyone and it's OK to not appreciate the way that Hive Time does things. Sorry to hear that you haven't had a pleasant experience!
I find that step-by-step controls tutorials introduce gratuitous gating that I don't think is a good fit for this style of game, but I'll have a think about whether an optional detailed controls tutorial makes sense. The first tutorial's main purpose is to prime players to later think, "Oh yeah, that first tutorial mentioned a repeat shortcut - I should check in the Controls Settings menu to see what that was," rather than to have players memorise all four of the buttons that the tutorial talks about.
In case knowing makes things feel less overwhelming, you can revisit past tutorials at any time in the Beepedia (the left icon in at the bottom of the screen). You can also find out a bit more about each "Find Your Own Fun" option on the New Game menu by hovering the mouse over it, though they all have more context once you've played a little.
If it's a better fit for you, you can disable tutorials entirely from the New Game menu (which will unlock all tutorials in the Beepedia) and explore/discover things as you play - that's how I designed the game to be played from the beginning. The tutorial and research tree are mostly there to help make the game more accessible to people outside of its core audience or who aren't interested in the kind of self-directed experience that Hive Time is intended to be.
Hope some of that helps!
Hey I was wondering if you could make an 2.0 openGL cause my pc doesnt support this. If you can but if you have some things to do thats ok.
Hi! Last time I tried a GLES 2 export, the game didn't look or behave properly (colours/lighting will be wrong, particle effects will be missing), but if you want to try, you can run the game from a terminal with the following command line argument:
Hope that helps!
I'll try. Thanks
This game is so sweet. It has a nice and simple, yet beautiful, art style. The challenge level of your play through is can be customized too, so if you like being tortured that's fine, but you can also just vibe. I love that the bees seem to have personality and the random events made me happy. Just a really warm happy game.
Thanks for your kind words! I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying the game :)
hive five
🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝
Bug Report:
Found another bug or two for ya.
When the 'Exit Dots' option is disabled, then loading a save game, the exit dots show up again.
Also, had an issue with the 'Tilt When Zoomed' option, where zooming in causes the queen bee to float a fair bit above her throne.
And, just noticed a minor typo; the description for the Research 'Royal Decrees' spells the word 'positive' incorrectly. (It says 'positve'.
P.S. Thanks to your (devs) response , and my enjoyment with the game, I decided to make the purchase. (Plus an additional $2 tip)
Thanks
Queen Floating: https://ibb.co/F8p4t1j
Thanks!
Regarding the floating Queen, do you have repro steps for that at all?
I have no clue how it started, but it persists in my save game between sessions.
I was possibly switching between the tilting and regular camera modes when it started though, I think.
Okeydokey. I found a bug where the Queen could climb if a game was saved while the Throne Room was "popped" on mouse over, and then that game was loaded with the mouse cursor not being over the Throne Room, resulting in the Queen being spawned at her higher "popped" position. I also found a possible bug where switching between inspect mode while having the mouse over/not over the Queen and Throne Room in certain combinations (combinations more likely when the camera is tilted) could also result in some oddness.
I've got fixes for both of these, and something to check for bad saved Queen positions that will go out in the next patch. Unless something more specific rears its head, I'm happy to assume for now that these will address what you've experienced.
That should be fixed in v1.1-54. Thanks again!
hello i cant open it says some thing about opengl
Hi! Sorry to hear that you're experiencing problems.
Without knowing what it says about OpenGL, I can't offer any advice. You will probably also need to give me version details for your operating system, graphics card, and graphics driver. If you can send all of that along with a copy of the game log to the address listed under the Technical Support section in the F.A.Q. here on the store page, I'll be happy to look further into what's happening.
Hi! I haven't seen any information come through as yet. Were you able to get the game running?
yea sorry my pc was to bad for it but when i get a new on pc ill play it 100% :)
Okeydokey! If you're super keen, and want to email me your specs anyway, I can see if there's anything I can do to get it up and running.
Minor Bug Report:
When enabling the option to customize any bees, then renaming the Queen, the new name does not update for the Queen portrait at the bottom right corner of the screen.
Thanks.
Thanks for the report. I'll take a look at that for the next patch.
This should be fixed in v1.1-51!
Hi, Dear Cheeseness. How to translate its text into my language? Translating files in the json directory does not work!
Hi! It will not be possible to translate all of the game's text. Unfortunately, Hive Time began life as a game jam project without localisation in mind, and many of its strings aren't exposed externally. The game also generates some pluralisation and punctuation, which will be wrong in other languages.
It's best to think of the json folder as a template for the game's data files. If you copy this folder to your Hive Time user folder (see details in the FAQ or click the "Open user folder" button in the Settings menu), then it will override the built-in data files.
Hope that helps!
The Beemovie game we deserve
Very fun yet simple game. First thing that stuck out to me was how the game has such a cohesive aesthetic, a lot of time was put into the art style especially. I'm sure it has been suggested before but I think for me it would be a lot easier to wrap my head around population control if it was limited to a number of bees instead of a % of the population. It's easier for me at least to say I want 5 builders instead of I want 17% of my population to be builders. Otherwise though it was a fantastic experience.
Thanks for your kind words! :)
Population count is a little too transient for that kind of treatment, I think. Consider that in the short term, a slider position that represented "5 builders" would no longer represent 5 builders the moment that an existing bee died or a new bee spawned. Longer term, since going from 0% to 5% Builders for a hypothetical stable population of 100 means a lower allocation of Beesitters, the resulting new stable population would in turn be fewer than 100 bees, making 5 Builders account for more than 5% of the population by the time that stability was achieved (similarly, decreasing Builder allocation from 10% to 5% in a population of 100 would result in more Beesitters and an increased population size, making 5 builders less than 5%).
Inviting players to understand and work out how to manage proportional diversity in a scaling/fluctuating population using ratios/percentages was one of my specific goals for Hive Time, but I understand that that's not going to be comfortably accessible to all players. I hope that the explanation helps contextualise why it is the way it is.
That's a completely legitimate point that I hadn't previously considered and I absolutely understand why you did it that way then. It definitely seems like a lot more thought went into it than I initially realized.
No worries! There are so many things happening in the game that I had to pick and choose what I gave specific attention to and what I let players discover/work out on their own. I figure that what's immediately obvious as intentional will vary a lot from player to player, so there'll always be some bits that make more sense than others off the bat.
I loved the game, the art style, and the game mechanics. I came to check the game out and was amazed that the game was free. I can't thank you enough for releasing the game with a free version, its gives people like me who don't have money to check games out and the experience was amazing. I promise one day I will release my own games on itch and earn some money, and when that happens I will pay you back double! Again, thank you for making this game free for everyone!!
Hi! Thanks for your kind words. I tend to avoid using the word "free" since I'd like people to view and judge Hive Time as a "$10 game" (whatever that means), but it's important to me that people who can't afford it aren't excluded.
I'm glad to hear that that's helped you, and wish you the best of luck with your own games!
Hi, I've added this (very addictive) game to Cloudsaver.
Thanks for the game :-)
Neat! Thanks for sharing :)
You should add two things
1. Layers that would allow you to make new cells on top of old cells
2. "Elevator Cells" or something that would let Bees go from one floor to the next
Hi! Thanks for the suggestions. I intentionally steered away from the kind of complexity/concurrency that layered verticality would add, but something similar could be on the table for a sequel if Hive Time ever makes enough money to justify one!
You should try getting it onto the Google Play store as I feel it shouldn't be too hard to make it Mobile Friendly
also being able to hold right click to click and drag the map would also help
You can hold middle click and drag to move the camera around as mentioned in the very first tutorial. You can rebind this in the Controls Settings menu (also mentioned in the very first tutorial).
It's probably best to not speculate about what's easy or hard for games that you haven't worked on ;)
Speculation leads to suggestions, which leads to a better game. What your saying to me is that our opinions don't matter and any critique is wrong.
I'm saying that you don't have the technical perspective to offer meaningful technical advice. Telling me that shipping my game on another platform should be easy is not critique.
For actual critique, I think it is important to recognise that unsolicited critique carries the burden of needing to be delivered in a way that the intended recipient can be receptive to, otherwise it's just noise and is a bit rude.
Developing for mobile is much more different from developing for desktops. Project Catalyst that allows iPad apps to be ported to Mac can't do it in reverse, so the only way left is the hard way.
How Could This Not Brighten Anyones Day??? 😂
Nice! Thanks for playing and for sharing :)
Thanks for playing and for sharing. Glad to hear it resonated with you! :)
I'd be keen to know more about the crash you experienced when maximising the game. If you could send me a copy of your game log from a play session where this crash has occurred (details on where to find and send logs are in the FAQ here on the store page), that would be super helpful!
Edit: I just spotted that you're still the 1.0 branch. The 1.1 update has some changes that might address the concerns you had about the duration of some actions not being readable.
I feel like the current bee population management system doesn't work very well I keep trying to get the population self sustaining but never did Idk really know what a fix would be but I feel like a system where each nursery has independent chance sliders might help but there's problems with that system as well maybe a system where it will produce bees that are not at full capacity but you can choose which type of bee it will produce more often. The game looks really good it has a lot of potential I will definitely keep up with the progress and wish you good luck
Hi! Thanks for your kind words.
There won't be any dramatic changes to the population mechanic/interface - it is intentionally about population diversity being a balancing act, and independent role sliders would move away from that in a way that I don't think would resonate with Hive Time's themes or its target audience.
Based on your comment, I'm suspecting that your hive and population are small enough that lifespan fluctuations are playing a large role (smaller populations are higher maintenance and represent one way of chasing increased difficulty for experienced players who want to consciously avoid growth). This becomes increasingly less pronounced as your population moves up above 50 or so. It's also worth keeping in mind that sometimes achieving a particular diversity ratio can require overcompensation in order to arrive there - as in real life, there's a big long gap between saying that a population is equal and it actually getting there. There may be other situations where the best way to achieve a particular population shape is to scale population and infrastructure rather than change balances.
If you just don't like the way that the population mechanic works, you can set the Beesitter slider above 40% and more or less ignore it for the rest of the game.
Hope that helps!
I really enjoyed this game, last time i played it! That was 3 months ago and i wanted to play again. But when i went into the load save menu it said i had no saves. I checked and in the \AppData\Roaming\hivetime folder and i found my old saves (\AppData\Roaming\itch\apps\hive-time is where i have hive time installed). I tried to open the user folder through the settings but whenever i clicked the button nothing happened. what should i do to get my saves back?
Hi! Sorry to hear that the game is unable to find your saves. If the Open User Folder button isn't doing anything, I'm guessing that means that it can't open the user folder and that's why it's unable to find your saves.
Does this happen when running the .exe directly instead of through the Itch client?
Hi! I'm still keen to follow up on this. If you're able to let me know whether anything's different when running the .exe directly instead of through the Itch client, that will start to help narrow down what's going on.
I really enjoyed this. It does currently feel like a lovely 2 hour game, not something to go back and optimise like the Factorios of the world - and that's fine, it's great that way. I know Royal Decrees add some variance, but perhaps there's room for something like challenge maps for new queens - maybe extra small, or filled with obstacles, or lacking some upgrades. The always-cumulative nature of the current system is very kind, but it also gives it an end point where the risk is gone.
Challenge maps are something I have planned for a future update (you can read more about that here), but the core of the game will always be about finding your own goals/constraints and pursuing them as long as they're interesting. It's totally OK that some players prefer the run to first Queen over the rest of the game - that's what the new hive option is there for :)
Hello! I completely fell in love with your game. It's incredibly charming with really good balance and pacing. One thing I would like to suggest is having the option of a "sticky note" population slider where you can have it as a permanent part of the hud. Like maybe under the resources bar on the upper right? It was a little bothersome having to click a nursery and then the population button everytime I wanted to adjust the sliders. Maybe it was my weird playstyle but I used the population sliders obsessively and it would have been nicer just to have it out there as part of the hud.
Anyway! I sound more complainy than I actually feel because I feel nothing but warm honey thoughts for your game. Cheers!
Thanks for your kind words!
At this stage, I'm not planning to expose any gameplay controls via the HUD, as that would move away from the notion of the hive itself being your interface into the game. In my mind, the game is about finding balances and responding to things that try to interrupt those balances rather than continuously micromanaging sliders, but I am open to considering a modifier key that will immediately display the Population screen when clicking on a Nursery, the Research screen when clicking on a Workshop, etc. for players who would like to play that way.
Hi! In case its' something you're interested in, the shortcut I mentioned adding is now available in v1.1-30.
That's unbee-lievable! (I know.. super cringe :D ) I just played the latest version and the shortcut is a great way to streamline the game without compromising your vision for it. Thank you!
Glad to hear it's working well for you :)
It was fun!
Though a bit shallow, once you hatch your first queen there is no real point in playing more, I basically had the entire tech tree except bee/queen upgrades at that point, and they cost way too much to be worth making before your queen, but once you have the means to make a queen there is no real failure possible anymore so they are a bit redundant.
The thing is that after first queen you either keep going with a hive that is capable of producing everything it needs or you start over with such a massive tech advantage that there is no risk of failure if you already did it once.
I wouldn't see it as a problem to have a short focused experience like that if "making your first queen" wasn't presented as the end of the tutorial, when anything beyond that is in fact new game +
Aside from this nitpick it was a very wholesome and enjoyable experience! And the way building upgrade did keep me playing a bit to satisfy my optimization obsession =p
Oh I guess I can add another thing, I think the map is actually a bit too big. At first I wanted to do a second hive and just fill the map in a beautiful optimized pattern, but I ended up just giving up in boredom after I did about half the map and had enough ressource production to create way beyond any ressource I'd ever need (by that I mean I could make the 600 jelly for a queen in a matter of seconds)
I think a map 2/3 the current size would fit more with the scope of the game without being excessively restricting.
Well I hope that was useful and interesting feedback!
Thanks for the game~ buzz buzz
Hi! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
If you haven't spotted, the Royal Decrees upgrade provides a mix of positive and negative effects that last the duration of that Queen's lifespan, providing more variation in the kinds of balances the game asks you to find. This is particularly impactful for new hives, but can also shake things up for larger hives depending on the combination of effects (particularly with the increased number of concurrent Queens that the Royal Apprenticeships upgrade allows).
First Queen represents a sustainability milestone rather than the "end" of a game. There's nothing wrong with not finding enjoyment playing beyond that though - every player's subjective experience is different!
I'm not sure that reducing the playspace is of any real value outside of possible challenge scenarios. I've been considering allowing the playspace to expand infinitely, but at this stage, that's lower priority at this compared to other changes I have planned.
It's un-bee-lievable how nice this game is. The vignettes add a lot of charm, as do the cute events.
As much fun as it is to watch the bees in real time, it'd be nice to have a speed up for when I'm just waiting for things to happen.
Hi! Thanks for your kind words.
I did briefly experiment with time controls before release, but found that they were moving the game away from what I wanted to make.
Your game is awesome! Just found a small bug, it's not breaking but limits gameplay a bit, if a screen pops up while moving the camera around it'll end up with the mouse cursor dissapearing until you open the game again.
Just a little bug, love the game regardless!
Hi! I'll take a look at that for the next patch. Thanks for the report and apologies for any inconvenience!
I'm having some trouble reproducing this. Could you please email through your system specs and a copy of the game log from a play session where this has occurred to the address listed under the "Technical help" section here on the store page?
Heyo! Yes I was playing for a bit and it seems that the problem wasn't from the tutorial screen popping but rather moving around the camera, it seems to get fixed whenever I move the mouse outside the game window.
Thanks for the extra clarification! If you could send through a copy of your game log and system specs, I'll be happy to look further into this.
I am getting this issue as well but I am not sure what's causing it. Sometimes I think it's the mousewheel scroll to move the screen but then it doesn't happen at all.... Cursor comes back into visibility after leaving the game window and coming back.
Thanks for the report. I really need to see game logs and system specs before I can look further into this. If you could send something through to the address listed under the "Technical help" section here on the store page, I'll be happy to look into it.
Following up, this has now been resolved in v1.1-30. Thanks to spartanchick316 for sending through some further information!
this game was awesome! as a huge lover of bees, i knew i had to give this one a try and it's been excellent. thanks for the fun and adorable experience! i've had a hard time putting this one down.
Thanks for your kind words :)
Thanks. Really love this game.
Glad to hear you're enjoying it :D
Absolutely love this game! Thank you for adding it to the charity bundle. I will definitely be paying for this game individually when I have the resources.
Thanks for your kind words! Glad to hear that you're enjoying the game :)
An really nice game I must say, very adictive ^^ I enjoyed it a lot.
Thanks for your kind words :)
your game is cool, and you are very kind man bc you selling it for free!
Thanks for your kind words!
I don't see the game as free - it's $10, but still accessible to people who can't afford that. If you haven't checked the FAQ here on the store page, there's an item discussing that.
if i could i donated you but now im too young
That's OK! It's important to me that people who can't afford the game can still play :)