Studio42

Indie game dev, specialising in strategy games. Wishlist Wild Hive on Steam now! Coming soon. Link in bio.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Wild Hive is finally live! My roguelike indie game about managing a bee hive. Be sure wishlist it or grab it while it's on launch discount.

https://t.co/6UO8wCcgp7

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

A bee leaving my hive is sometimes a sign I've done my job.

In my bee game, a collector can drop off nectar and head straight back out without a new order. You choose the field and assign the work, rather than approve every trip.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Why does my bee game have share trading?

I wanted a quicker way to earn coins than waiting for honey. I bought shares in another hive, had to wait to sell those too, then got 38 coins back from the 39 I'd spent.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Why would you choose to wait longer for a new bee?

In my bee game, you can hurry an egg along with honey. But that comes out of the adult bees' food supply. Leaving the egg alone means they get to keep more of their dinner.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

I made a game where you can sell the bees' dinner. Someone asked why the bees couldn't stop you.

I added an optional honey reserve. With it on, normal sales leave their share behind for them to eat.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

You can pause egg laying in my bee game and still end up with more bees to feed.

The eggs already in the hive can still hatch. Your honey budget needs to include bees that aren't here yet.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

I'm hoping the bees in my game bring home more of the nectar they can't turn into honey.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Signing a form is a strange way to give bees a home.

In my bee game, the wax stamp becomes the first cell of the hive they're about to move into.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

My bee game can give you a game over while you've still got plenty of gold.

The bees have to earn enough each year to keep their hive. You can spend last year's savings, but you can't use them to meet this year's target.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

What do you add to a bee game when you want players to care about more than honey?

My answer was a winter huddle. Workers squeeze together around their queen.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Why does selling a crate of honey make the honey you kept worth more?

In my bee game, filling a hotel's order improves your hive's star rating. That higher rating raises the value of your other honey too.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

I nearly cut food gathering from my bee game because I liked having the bees around.

Then I let you watch them deliver the nectar. Now I send them out just to see them come home.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Someone asked for more time with the bees in my bee game.

They were busy checking honey prices. Now you can set a price-rise rule and let the game sell for you when it triggers.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

How do you get a queen bee onto the dance floor?

In my bee game, the workers bring the party to her. After fighting off wasps, they dance round her while she has a little wiggle in her crown.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

You can collect all the honey in my bee game and still miss out on points. Quick runs of matching colours build a bonus; switching colour banks it and starts a new run. The bees do the hard work. You get rewarded for colour coordination.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Before restarting civilisation, have you tried moving the furniture?

In my bee game, you can swap the cells where bees make honey, even if the spot you want is taken. You get to keep the colony and pretend you had a plan.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

So many indie devs are throwing in the towel over the rapid rise of AI in game dev ...But I'm not concerned and here's why:

No matter how good AI gets, it will never replace that itch, that passion, that nagging feeling at 1am to tweak that feature or improve this or that.

I've been working on my first indie game, Wild Hive for three years, But it's not been an everyday 9-to-5. Some weeks I barely touch it. Some days I only work on it for five minutes. Other days it's a 14-hour black hole that pulls me in, and I can't sleep.

It's this process... this small, iterative, purely passion- and partial insanity-driven pursuit of beauty and seemingly unattainable perfection, that I promise you AI will never replace. No matter how advanced it gets. I truly believe that.

So, my fellow indie devs, I implore you: don't give up. Because whilst the rest of the world is concerning themselves with how "The latest AI model has just killed game dev for real!!!!" you could be carefully but surely crafting your epic and your legacy.

#indiedev #indiegame #SteamNextFest

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

How do you defend a hive from wasps when you can save one bee every five seconds at best? In my bee game, a well-timed tap saves one worker from a wasp, then the dodge recharges. When more wasps arrive, I can hire armoured mercenary bees. The game calls them Bee-cenaries.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Ignoring one small patch of mould in my bee game looks like a way to save in-game money. The mould ruins the honey in its cell and can spread, and the only cure is a spray whose price rises with every extra patch. So waiting can cost you honey and a pricier cure.

[Studio42 @Studio42Apps]

Would you take a royal decree that makes all your honey sell for 50% more? In my bee game the Crown can issue one, on higher difficulties from year 8. It also raises that year'squota by 60%, so a honey harvest that just met a normal quota falls a little short.