APICO News

Hey beekeepers!

As you might have seen in the last post, the final update for APICO will be adding pets! To celebrate, we had a competition to submit your own pet design - and we had so many (nearly 200!!!) wonderful submissions. Thanks so much for everyone who submitted a design (and shout out to the person who submitted their designs using MINECRAFT as a medium, actually genius)

It was really hard because they were all so cute but we've narrowed the submissions down to 5 finalists - so now it's time for all of YOU to vote on your favourite below! The winning design as voted by the hive will be added to the gang along with the other pets coming in 4.0 - (bee, butterfly, bird, bunny, frog, imp, fish, and crab).

Please have a look through each of the 5 designs and then vote for your favourite in the form here:




Voting closes on February 1st, after which we'll announce which cutie won the vote and will be added to the game!

Hey Beekeepers!

So some exciting news - not only will there be little pets to collect in 4.0, but this is your chance to design your own and potentially get it added to the game!



If you'd like to have a chance to see your design chosen by the Hivemother, submit it using the form below before January 25th. I'll select 5 finalists from the submissions and then everyone will be able to vote for their favorite - the winning design will end up in the game along with the other pets :D
https://forms.gle/14WLGpbuCqqJzFeCA

Your design must be pixel art, and is limited to 10x10 pixels! It's tough but I believe in you!
Check the form above for some reference examples you can download as well as some free software you can use to make your design. You can also go old school and get out the graph paper if you'd prefer analogue.

Looking forward to seeing all the cute friends that get submitted
Good luck, have fun!
Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

As some of you might know, there is one last content update planned for the game - which will also be the last update for the game! 4.0, AKA, "Hive Of Industry" will see the honeycore process finally expanded, letting you forge your own honeycore crystals and build your own lite automation machines, such as the hopper (move items around), plopper (move liquids around), and forester (tree harvester).

There'll be lots of QoL tweaks, useful items, decoration, a few more bees and butts, some seasonal events (hivemas! hallowbeen!), a final OST, and some other lil secrets - it'll also finally let you walk through that mysterious doorway to lead to one final location to wrap everything up story and gameplay-wise...



I'll also be creating a self-hostable version of the Beenet (the multiplayer server) so you'll be able to run your own server. I'll still keep the current Beenet up for as long as I can afford, but just want to make sure there's some future proofing there.

So outside of new content this is everyones last chance to submit your 'last orders' for things you'd like added! Obviously I can't add every suggestion no matter how cool it'd be, but if there's been some QoL stuff or tweaks you'd like to see in APICO then this is the last time you'll be able to post them to potentially be added to the game
You can post in this thread below, or use the feedback form if you want to do some longer feedback (just ignore the other questions and dump in the last one)

~ Ell

P.S. Don't worry about any outstanding bugs as I already have a big old list for that and there'll still be some bug patches after the final update - this is purely just for features!

2023 is almost at an end, and it’s been a busy ol’ year looking back! Here’s a lil ellraiser/TNgineer wrapped…

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Started the year off strong dropping a demo for Rift Breach, an experimental lil dungeon crawler.

This was super fun to make, and helped me get better at scoping small as well as got my out of my usual pixel art comfort zone!

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Then FletchMakes hosted a 7 day gamejam + I couldn’t resist making the “APICO but frogs” I’d always joked about

Mudborne was born(e) + I was overwhelmed with how much people loved it. It also showed me just how much I can get done with a super strict scope and detailed plan!

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APICO had it’s 1st birthday! From a silly concept made in HTML to now published on all platforms with over 50,000 beekeepers playing - truly never thought it would go anywhere

I’m forever grateful to everyone who’s played and shared this funky bee game

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At this point trying to keep up with socials for 3 different games was getting far too much and I needed help - enter @mibyledraws who joined as the first official TNgineer!

Thank you for all your hard work, wonderful videos, and helping me keep on top of everything
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I got round to releasing the 2nd free content update for APICO, "What Lies Beeneath”, with all sorts of weird and wonderful ocean friends

It’s been tough to keep working on this mess of a game, but it’s worth it to see how much people have been enjoying all the new content

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Decided that I wanted to take the Mudborne concept into a full-game, and started planning out everything along with a new art style and vibe for it (there’s only so far a sprite-rip of APICO can go lmao)

It’s wild to see how far I’ve started to come from tiny rectangle trees!

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Towards the end of the year I left my freelance contract + went full-time gamedev, not quite by choice but it was something I wanted to do for a while

I’ll now be able to spend all my time on the games, as well as all the other little concepts I’ve had bubbling away...

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I moved from GameMaker to LÖVE, built a small framework for future games like Snacktorio + Mudborne, and contributed to the engine itself

Was the first time actually helping making a substantial contribution to an open-source project and I learnt a lot!

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After a couple years in + out of development and a last minute engine change to LÖVE, I finally finished + released the demo for Snacktorio

We’ve had some amazing feedback and it’s been so gratifying to finally get it out and see people enjoy it

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Looking ahead to 2024, it’ll be my first year as a full-time gamedev (as well as reaching lvl 30!)

I’m planning to release the final update for APICO, as well as releasing either Mudborne or Snacktorio - might even have to drop some new demos too, as a treat…

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Thanks for everyone who has supported me and TNgineers throughout the year.

Whether that was playing the demos, buying the games, sharing your progress, joining the discord, posting wholesome reviews, sending me cute bee pics - I’m truly grateful to you all