There are a ton of game jams happening online at any point during the year. Many of these jams follow a theme and a timeframe, giving developers the challenge of creating a game within a specific jam’s restrictions. I am able to record loads of these games for each and almost every game jam. As I record them all, I pick out games that stand out to me and games I love from each individual jam. This article contains the games I love from the Bitsy Jam: Bees.
The Bitsy Jam is a monthly game jam that challenges developers to create a game using the Bitsy engine. This version of the jam had the theme of ‘bees.’ I’ve played through each of the submitted creations in my compilation video series and below are a few of my favorites, in a random order.
Oh, To Be(e) In Love by Communist Sister Interactive
Oh, to Be(e) in Love is a cute, adorable little love story, told through someone grabbing various hearts. Spring is here, and with it comes the story of somebody’s love returning home to them. It captures the excitement as the seasons change, bringing that loved one closer and closer to the time when they’d be back. This game has you experiencing that joy and excitement, slowly, as Spring meets the air. It’s simply wonderful to play.
Depressed Bee by Duckling Smith
Depressed Bee is another game with a very interesting message. The developer was looking to make a simple game about how a bee would fit into bee society being depressed. You see, bees always need to contribute to society around them, so trying to figure out how a depressed bee would fit in is an interesting concept. The only thing is, the developer didn’t have the energy. Instead, Depressed Bees explains this idea, while you are surrounded by bees contributing and having fun, being a part of the hive. It’s a lovely game with a great message and is worth the few minutes it takes to complete it.
Honey Quest by JacksonP
Honey Quest is a simple game where you play as a bee who is just trying to collect enough nectar to get back to their hive. Traveling through the world there are various different creatures looking for your help; hungry ones, ones needing items collected from around them and ones just needing something simple in return for a reward. Finding everything everyone needs will result in a lot of nectar for you, but nectar and pollen can also be found on their own, dotted around. The game is simple, yet quite fun to play through.
What Lies Beeneath by Elie
What Lies Beeneath is a funny game about a hive that’s too close to a house. Your house, actually — and your partner is allergic. So you will need to kindly ask the bees to leave. Getting into the hive isn’t so challenging, it’s more of trying to figure out a way to get them all to leave your home area that will take some time. What Lies Beeneath is very funny, especially in the way that the character of the various bees you meet are written. In order to relieve your partner’s allergy you’ll really need to do some work to get these bees out of here.
Honeydew by Radiosoap
Honeydew is a cute little game where you are just a bee, about to be queen. To become the queen you need to drink some royal honey. This honey is pretty important and is kept far away from your hive, so you must go on an adventure to find it! Each of the areas have beautiful screens, showing you the path you take through the various parts of the world. Along the way, you can run into interaction points that represent different bugs that you then need to attack and survive. This doesn’t require much effort and you seem to be a good fighter, so hopefully you will make it to queen bee soon.
If you’re interested in following in the next Bitsy Jam or voting on some of the themes, you can follow the creator of the Bitsy Engine, @adamledoux.
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