Honey for the Winter by adjo

[raw]
made by adjo for Ludum Dare 56 (COMPO)

For my entry, I wanted to build a relatively chill game managing a bee colony and going scouting for sources of nectar.

The goal of the game is to build enough honey reserves for your colony to survive through the coming winter. You must look for nectar sources when they become available, and manage the size of your colony to make the most of the nectar that's available at the time. When searching for nectar, make sure you find it before sundown. Bees don't fly at night!

This entry is a first for me in that I used my own custom game engine instead of Love2D like all my previous entries! I found balancing this game particularly hard, and unfortunately ran out of time for audio (like always).

Controls

While managing the colony, you can control everything with your mouse.

While searching for nectar: - WASD to move the bee - Space to start harvesting the flowers

Screenshot from 2024-10-06 19-47-27.png Screenshot from 2024-10-06 19-48-50.png

Ratings

Overall 159th 3.552⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 137th 3.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 94th 3.69⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 56th 4.052⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 87th 3.914⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 204th 2.731⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 164th 3.357⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 35🗨️

Feedback

zwartraider
07. Oct 2024 · 14:36 UTC
Great looking and playing game! I love how the bee ecosystem is established. Playing a few runs, I really cared about my bees and looked hard for that sweet sweet nectar! :bee: :bee: :bee:
CaptainDreamcast
07. Oct 2024 · 17:36 UTC
I did good, I would be an amazing honey bee. Was a bit close, I ramped up the hive to a couple thousand bees shortly before the end, and was at very low reserves for that, but thankfully I pulled the breaks early enough. At the end, I could have made it for more than a year (unless the beekeeper gets greedy again):

![reserved.PNG](///raw/a71/9/z/665a7.png)

Very fun game! I think splitting it between the stats part and the exploration part broke it up nicely, I feel the two modes complemented each other very well. I had attachment to the blackberry harvesting, I went out three times to find it, after all. I think that was a very good design choice. Loved playing this a lot, very well done, great job!
SdCorpse
07. Oct 2024 · 18:51 UTC
Bzzzzz
DzejPi
07. Oct 2024 · 18:52 UTC
Yay, I won, and it only took me few tries!

![2024-10-07_20-47-34.png](///raw/046/93/z/6675e.png)

There are so many small details I love! Like bees leaving and returning, returning and not flying when it's raining, month indicator, day/night indicator (which reminded me of my previous game) and so many other things. I enjoyed managing my beehive a lot and when I had my source secured, just wathcing bees leave, and then returning back! And felt "taxed" when the beekeeper took part of it!

The only bigger issue I encountered was that sometimes when I flied around the map, it slingshot me into one direction and I couldn't fight it back, which usually meant dying. Usually happened when I flew into one direction for multiple seconds. But I was able to work around it by flying slowly and holding keys only for a bit, so, no biggie. Great game, loved it!
LDJam user 258850
07. Oct 2024 · 20:15 UTC
dam that beekeeper ^^ great game!

![image_2024-10-07_211439761.png](///raw/223/f3/z/669e7.png)
Rodgems
07. Oct 2024 · 22:39 UTC
This was great, although occassionally hit a *bug* :bee: that sent me in a specific direction, so I'd die. Other than that, it was a super creative idea
Cruise Elroy
08. Oct 2024 · 00:17 UTC
I had a fun time with this one! The premise is really simple but it got me hooked pretty fast. I could easily see this being expanded into a bigger title. Good stuff!
daflamingpotato
08. Oct 2024 · 01:41 UTC
Cool game, love the art style! Only issues I had was I think there was a bug where I got stuck on the left and right side walls while searching for nectar, I couldn't move and half my bees died :(
oldzombie14
08. Oct 2024 · 05:42 UTC
i worked hard to survive yeaah
FrontiersEnd
08. Oct 2024 · 05:43 UTC
Found the bug where i got stuck on screen borders, but loved the concept. Good mix of incremental game and minigame
🎤 adjo
08. Oct 2024 · 19:44 UTC
Thank you all for playing!

And for @dzejpi, @rodgems, @daflamingpotato, and @frontiersend, I thought I'd fixed that bug, but apparently not! I guess that's what I get for using an untested engine :)
asfdfdfd
08. Oct 2024 · 20:11 UTC
This game reminds me my life. Full of work and nectar is finite.
LDJam user 357656
09. Oct 2024 · 00:00 UTC
Cool! I just played a game where I was a busy worker ant. This time, I was a queen bee managing the hive. The interactions between bee production, honey harvesting, and honey consuming made the game engaging.

Sometimes my bee would get locked moving in a direction, which, of course, impeded my ability to play the game.
Pincushion
09. Oct 2024 · 00:01 UTC
It's really fun to fly around. Nice looking too. I liked balancing the bees vs consumption. The beekeeper felt unfair. That's the bee life, I guess.
Adrien Tremblay
09. Oct 2024 · 02:53 UTC
Nice job! Big up for using your own custom game engine! My only complains are I wish there was some sound design (music, sound effects). And I think the movement code is buggy. Sometimes i'm not able to move in a certain direction.

![asdf.PNG](///raw/507/44/z/68271.png)
lantto
09. Oct 2024 · 11:29 UTC
I didn't fully understand what was going on but it was intriguing nonetheless. The calendar thing at the bottom was very cool and it was really satisfying seeing the bees follow you when on a search.
Harmadillo
09. Oct 2024 · 20:16 UTC
Nice game. Interesting balancing the number of bees vs nectar available. Hive screen with bees and calendar was cool.
Just a dev
09. Oct 2024 · 22:15 UTC
I didn't fully understand everything the first time, but the second time it was better and I managed to win.

I think you should be able to get back without half your bees dying if you get back to the hive before the night even if you didn't find hone nectar. The concept is original and the art is good, nice job.
kuggenhoffen
15. Oct 2024 · 19:24 UTC
Took a second to get the gist of the game. Managed still to beat the game on the first try so maybe could do with some increase in difficulty. Otherwise game looks great and gameplay is well thought out. Good job!
LDJam user 383763
18. Oct 2024 · 09:01 UTC
Nice game, but I had a problem with controls, sometimes I was heading some direction, missed the flowers and couldn't turn back and then night hit and my colony died :(.
LDJam user 336676
20. Oct 2024 · 17:34 UTC
this was awesome, it's not often you get like a complete game from a jam, this was basically just missing audio outside that it's complete, you could go more into the coming years and other sources of nectar but otherwise it's a complete encapsulated game