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Telling the Bees's itch.io pageArtistic Statement / Use of Theme
Telling the Bees is a rhythm game about a beekeeper reviving a forest dying of heat, one wild-bee hive at a time — climate handled as tending, not doom. Its positive solution is patient, intentional care, and its call to action is to plant a seed — to tend what comes after. We made it soft solarpunk with hard-edged rhythm, and grounded the fantasy in published climate science so the world holds up to a closer look.
Development Summary
Six of us, distributed, six weeks. The core design remained the same — a beekeeper playing alongside wild bees to bring a dying forest back — but the scope tightened. The biggest cut was a system where your pollination choices set each bee's mood; we fixed the hives instead, each adapted to the heat its own way (through their music and narrative), which read cleaner and let the rhythm carry the encounter. We also simplified the rhythm to play-alongside — you play with the bee rather than trading turns — once the turn-based version felt a little odd.
(optional) Release Plan
A rough prototype is playable now on itch. Post-jam we'd polish the encounter feel and UI, add more bee encounters and flowers, and run a build-in-public devlog toward a fuller release.
(optional) Further Development Plan
There's a larger game under this one: more hives, the full branching endings, and a deeper story about what a mentor hid and who survived the heat. This prototype is its first hour.
Topic Tags
Rhythm Game, Climate Change, Narrative, Atmospheric, Music, First-person, Singleplayer, Exploration, Fantasy, Short.
Sprint Participation
Yes.
Game Engine, Platform, Format
Unity
Generative AI Disclosure
On AI: Telling the Bees — its art, music, code, and writing — is made by hand by Team Groundhog Day. The trailer uses real gameplay footage; AI (Runway) assisted only with color-grading and one atmospheric shot. No AI-generated art, audio, or text ships in the game.
(optional) Promotional Video
https://youtu.be/pEgvynjXV4g?si=qQCn4z23el8hplJf
(Optional) Feedback Form
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfso8C-609Hq07lbRHIv_vdkn_Kxtz5QgywcG9IATWdVzVUbg/viewform?usp=header
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Comments
The art style is a bit cluttered, I couldn’t get it running smooth on my machine, though there is potential.
This was a very peaceful and calming game, and I enjoyed reading some of the in-game notes. Granted, the writing felt a little clunky at times as it was a bit difficult to piece together the dialogue.
The piano music was nice and it kind of reminded me of Clair De Lune.
The rhythm game portion was pretty fun, although I kept getting X's because I wasn't sure how to hit some of the notes. I was hitting space bar when they showed up, but I would still get X's. Then I held the spacebar down on the dark brown notes, but that didn't seem to work. I wish there were more of these, but it was still fun to play. I enjoyed switching the tracks.
I also enjoyed the harmonica sound.
I've followed your development across the whole jam and I am amazed by what you put out. The visuals and narrative are beautiful and melancholy. I also love the concept of restoring flowers through music. The rhythm game was a little janky and confusing for me since it seemed like certain notes I hit resulted in a miss and the timing got a bit overwhelming when there were multiple bees.
Great work and I am looking forward to seeing how you develop this game further!
This is the game whose narrative I am most jealous of (I did the narrative in my team, for context haha). The world building is just so expansive and lived in, and the conversations you have are not only characterizing of the interlocutors but of the people who cared about them and who they care for. Like I actually teared up in the conversation with the song-keeper. I also enjoyed the somber hope it brought to its fairly dire world — many things may be lost, and yet they keep living and seeking. If there were anything I’d polish up a bit if you revisited this game, it might just be to add a bit more guidance to help the player navigate this world’s story. I can understand the appeal of starting in the thick of things, but there were a couple moments where I didn’t feel like I had the proper context to experience the full intended impact of the scene. None of which stops the game and its web of stories from being super charismatic!
One thing I forgot to say in this post is that the introductory web-experience that contextualizes the game is SO GODDAMN COOL. Like unbelievably slick, and a great way to introduce both the topic and the tone of the game. I wanna know how y’all can make a thing like that.
Thank you so much! I am really into scrollytelling and 3D narrative structure visualization -- anything to get people reading! There's not a lot of academic research on it, though. It always helps to have an amazing artist on hand for assets. I used vanilla three.js r160, no build tooling, Lex's FBX converted to GLBs loaded via GLTFLoader and rendered as wireframe + additive-sprite glow, with Canvas2D for the textures and overlays. Hope this helps!
Trainspotter! Tears are the greatest honor, I'm so glad you felt immersed enough to be affected. Thank you so much for playing, and pointing out the finer details of the semiotic square in use. We tried our best as a team (from our very early mind-mapping stages, to our very late hive-dialogue additions) to adhere to our interpretation of the jam's theme:
... and it's axes:
... at every level of the game's design. This allowed us to organize story (and it's players) into groups with needs, wants, and goals. So that's pretty much all over the game. At the flora, fauna, message board, Mira's note, and player verb levels -- it's there!
Thank you so much for your feedback. As a student, and this being my second project, I was a little nervous (ask anyone on Groundhog Day) to get the story iceberg out there for fear of info overload and player overwhelm -- why should they care about it if all they want is rhythm action? So we decided to seed it rather than force it, having the player physically interact with objects to get the meat of the story, only if they want it. I feel this also leaves open "speedrunning" routes/feasibility (HA)! But trust me -- I wanted MANY more full on cutscenes than we got. Story is king! Thanks Trainspotter!
I like the graphics. The harmonica is a charming focal point. Save the bees!
Save the bees, Lanyard! Thanks for playing and the feedback, both. Cheers!
Such a unique game and i love the concept. The atmosphere reminds me a bit of slime rancher which is also a game i loved. I think the intro is genuinely so good and a great way to introduce the game!! i appreciate structured everything is and it rlly was impactful with the way u set the game up. Just a great experience overall!!
So glad to hear this, Llama_ded! Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I love Slime Rancher, and hadn't made that connection myself during the design process -- great pull! I hope you can carry the impact forward. Thank you for playing our game!
A truly standout game in terms of quality, especially with its writing and rhythm gameplay mechanics. Though a little confusing and hard to digest in the very beginning, I got the gist quickly and was able to absorb and appreciate a lot of the dialogue and story. I was initially worried about getting very lost, but I figured out that by simply following the flowers that needed to be pollinated (like a bee!) I would find my way to the end and hit every major plot point and character. Incredibly game design on all fronts. Hope you guys continue on this project!
Thank you so much for playing, NarrativeRichGames! I'm relieved to hear the onboarding wasn't too dense. I'm taking notes from Project Provita for next time! I felt really quite held in your game, like spawning in to a GameFreak title for the very first time. Again, thanks for playing!
Amazing game!!!!!!
Amazing comment!!!!!! Thanks so much for playing~
This is such a beautiful game and so much fun! I want a stuffed animal of the bees, so cute!
Oh my goodness. The Z-Brush texturing is just so, isn't it!? Forwarding this to the higher ups for imminent production. Thanks for playing~
Love this game! Love the bees!! Such a beautiful world and concept.
Thank you so much for playing!