Hey Alpha Testers, or should I say Beeta testers now?? ːsteamhappyː
That's right, we're finally out of Alpha and all the major content for the game has been completed and added!!
If you're not one of our Testers and are reading this, fret not!
We will be doing a closed Beeta playtest in the next few months so stay tuned!
You will need a new world to get some of the new content, so you'll have to kiss those old bees goodbye! We're still working on the ending area (you'll find it locked off), but you won't need to create a new world again as the area is created in the Beeta 1.0 just not accessible - although if you manage to get to it well done I guess ːsteamsadː
Now that all the content is in we'll be working on these last few things, including:
- Balancing money (buying + selling)
- The ending and updated dialogue
- Achievements
- Modding
There should bee plenty of new content to keep you busy though while we work on that though!!
While playing the Beeta, we ask you to have a glance over this feedback form: https://forms.gle/AzYGQJ195rAAZXUj8
This form will give you some various pointers to get you thinking about different aspects of the game, as well as act as an anonymous way to give us any feedback you like.
We really appreciate any thoughts, so fill in as little or as much as you like <3
Any bugs can be through the Guilded Forums or the Bug Report form as per, we're sure there'll be plenty to find!!
Changes
Bees
- Added in all the bees! There are now 34 species of bees you can discover in total, some of the tier 4 bees have some extra special effects when working.
- Blazing bees act as heaters to nearby hives when working
- Arctic bees act as coolers to nearby hives when working, whats cooler than being cool??? ice coooooolldd
- Empress bees act as smokers (all scents) to nearby hives when working - ain't no grumpiness on their watch!
- Added Beehives as a craftable item - not sure yet how to tackle being able to make the different varieties but we'll keep you posted!
- Now only Blessed Bees can be used in Altars
- Increased chance of Blessed Bees to 5% from 1%, let us know if it's still too low!
- You will now always get a Verdant bee from common-forest for your first mutation
- Drowsy Bee is no longer Common + Forest to avoid confusion. Check your bee book for details!
- The Honeycore Uncapper is now obsolete - the Honeycore Centrifuge will extract both filled and uncapped frames, and give you propolis for frames that are not uncapped
- Added the Beebank - sold by the Merchant this is a special type of beebox that works for all species, not just one but damn it's pricey
- Recessive traits for rain + snow now show in microscopes
Books
- Updated book auto-scroll so it only happens when clicking book links, notifications, or using Up + Down
- Made the overview chapters "fixed" so you can get to them without scrolling back up each time
- Each book's Overview chapter now has a special item that you'll be rewarded with when completing that book
- Added a new quest to cover conservation / rehabilitators
- Added a lil compass to the map!
- Added the mutation "criteria" to the bee book for discovered species (hover over the anatomy section)
- Quest requirements should now take into account any menu objects you've placed nearby
Items
- Bottles of mead, spiced mead, water, honey, and resin now stack!
- You now get your bottle back when drinking infused mead! Reduce, reuse, recycle babyyy
- You can craft a Bottle Rack to store and display various bottles
- Skipper now sells a Cargo Boat, a normal boat with built-in storage to transport your stuff overseas!
Flowers
- Added water pots to use with aquatic plants - same as normal pots they'll prevent flower spread
- Added "pondshine in a bottle", which acts as a light source
- Added Abbee's Staff, a special item you'll get from completing the flower book that magically plants saplings and seedlings
World
- Added the Hallowed Island - you'll need a special item to be able to cut through all that overgrowth!
- Added the 4th Shrine & Hallowed Idol that grants "luck" for a short period of time
- Added large rocks to the forests and swamps to act as a larger source of rocks - maybe something else might be in there?
- Swamps now have thunderstorms! For bee purposes this still acts as "rain", although maybe the lightning will come in handy?
- Added a secret area!
Building
- You can now dig up the ground with a new tool - the Shovel! Currently sold by Bobbee this tool let's you dig up grass which you can place elsewhere
- Grass can be used on deep water to turn it into shallow water, and on shallow water to turn it into grass
- The Spade item has been updated visually to help differentiate it from the Shovel
- Extractor's now require glue for crafting instead of frames to ensure you have to have made + used an uncapping bench first
- The Merchant now sells a few new types of carpet!
Menus
- Increased the grab area of mechanisms to make it a bit easier to grab
- Sorting your inventory now ignores your hotbar, keeping it in the order you had it (wow what a treat)
- Swapped workbench recipe amounts to be WHAT YOU HAVE / WHAT YOU NEED instead of the other way round to match the quest book
- Updated all manual mechanism menus to have a direction arrow within the UI
- Made all mechanism always show their tooltip that explains the arrow key alt. controls without needing to hold shift
- When highlighting a menu you can close it with Escape - Pressing Escape with no menu highlighted still closes all menus as it always has
Crafting
- Added the Anvil, which lets you repair your tools with materials for cheaper than crafting new ones
- You can now craft multiple items at a time, either by using the new 'amount' arrows or typing in the number you want to craft
- Make Sawbenches cost less to craft
- Made Workbenches cost less to craft (jesus christ why did no one tell me they need that much stuff???)
Misc.
- Added 4 new music tracks, three day and one night, and added them to BroduxBlue's shop also!
- Updated portal colors to be more in-line with the hallowed island
- Renamed "Treated" planks + sticks to be "Infused", to make the link clearer to how you get those items
- When playing on Steam, pressing F12 should now take a screenshot correctly! You can still use P to hide/show GUI
- Changed tooltips to explicitly say how much an item sells for rather than just showing the amount
- If you get stuck in deep water you'll now be automatically TP to your spawn point after 5s of being stuck
- You can now set your spawn point by sleeping in a bed - by default your spawn is the dock at Port APICO
- Save & Quit now takes you back to the home screen
- Added little cutscene black bars to the introduction
Settings
- You can now access settings from the home screen (what a treat right?)
- Added a new accessbility menu in the settings menu
- Added an accessibility option to automatically expand all tooltips (as if you were holding down shift the whole time)
- Added an accessibility option to ignore tree collision, letting you walk through them
- Added an accessibility option to always get a mutation on hybrid offspring (so basically 50% chance from a hybrid queen as long as species + requirements are all correct still)
- Added an accessibility option for mechanisms to move automatically (only when menus are open)
- Added an accessibility option to turn on focus mode. In focus mode only one menu can be opened at a time (the same as gamepad/controller mode)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Wooden Pickaxes having 450 durability instead of 150
- Fixed menu errors that go onto two lines missing the bottom of the tooltip/having a gap
- Fixed altar progress bar glitching out when used
- Fixed altars not showing a mini version of the idol in the overworld
- Fixed offset of shadow underneath Lamps
- Fixed right-click or control-click on Beebox slots creating a bee with a 'count' value
- Fixed Beebox count total not updating when bees are removed
- Fixed missing highlight to currently selected Beebox storage card
- Fixed the black screen delay on initial load between starting the game and the TNgineers logo being shown
- Fixed an issue where level 1 and level 7 lifespan and productivity didn't work correctly when buffed past the limit
- Fixed Gates not acting as a light source
- Fixed Empty Tanks that can only ever have one type of liquid (like the tanks in the Fermenter) not saying the type of liquid in the tank tooltip
- Fixed the #SaveTheBees button being missing on the home page
- Fixed bee particles being invisible when placing down a hive and putting a queen in without moving the player
- Fixed Common-Uncommon not working as a recipe for Dream bees (Uncommon-Common was working, but this one should have too as it's the same diff)
- Fixed bees not doing the "return home" journey when conditions change to stuff they dont like (night, rain etc) and just disappearing
- Fixed placement error not showing (i.e. when trying to put a beehive on a wall or another object is in the way)
- Fixed infuser not working if there's an empty tank, then you add input items, then add a canister to fill
- Fixed not being able to close signs with ESC
- Fixed flower "buff" icons overflowing when more than 5 flowers are affecting one hive
- Fixed not being able to auto-shift to NPC shop menus
- Fixed NPC dialogue menus sometimes have clipped text
- Fixed undiscovered bees that are shiny not showing the black undiscovered sprite
- Updated frozen beehive to not show the hammer to avoid confusion