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Alpha 4.0

Here we are beekeepers, the second major update and woo boy is it a big one!

This is the "Honeycore Update", that introduces honeycore - a strange crystal that grows in the Tundra that vibrates when bees are working nearby. One of your new friends, Bobbee the Blacksmith, will be able to made you some sweet automated machines in exchange for any honeycore you bring to them!



There's lot's of other fun stuff too, new bees to discover, 'unlimited' bee storage with the new Beeboxes, gates that will transport you around the world, a whole bunch of new friends, a town noticeboard where you can help the townsfolk and solve cross-breeding puzzles, new types of frames, new flowers, new machines... it's a doozy.

As always with a major update we'd recommend a new world (as half the content won't spawn in an old world), and please let us know your thoughts via the Alpha forums in Guilded or the feedback form if you'd prefer to stay anonymous! There's also probably a whole lotta new bugs with this one, but I mean what else did you sign up for huh?

Some ideas of things to think about while playing:
How's the progression feel with the snow biome?
Are the automated machines worth the upgrade?
How's the balance of making money vs things to spend it on?
What things could make the Beebox more useful?

We hope you enjoy
Changes


[h2]Apiculture[/h2]
  • Added Beeboxes, a special type of storage for apiarists that let you store lots of bees of the same species!
  • When fully conserving a species you'll now get written about in the local news!
  • Added 4 new bees, all hybrids with their own conditions to meet, good luck!
  • Added two new intro chapters to the bee book to cover the rest of the bee traits as well as inheritence
  • Added a small badges to each chapter in the bee book to mark having got a blessed bee, having got special produce, and having conserved the species
  • Dream Bee is now a fixed recipe rather than being any hybrid species - check the Uncommon Bee page for the 'recipe'! (Uncommon x Common)
  • Added a new hover for the bee book anatomy and trait sections to make things clearer
  • Updated some beehive message colors (sleeping is now blue, hot/cold is now the matching temp color)
  • Updated the wording of the Uncommon Bee's hint


[h2]Floriculture[/h2]
  • Added 3 new flowers, each of them cross-breeds from tier 2 flowers! One decreases lifespan, one increases honey produced, and one keeps dawn/dusk/night bees awake longer in the mornings!
  • You can now put seeds in pots for decoration!


[h2]Machines[/h2]
  • Added the Jukebox, a special machine that plays music tracks - you'll have to find BroduxBlue to get your hands on it though! (requires a new world)
  • Added Honeycore Machines, sold by Bobbee, these machines are powered by nearby hive activity (fully automated babeee!)
  • The bottler has been upgraded and you can now bottle all liquids to be sold!


[h2]Crafting[/h2]
  • Added Honeycore Frames, sold by Bobbee, these frames increases the amount of honey extracted
  • Added Mysterious Frames, sold by the Merchant, these frames increase the amount of special produce extracted
  • Added Dyes, crafted from flowers + glue, and can be used to dye objects, machines, crates, hives, walls, and tiles!
  • Added a new spice formed by the Ancient Bee that, when infused, will speed up time
  • You can now sell honeycomb, propolis, glue, waterproof and sawdust for a small about of rubees each
  • Added durability info to crafting icons + shop icons for frames + tools


[h2]NPCs[/h2]
  • Added Bobbee, a blacksmith who works with Honeycore, a strange crystal that grows in the polar regions
  • Added BroduxBlue, a cute little musical fox who might have some interesting items for sale if you can find them!
  • Added Abbee, a florist who lives out in the swamps who sells all the flowers you've discovered, as well as a few special items that might help your green thumbs!
  • Added the Merchant, a mysterious individual that only shows up at night - they have some rare things on sale, stranger
  • Added Barnabee, Beenjamins apiarist apprentice who sells all the bees you've discovered, along with some useful beekeeping special items!
  • Added a notice on NPCs when they have something new to say!


[h2]World Generation[/h2]
  • Added random structures to the world generation!
  • Crates generated in the world now have random items inside!
  • Added the Town Noticeboard where you can help out the townfolk with making mead, solving cross-breeding puzzles, and crafting items!
  • Added Honeycore to the snowy regions
  • Added Hivemother Shrines, little shrines where you can find the Hivemother Altars, and Hivemother Gates
  • Added Hivermother Gates, once activated they provide a quick way to get around the islands - boats are for suckers
  • Added fog to the swamps oooooohhhhh spoopyyyy


[h2]Misc.[/h2]
  • Added the ability to use the following punctation / symbols for key mapping: .,`'\/-
  • Updated the settings menu to include an inverse scroll option, plus a bsync option (we dont know what it does)
  • The game will now pause when books are open, the settings/controls menus are open, or the discovery/conservation magazines are open
  • While the game is paused you can't move and time will be frozen!
  • You can now close discovery popups with ESC


Bug Fixes
  • Fixed "target" menus not being reset when moving away / closing them by clicking their overworld sprite, meaning the inventory didn't automatically shift click to the next open menu
  • Fixed undiscovered shiny bees not showing the black "undiscovered" sprite
  • Fixed rehabeelitator showing slot "confetti" when a bee is released when the menu is closed
  • Fixed NPC's not showing their appreciation when you buy stuff, so rude!
  • Fixed shiny bees not showing their lil flash animation
  • Fixed microscope showing numbers being 1 off (i.e. showing a '3' but in the 4th box)
  • Removed the hacky town lanterns from the world gen now that windows act as light sources, if your world was made before this patch then woooo free lanterns :D
  • Fixed walls being highlightable (thats a word) through a menu
  • Fixed the "Queen has finished her cycle" message showing when no bees are in the output slots
  • Fixed the beehive help menu not showing correctly
  • Fixed Beenjamins hints not being told for the next undiscovered bee (so much for an expert!!)
  • Fixed Jukeboxes playing at the same time as game music, game music will now pause
  • Fixed slots with 99 of an item showing the "change" effect when picking up more of that item
  • Fixed bottler not working with exactly 100bl inside–
  • Fixed being able to trash your friends (why would you tho :(((((()
  • Fixed aquatic seeds outright lying and saying that they can be planted on grass
  • Fixed NPC menus not closing when you get too far away
  • Fixed beehives not creating exact clones of the queen with some rescessive traits
  • Fixed NPC dialogue not resetting when closing the menu but not saying goodbye (rude that you didn't say bye but okay)
  • Fixed Infuser showing "need to add resin" error message when no items in the input
  • Fixed machines cancelling a canister filling/draining when adding items to a slot
  • Fixed progress in the bookshelf and file select screen being wrong
  • Fixed hives not showing the "sleeping" message when bees are asleep
  • Fixed auto-sort causing random single non-stackable items when sorting a bunch of stacks of the same item
  • Fixed bee 'icon' buttons in the bee and flower book crashing when clicked on
  • Fixed being able to move the title screen menu around (lol)
  • Fixed being able to open the home screen menus in the top left corner of the map (how do you people find this stuff)
  • Fixed player customisation not resetting when creating a new world and you have an existing world
  • Fixed the map not caching properly on windows, causing a lag when opening the map for the first time
  • Fixed menus that were targets and then hammered messing up the automatic quick target
  • Fixed hivesbane not buffing mutation chance correctly
  • Fixed wax canisters not being able to be used in Infusers
  • Fixed an issue with picking up multiple items on the ground - should reduce the bit of lag you get when picking up an entire forest!
  • Fixed rogue "dev wall" being left underneath the Sir Sengir statue when hammered
  • Fixed fullscreen/window setting not saving on reload
  • Fixed a performance issue where lights were not being cleaned up
  • Fixed a performance issue where lighting was being drawn (invisibly) in the day
  • Fixed jukebox not using music level set in the settings
  • Fixed flowers sometimes not being marked as discovered properly
  • Fixed being able to middle click on non-stackable items, destroy any other of that item in the menu
  • Fixed raintank not setting filled canisters as "water" even though they get filled
  • Added a fix to help the game resize the window to an even number when resized manually and not fullscreen

Demo 3.7

Heya!

Thanks so much to everyone who's been playing the demo, we've now had over 1000 people playing this new one!!! SO. MANY. BEES.

Thanks for everyones bug reports and feedback - we've got a lot of fixes in this update but the most important thing is we fixed the Dream Bee being impossible to actually get, whoops!

We've also changed the hybrid criteria, you'll need an Uncommon-Common / Common-Uncommon queen, with the same Dream Bee conditions as before. This is to help make it clearer how to get the Dream Bee and give it an actual 'recipe' in the bee book, before it was any hybrid under the right conditions but it caused more confusion than intended!

[h2]Changes[/h2]
  • Fixed the Dream Bee being literally impossible to get, I'm so sorry :(((
  • Dream Bee is now a fixed recipe rather than being any hybrid species - check the Uncommon Bee page for the 'recipe'! (Uncommon x Common)
  • Added the ability to use the following punctation / symbols for key mapping: .,`'\/-


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Fixed hives not showing the "sleeping" message when bees are asleep
  • Fixed being able to move the title screen menu around (lol)
  • Fixed being able to open the home screen menus in the top left corner of the map (how do you people find this stuff)
  • Fixed NPC's not resetting when talking to them
  • Fixed swarmer showing the bee icons in slots even when items are in there
  • Fixed being able to interact with menus or clickable objects from the home screen
  • Fixed being able to click on the murky bee icon from the flower book
  • Fixed player customisation not resetting when creating a new world and you have an existing world
  • Fixed the map not caching properly on windows, causing a lag when opening the map for the first time
  • Fixed menus that were targets and then hammered messing up the automatic quick target
  • Fixed hivesbane not buffing mutation chance correctly
  • Fixed rogue "dev wall" being left underneath the Sir Sengir statue when hammered

Demo 3.6


Heya!! Just a quick one this time, we wanted to iron out a few little bugs and fix the paint scraper before the Wholesome Direct tomorrow, just so everything is ship shape for any potential newbees!

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Fixed Paint Scraper crashing the game
  • Fixed NPC menus not closing when you get too far away
  • Fixed NPC dialogue not resetting when closing the menu but not saying goodbye (rude that you didn't say bye but okay)
  • Fixed Infuser showing "need to add resin" error message when no items in the input
  • Fixed machines cancelling a canister filling/draining when adding items to a slot
  • Fixed wall reference grid caching when making a new world leading to glitched walls

Demo 3.5

Hey lil bees!

As we're going to be in the Wholesome Direct this weekend we wanted to iron out a bunch of the bugs as well as add in some of the new features we've been working on so we can keep the demo a proper "slice of life" of the actual gameplay and show off some of the new stuff we've been doing.

The main thing this update brings is the new dyeing mechanics! When you open your workbench you'll see a new tab for crafting a brush, a scraper, and dyes! You can use dyes to change the colour of any man-made object, crates, apiarys, machines, walls, tiles.



There's also a bunch of new stuff around world generation, and a whole lotta bug fixes!
We've also added back the feedback/bug report forms to both the homepage as well as in-game (up in the top-right by the save button!) so you can easily let us know any ideas you have or bugs you come across.

[h2]Changes[/h2]
  • Added Dyes, crafted from flowers + glue, and can be used to dye objects, machines, crates, hives, walls, and tiles!
  • Added Beenjamin into the demo! This grumpy ol' Beekeeper will give you hints on any undiscovered bees you're looking for, and sells some beekeeping related goodies (requires a new world)
  • Added Brodux into the demo! This lil cutie sells the Jukebox, as well as music disks so you can play your favourite jams! (requires a new world)
  • Added random structures to the world generation! (requires a new world)
  • Crates generated in the world now have random items inside!
  • Update the NPC conversation windows to look more fancy
  • You can now sell honeycomb, propolis, glue, waterproof and sawdust for a small about of rubees each
  • Updated the wording of the Uncommon Bee's hint
  • Updated the "Shh, these bees are sleeping" message to be blue rather than red
  • Added durability info to crafting icons + shop icons for frames + tools
  • You can now put seeds in pots for decoration!
  • Updated the home page to match the new game art, and added feedback form link
  • Added a feedback/bug report button into the game which opens up our Google Form


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
  • Fixed "target" menus not being reset when moving away / closing them by clicking their overworld sprite, meaning the inventory didn't automatically shift click to the next open menu
  • Fixed undiscovered shiny bees not showing the black "undiscovered" sprite
  • Fixed rehabeelitator showing slot "confetti" when a bee is released when the menu is closed
  • Fixed some non-demo quests still showing a notification in the demo when getting certain items (boat, squeezer, backpack)
  • Fixed NPC's not showing their appreciation when you buy stuff, so rude!
  • Removed the hacky town lanterns from the world gen now that windows act as light sources, if your world was made before this patch then woooo free lanterns :D
  • Fixed walls being highlightable (thats a word) through a menu
  • Fixed the "Queen has finished her cycle" message showing when no bees are in the output slots
  • Fixed the beehive help menu not showing correctly
  • Fixed slots with 99 of an item showing the "change" effect when picking up more of that item
  • Fixed bottler not working with exactly 100bl inside

Demo 3.4

Thanks so much for everyone who's checked out the demo and for all your lovely feedback!

Luckily it looks like we got away with any breaking bugs and it's been mostly smooth sailing. This update fixed a lot of little tweaks and small issues, and adds in a few different little updates. The main feedback we saw a lot of was being overwhelmed with quests after the last introduction quest so we've tweaked the order/amount of quests unlocked as you go and so hopefully that feels less overwhelming for new players!

Content-wise we've added back the boat and the backpack to Skipper's shop in the demo. We added the boat as we noticed that some of your demo islands were generating with a lake to the top-right of the town cutting off the east of the island (where you find the Altar and the Uncommon bees), so we've added a boat to be able to get over there. The backpack is basically a special crate you can take with you whereever you go whenever you need some more space (and yes you can have more than one!!)

Changes
  • Added the boat and the backpack items to Skipper's shop in demo mode
  • "Next Steps" quest now only unlocks 4 new quests instead of 7 to prevent players being overwhelmed by choices
  • Changed "Menu Magic" to give 20 sticks as the reward instead of a crate to give a boost to the amount of sticks you have at the start
  • Updated latin names to prevent favoritism towards bumblebee genus specifically (thanks @Entomancy!)
  • Windows will now act as light sources, same size as lanterns
  • Removed "rollover" sound from slots/chapters before @medusaur murders someone
  • Updated conservation status message for the first 3 species that are already saved (that wasn't thanks to you, stop taking all the credit!!)
  • Updated frame sprites to make the difference between empty, filled, and uncapped clearer
  • Updated colour of stone tools to match stone palette
  • Updated treetaps to say "Single-use" to make it clearer you can't get them back atm
  • Updated hive bubble icon to show a little yellow bee when the hive is finished rather than a red "!" to remove the urgency
  • Tweaked a few sprites to be in the correct colour palette


Bug Fixes
  • Fixed closing a target menu by clicking on the placed machine not resetting the target
  • Fixed "The Queen has finished her cycle" messages being in red, is now in yellow, again just to chill out a bit on the in your face messages all being "error" colors
  • Fixed weather report notifications not resetting after the weather has gone / day has ended
  • Fixed "Beekeeper's Delight" not being discovered in the flower book by default
  • Fixed mouse "tool" icon showing on top of books
  • Fixed climate trait icons being the wrong way round in the bee book
  • Fixed typos in the apiary tooltip descriptions
  • Fixed lighting going completely off of the correct position when using CTRL+R to reload the game
  • Fixed scroll direction on books being in reverse on Windows/Linux
  • Fixed scrolling on a map causing the game to crash
  • Removed Steam connection on Itch/GJ builds to prevent the game failing to launch if steam is open