I'm surprised you could make some pretty challenging levels with such simple mechanics.
Thorns are annoying but you could exploit them as walls with a pain state, but the glass gave me A LOT of trouble. Kinda gave up trying to fully complete the last level after some time. I get the idea why the bee does not turn when it hits the glass, but yeah, I have no idea how to beat it - maybe you need some very precise angling?
Anyway, it's a really cool game. The bee is very cute and the ending animation made me laugh, especially when the bee gets the honey all over its face.
Very cute little game. Bee tries to collect pollen but is interrupted by her whacky animal friends that want to play. I think that vibe is very good. As such I would actually remove the thorns and replace them with something sillier and non hurtful.
The glass is also a bit questionable. It grew really a bit infuriating in the final level, why can’t this stupid bee just turn around? Why is it so hard to get a good bounce off the glass? Instinctively I wanted to flap right before hitting it, but it turns out this gives you minimum bounce instead of a strong one. It might be cool to just make the glass much more bouncy in general. Maybe change it to Impatiens Glandulifera flavour-wise?
Also not a fan of symmetric or huge levels in puzzlers. They tend to just be a drag. If anything, maybe make a flowy linear one where you can’t even backtrack if you missed a petal. By the way those petals/blossoms have quite the large hitbox. Was frustrating sometimes to realise I needn’t set my jump up so well, I would’ve easily collected the petal even with bad setup.
Jump/flap strength was another pain, I don’t know if it works better on touch devices, but with mouse sometimes I just could not flap as weakly as I needed to.
Anyhow, fun game and concept! I think it’s already at a stage where it could be really really good just with more refined level design.
edit: Ah yes, please add a "Quick Reset" button for the highscore hunters. Speaking of highscores, I think both 100% and any% completion leaderboards per level could be quite interesting.
Gave it a go, but it's not really my thing so I only played through the first ten levels. My only real feedback is that the level end screen takes way too long to sum up your collected flowers. I don't know about getting hurt making your ranking worse - on the one hand it's kinda boring that there's no fail state, but on the other, your control over your trajectory is kinda limited and I could see it getting frustrating.
The bee's cute though, and the varying finish animations are a nice touch.
Movement reminds me of my game more than I'd like to admit.
Air control is really good, but as opposed to that having only one option of starting from the ground doesn't exactly feels right, especially if you are about to jump into spikes.
Glass not changing the direction is just too funny, great idea.
It doesn't exactly bring out the full charm of bumble bees. It needs some buzzing, funny leg movement and tall flowers bending under its weight (catapult prop?).
Feels like a complete game overall, very polished. Last stage was a neat challenge.
Heh, someone's bound to be creeped out by the spiders. I tried to make them as non-threatening as possible, but arachnophobia prevails. The thorns don't change your direction unless you bounce off a wall or start rolling on the floor.
According to all known laws of aviation Impeccable spritework and heartwarming attention to detail in the iyashikei-as-a-videogame vein pioneered by P.A.T. (this one features toads too!). I'd like to commend the sound design here; the SFX selection in the game hits all the right spots. My favorites are the sounds of the small flowers filling up the score gauge at the end of the level (the sound the wilted flowers make when there are a lot of them is even better, but you have to sacrifice a perfect run on a given stage just to hear it), the clinking glass, and the spiders being hit and scuttling about. As much of a standout as the art. Game plays like a not evil version of Flappy Bird. The twist is that crashing against the game scenery is actually the goal this time. Along the way, elements that alter or hinder your flight abilities are introduced and due to this, certain parts of the game feel like graceful puzzle sections. Wind levels are kino; my personal favorite was Stage 13. I thought thorn levels were sadistic until glass panes were introduced. It's exactly the kind of game that grips you by making you wonder what the next mechanics will look and behave like.
Just a few things I wish were there: - a button to "lock" the big flower (temporarily prevent interaction)? This may seem trivial in small or linear stages, but would prevent some frustration when you're exposed to the flower all the time in "open-world" stages like 16, or in the ones that require frustrating maneuvers, like 20 and 25. I understand, this is something that directly affects game difficulty. It's probably part of your vision anyway. It's just that -- touching the flower is currently the only way to get a game over, that is, if you're going for the 100% but end up inadvertently finishing the stage beforehand. Well, I wouldn't even bring this up if the game wasn't marketed as chill-out media. - show the stage number when a level starts? It has to be an intentional part of the aesthetic that there are no numbers on-screen except on the stage select menu, eh? I don't think showing the stage number real quick would compromise it, though.
"Yes, there are two paths you can go by" Re: "Question of the day". If you wish to keep things peak comfy, leave it like they are now. Getting hurt already takes control from the player in a game in which you have limited control over the main character, so I believe it's punishment enough. A downside I see is that you might need a larger amount of content (with decently spaced additions along the way) if the player cannot die. If you went the Nintendo Hard way, giving the character a traditional health system, you could get away with less stages, at the cost of the completely chill experience. Only you can make this call, but I actually think that Bumbly Bee would stand out more by leaving us with infinite hits; I'm biased towards it. A certain hit game released last year doesn't even feature player health or lives. Seems to be a trend the market will follow.
Fun fact: on stage 5, I bumped at a certain point on the level where there were a bunch of spiders nesting around a token. My screen went red. I thought that hitting the spiders enough times did that but it turns out I had actually double-clicked outside of the game frame (I was clicking frantically to break through the tangle of spiders) and accidentally selected the area (selected elements are highlighted by red on that page). Download version when?
Playthrough: 100%. ~1 hour (about 45 minutes spent on stages 1-24; like 15 minutes to clear stage 25 alone).
Game plays like a not evil version of Flappy Bird.
Heh, that's exactly what I had in mind.
a button to "lock" the big flower (temporarily prevent interaction)?
I've been thinking on how I could achive this in a good way but I'm not 100% certain. I don't exactly want to add a button. Maybe I could make it timed so the player has to sit on the flower for a second or so before it triggers the goal but that also has it's downsides. It's less about the difficulty and more about making it as simple as possible. No extra UI, no waiting, just touch flower. I might keep it this way but make it so that it's a bit more out of the way and easier to avoid dropping in on accident.
- show the stage number when a level starts? It has to be an intentional part of the aesthetic that there are no numbers on-screen except on the stage select menu, eh?
Yeah the idea is to keep it as minimal as possible. Showing a level number somewhere would be fine though, I'll put it on the list. I also thought about naming levels and such but I'd prefer to avoid text as much as possible just for the sake of not having to translate anything.
100%. ~1 hour (about 45 minutes spent on stages 1-24; like 15 minutes to clear stage 25 alone).
Damn stage 25 got hands. It's actually intended to be stage 35 or something, I just shifted it back for the demo, but reading this I might have to put near the very end.
Runs great on my Android phone. Very nice art and sound effects.
In one of the earlier levels, I collided with the large pink flower, and as the bee was doing the "jump into the pollen" animation, it collided with one of the small collectible flowers and picked it up. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but I would think you shouldn't be able to pick things up after you've already finished the level.
Maybe add some sort of "time bonus" to the levels, because right now there's not really any incentive to hurry. You can make as many mistakes as you want, and still get a perfect score.
I'm really liking this. All the best with the development.
I left that collecting after getting the goal in since it really doesn't hurt. I'll think about a time bonus thing for an extra mode or something in a later update, the game is supposed to be a simple chill game afterall.
Definitely on the easy side, except for level 25 which is a difficulty spike and a half. Levels like 24 where you're just collecting flowers in an open area are kinda boring, the rest are okay. You can bounce off spiky vines if you collide with them while invulnerable, which doesn't seem intended but doesn't break the game or anything.
It's not the most exciting game design-wise, but the visuals, effect, music and UI are all good, if this is meant to be a "tutorial" game you knocked it out of the park.
I actually shifted level 25 back just for the demo, it's going to be level 35 or so. Yeah you can bounce off the spiky vines, not exactly intended but it just kinda worked out this way and I thought why not.
enjoyable mechanics; to answer your "Question of the day"
If you want to have "punishments"; I would try out a ranking system based on getting hit/keeping flower combo up (combo drops if you get hit or something, or if you take too long between picking the next flower).
Basically like in the game "Dustforce", no punishment for doing bad, but rewarded for being perfect.
Maybe getting S rank can unlock levels that you otherwise wouldn't have access to or something.
My intention with the game was to keep it extremely simple. A ranking system like that would be a good idea, but I'd simply consider this out of scope. Pretty sure at this point I'm leaning heavily in favor of just not doing anything extra here and keep it as is.
Extremely cute! Love the bee, and the overall presentation. Gameplay wise, I think it feels too fast and weightless, I get what it's going for, but maybe if the bee were slower to accelerate and had more momentum it would give the gameplay more of a feeling of intentionality.
You mean the bee should accelerate slower but have more maximum speed? I actually toyed with it accelerating slower before but I'm not sure if I like it.
Accelerate slower, but the maximum speed is high enough already. Something I forgot to mention is I really like the bee rolling (mmm, that sound), and I think if the overall movement was slower you could get more opportunities to use the rolling.
I'll try and tinker around with the speed values a bit and see if I like it. The rolling was kind of an afterthought, it's not really meant to be used as a mechanic, just something that happens here and there. The sound is from a kotsuzumi btw. Thanks for playing :)
Yeah I expected that the scoreboard animations are not quick enough. I'll put it on my list and think of something. Technically all levels are doable without bumping into vines, but it's probably too hard for a casual game I suppose.
Comments
I'm surprised you could make some pretty challenging levels with such simple mechanics.
Thorns are annoying but you could exploit them as walls with a pain state, but the glass gave me A LOT of trouble. Kinda gave up trying to fully complete the last level after some time. I get the idea why the bee does not turn when it hits the glass, but yeah, I have no idea how to beat it - maybe you need some very precise angling?
Anyway, it's a really cool game. The bee is very cute and the ending animation made me laugh, especially when the bee gets the honey all over its face.
Good stuff!
I will probably make the glass stuff easier by giving it some multiplier. You're not the only one struggling.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2140407952
Very cute little game. Bee tries to collect pollen but is interrupted by her whacky animal friends that want to play. I think that vibe is very good. As such I would actually remove the thorns and replace them with something sillier and non hurtful.
The glass is also a bit questionable. It grew really a bit infuriating in the final level, why can’t this stupid bee just turn around? Why is it so hard to get a good bounce off the glass? Instinctively I wanted to flap right before hitting it, but it turns out this gives you minimum bounce instead of a strong one. It might be cool to just make the glass much more bouncy in general. Maybe change it to Impatiens Glandulifera flavour-wise?
Also not a fan of symmetric or huge levels in puzzlers. They tend to just be a drag. If anything, maybe make a flowy linear one where you can’t even backtrack if you missed a petal. By the way those petals/blossoms have quite the large hitbox. Was frustrating sometimes to realise I needn’t set my jump up so well, I would’ve easily collected the petal even with bad setup.
Jump/flap strength was another pain, I don’t know if it works better on touch devices, but with mouse sometimes I just could not flap as weakly as I needed to.
Anyhow, fun game and concept! I think it’s already at a stage where it could be really really good just with more refined level design.
edit: Ah yes, please add a "Quick Reset" button for the highscore hunters. Speaking of highscores, I think both 100% and any% completion leaderboards per level could be quite interesting.
Gave it a go, but it's not really my thing so I only played through the first ten levels.
My only real feedback is that the level end screen takes way too long to sum up your collected flowers.
I don't know about getting hurt making your ranking worse - on the one hand it's kinda boring that there's no fail state, but on the other, your control over your trajectory is kinda limited and I could see it getting frustrating.
The bee's cute though, and the varying finish animations are a nice touch.
Movement reminds me of my game more than I'd like to admit.
Air control is really good, but as opposed to that having only one option of starting from the ground doesn't exactly feels right, especially if you are about to jump into spikes.
Glass not changing the direction is just too funny, great idea.
It doesn't exactly bring out the full charm of bumble bees. It needs some buzzing, funny leg movement and tall flowers bending under its weight (catapult prop?).
Feels like a complete game overall, very polished. Last stage was a neat challenge.
cute, i can see people enjoying a game like this on mobile.
no complaints
Neat little physics game.
The spiders are a bit creepy. I'm not sure if they fit the atmosphere.
It seems inconsistent whether thorns change your direction or not.
If you're trying to make the game punishing you could add limited flight per level, but I think it's fine as-is
Heh, someone's bound to be creeped out by the spiders. I tried to make them as non-threatening as possible, but arachnophobia prevails. The thorns don't change your direction unless you bounce off a wall or start rolling on the floor.
Delightful, simply delightful. Love the bee's expressions and animations.
According to all known laws of aviation
Impeccable spritework and heartwarming attention to detail in the iyashikei-as-a-videogame vein pioneered by P.A.T. (this one features toads too!). I'd like to commend the sound design here; the SFX selection in the game hits all the right spots. My favorites are the sounds of the small flowers filling up the score gauge at the end of the level (the sound the wilted flowers make when there are a lot of them is even better, but you have to sacrifice a perfect run on a given stage just to hear it), the clinking glass, and the spiders being hit and scuttling about. As much of a standout as the art.
Game plays like a not evil version of Flappy Bird. The twist is that crashing against the game scenery is actually the goal this time. Along the way, elements that alter or hinder your flight abilities are introduced and due to this, certain parts of the game feel like graceful puzzle sections. Wind levels are kino; my personal favorite was Stage 13. I thought thorn levels were sadistic until glass panes were introduced. It's exactly the kind of game that grips you by making you wonder what the next mechanics will look and behave like.
Just a few things I wish were there:
- a button to "lock" the big flower (temporarily prevent interaction)? This may seem trivial in small or linear stages, but would prevent some frustration when you're exposed to the flower all the time in "open-world" stages like 16, or in the ones that require frustrating maneuvers, like 20 and 25. I understand, this is something that directly affects game difficulty. It's probably part of your vision anyway. It's just that -- touching the flower is currently the only way to get a game over, that is, if you're going for the 100% but end up inadvertently finishing the stage beforehand. Well, I wouldn't even bring this up if the game wasn't marketed as chill-out media.
- show the stage number when a level starts? It has to be an intentional part of the aesthetic that there are no numbers on-screen except on the stage select menu, eh? I don't think showing the stage number real quick would compromise it, though.
"Yes, there are two paths you can go by"
Re: "Question of the day". If you wish to keep things peak comfy, leave it like they are now. Getting hurt already takes control from the player in a game in which you have limited control over the main character, so I believe it's punishment enough. A downside I see is that you might need a larger amount of content (with decently spaced additions along the way) if the player cannot die. If you went the Nintendo Hard way, giving the character a traditional health system, you could get away with less stages, at the cost of the completely chill experience. Only you can make this call, but I actually think that Bumbly Bee would stand out more by leaving us with infinite hits; I'm biased towards it. A certain hit game released last year doesn't even feature player health or lives. Seems to be a trend the market will follow.
Fun fact: on stage 5, I bumped at a certain point on the level where there were a bunch of spiders nesting around a token. My screen went red. I thought that hitting the spiders enough times did that but it turns out I had actually double-clicked outside of the game frame (I was clicking frantically to break through the tangle of spiders) and accidentally selected the area (selected elements are highlighted by red on that page).
Download version when?
Playthrough: 100%. ~1 hour (about 45 minutes spent on stages 1-24; like 15 minutes to clear stage 25 alone).
Heh, that's exactly what I had in mind.
I've been thinking on how I could achive this in a good way but I'm not 100% certain. I don't exactly want to add a button. Maybe I could make it timed so the player has to sit on the flower for a second or so before it triggers the goal but that also has it's downsides. It's less about the difficulty and more about making it as simple as possible. No extra UI, no waiting, just touch flower. I might keep it this way but make it so that it's a bit more out of the way and easier to avoid dropping in on accident.
Yeah the idea is to keep it as minimal as possible. Showing a level number somewhere would be fine though, I'll put it on the list. I also thought about naming levels and such but I'd prefer to avoid text as much as possible just for the sake of not having to translate anything.
Damn stage 25 got hands. It's actually intended to be stage 35 or something, I just shifted it back for the demo, but reading this I might have to put near the very end.
Thanks for the detailed feedback :)
Runs great on my Android phone. Very nice art and sound effects.
In one of the earlier levels, I collided with the large pink flower, and as the bee was doing the "jump into the pollen" animation, it collided with one of the small collectible flowers and picked it up. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but I would think you shouldn't be able to pick things up after you've already finished the level.
Maybe add some sort of "time bonus" to the levels, because right now there's not really any incentive to hurry. You can make as many mistakes as you want, and still get a perfect score.
I'm really liking this. All the best with the development.
I left that collecting after getting the goal in since it really doesn't hurt. I'll think about a time bonus thing for an extra mode or something in a later update, the game is supposed to be a simple chill game afterall.
Wonderful game, I can't think of anything to improve
cool
Cute game!
Definitely on the easy side, except for level 25 which is a difficulty spike and a half.
Levels like 24 where you're just collecting flowers in an open area are kinda boring, the rest are okay.
You can bounce off spiky vines if you collide with them while invulnerable, which doesn't seem intended but doesn't break the game or anything.
It's not the most exciting game design-wise, but the visuals, effect, music and UI are all good, if this is meant to be a "tutorial" game you knocked it out of the park.
I actually shifted level 25 back just for the demo, it's going to be level 35 or so. Yeah you can bounce off the spiky vines, not exactly intended but it just kinda worked out this way and I thought why not.
enjoyable mechanics; to answer your "Question of the day"
If you want to have "punishments"; I would try out a ranking system based on getting hit/keeping flower combo up (combo drops if you get hit or something, or if you take too long between picking the next flower).
Basically like in the game "Dustforce", no punishment for doing bad, but rewarded for being perfect.
Maybe getting S rank can unlock levels that you otherwise wouldn't have access to or something.
My intention with the game was to keep it extremely simple. A ranking system like that would be a good idea, but I'd simply consider this out of scope. Pretty sure at this point I'm leaning heavily in favor of just not doing anything extra here and keep it as is.
This game made me happy
This game is awesome! Very cute and a breeze to play. I could see adding a bit more weight like blorbdev said, but over all I really enjoyed myself!
Extremely cute! Love the bee, and the overall presentation. Gameplay wise, I think it feels too fast and weightless, I get what it's going for, but maybe if the bee were slower to accelerate and had more momentum it would give the gameplay more of a feeling of intentionality.
You mean the bee should accelerate slower but have more maximum speed? I actually toyed with it accelerating slower before but I'm not sure if I like it.
Accelerate slower, but the maximum speed is high enough already. Something I forgot to mention is I really like the bee rolling (mmm, that sound), and I think if the overall movement was slower you could get more opportunities to use the rolling.
I'll try and tinker around with the speed values a bit and see if I like it. The rolling was kind of an afterthought, it's not really meant to be used as a mechanic, just something that happens here and there. The sound is from a kotsuzumi btw. Thanks for playing :)
The presentation is nice but I think the scoreboard animations could use a bit of a speed up/skip button, at least.
Not sure how you can implement a hurt system because some levels feel like you're gonna have to bump into the vines regardless.
Yeah I expected that the scoreboard animations are not quick enough. I'll put it on my list and think of something. Technically all levels are doable without bumping into vines, but it's probably too hard for a casual game I suppose.