Hey Beekeepers!

To get you ready for the final content update for APICO, FletchMakes will be streaming the new content along with me, Ell!

Tune in here on Steam on Friday 26th April at 5PM BST to see a sneak peak of the new gameplay as well as ask me things about the new content or the game in general

Hope to see ya there <3
~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Exciting news today, I can reveal that the 3rd and final free content update for APICO, "Hive Of Industry", will be dropping on PC+Switch on May 20th, aka International Bee Day, aka APICO's birthday!

This update will bring new honeycore mechanics, automation machines, cute pets, seasonal events, a butt-load of decoration, new music, more bees, more butts, and a whole lot of QoL bits and bobs you've all been after - check out the trailer below for a preview:

[previewyoutube=zYjv3aVAavg;full][/previewyoutube]

If you still want to know more, you can check out the patch notes for the upcoming content early over on the wiki!. It's a big one (and thats without all the bug fixes!) but should make for a wonderful farewell for us all.

Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for a few events, including a livestream / AMA type thing, plus the new soundtrack in all it's glory <3

~ Ell

Hi friends, hope youre doing well!

Its already the beginning of a new month, and you know the drill: its time for a new recap!

[hr][/hr]

Celebrating Black History Month
APICO took part in Humble's Exceptional Indie Allies Bundle, along with 6 other amazing games, to celebrate Black History Month and raise money for NPower.

Big thanks to everyone who supported the cause - so far youve helped raise over $25,000! (Also if youre quick you can still grab the bundle today!)

[hr][/hr]

LVE JAM 2024
Ell took a little week break from finishing APICOs Honeycore Update to join this years LVE game jam with their submission, Synthesis! In Ells own words;

[quote=ellraiser]this year the theme was interface so you know I had to! I wanted to make a bit of an abstract puzzle game where the player isn't taught any controls and has to learn through trial and error, and I'm happy with how it all ended up! It was also my first time making music for a game so... enjoy that lol[/quote]



You can try out the jam game over on itch.io here!

[hr][/hr]

Whitethorn Winter
Whitethorn Games, APICOs publisher, held a celebration of gaming across all the games in their catalogue through a showcase and Steam event (you can catch the vod here)

While we didnt have anything to show, there was some nice sneak peaks at our sibling games, like Magical Delicacy and Botany Manor!

[hr][/hr]

Final Countdown
Its been a bit of a slow year so far, with not much to share while Ell plugs away at finishing the final update, however we have got some lovely things planned for the 4.0 launch to look forward to, so be sure to keep an eye out.

Well also havs the Steam Spring Sale coming very soon (March 14th!) with the deepest discount to-date for APICO and the soundtracks, so a perfect time to pick up APICO and catch up with everything before the last update

[hr][/hr]

Aaand that was February at TNgineers! As always, thank you so much for your support <3

Take care!
Manon, Ell and Jamie

Hi friends!

A new year is upon us, and its been a bit of a manic start with Ell moving house but were back on track now!

[hr][/hr]


APICO Pet Competition
As you may have seen on our socials, pets are coming to APICO along with the final Honeycore update! To celebrate, we held a design-your-own-pet competition (which receieved over 200 submissions!), and narrowed down the cuties to just five finalists, which were put up to a vote by all of you.



Although the dino was the vote winner by a small margin, everyone found it super difficult to pick - and why should they have to? Weve decided that all five designs will be winners, so youll be able to enjoy all of them as pets in the final update - congratulations to all the artists! <3

[hr][/hr]


APICO 4.0 WIPS
Ells been working hard on the Honeycore Update, and you might have seen some bits and bobs on our socials and on Discord!



New cute decor and furniture, light automation, moving crates & beeboxes without emptying them we've been very glad to see your reactions to all the new things weve planned for this last update and cant wait to let you all get your hands on it!

[hr][/hr]


APICO Prime!
For those of you who use Amazon Prime Gaming, APICO is currently part of the free Prime games you can claim! You have until February 14th to claim it - once you do itll be added to your library indefinitely!

This is the same as the latest Steam / PC release, so you get all of the same nautical goodness.

[hr][/hr]


Coming Very Soon
Coming very shortly after this recap, Whitethorn Games (APICOs publisher!) will be having their Whitethorn Winter Showcase! This is a celebration of gaming magic across all the other sister games, so be sure to check it out to see what other new games are coming that might bee off interest to you.

Theres also a new Humble Bundle where you can get APICO along with some other fantastic games, all to help celebrate Black History Month and raise money for NPower, so if youre still looking to pick up APICO as well as support a wonderful cause this is your chance!

[hr][/hr]

And thats it for this first recap of 2024! Big thanks for your amazing support <3

Take care!
Manon, Ell and Jamie

Hey beekeepers!

As you might have seen in the last post, the final update for APICO will be adding pets! To celebrate, we had a competition to submit your own pet design - and we had so many (nearly 200!!!) wonderful submissions. Thanks so much for everyone who submitted a design (and shout out to the person who submitted their designs using MINECRAFT as a medium, actually genius)

It was really hard because they were all so cute but we've narrowed the submissions down to 5 finalists - so now it's time for all of YOU to vote on your favourite below! The winning design as voted by the hive will be added to the gang along with the other pets coming in 4.0 - (bee, butterfly, bird, bunny, frog, imp, fish, and crab).

Please have a look through each of the 5 designs and then vote for your favourite in the form here:
Voting Form!



Voting closes on February 1st, after which we'll announce which cutie won the vote and will be added to the game! <3

Hey Beekeepers!

So some exciting news - not only will there be little pets to collect in 4.0, but this is your chance to design your own and potentially get it added to the game!



If you'd like to have a chance to see your design chosen by the Hivemother, submit it using the form below before January 25th. I'll select 5 finalists from the submissions and then everyone will be able to vote for their favorite - the winning design will end up in the game along with the other pets :D
https://forms.gle/14WLGpbuCqqJzFeCA

Your design must be pixel art, and is limited to 10x10 pixels! It's tough but I believe in you!
Check the form above for some reference examples you can download as well as some free software you can use to make your design. You can also go old school and get out the graph paper if you'd prefer analogue.

Looking forward to seeing all the cute friends that get submitted <3

Good luck, have fun!
Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

As some of you might know, there is one last content update planned for the game - which will also be the last update for the game! 4.0, AKA, "Hive Of Industry" will see the honeycore process finally expanded, letting you forge your own honeycore crystals and build your own lite automation machines, such as the hopper (move items around), plopper (move liquids around), and forester (tree harvester).

There'll be lots of QoL tweaks, useful items, decoration, a few more bees and butts, some seasonal events (hivemas! hallowbeen!), a final OST, and some other lil secrets - it'll also finally let you walk through that mysterious doorway to lead to one final location to wrap everything up story and gameplay-wise...



I'll also be creating a self-hostable version of the Beenet (the multiplayer server) so you'll be able to run your own server. I'll still keep the current Beenet up for as long as I can afford, but just want to make sure there's some future proofing there.

So outside of new content this is everyones last chance to submit your 'last orders' for things you'd like added! Obviously I can't add every suggestion no matter how cool it'd be, but if there's been some QoL stuff or tweaks you'd like to see in APICO then this is the last time you'll be able to post them to potentially be added to the game <3

You can post in this thread below, or use the if you want to do some longer feedback (just ignore the other questions and dump in the last one)

~ Ell

P.S. Don't worry about any outstanding bugs as I already have a big old list for that and there'll still be some bug patches after the final update - this is purely just for features!

2023 is almost at an end, and its been a busy ol year looking back! Heres a lil ellraiser/TNgineer wrapped

[hr][/hr]



Started the year off strong dropping a demo for Rift Breach, an experimental lil dungeon crawler.

This was super fun to make, and helped me get better at scoping small as well as got my out of my usual pixel art comfort zone!

[hr][/hr]



Then FletchMakes hosted a 7 day gamejam + I couldnt resist making the APICO but frogs Id always joked about

Mudborne was born(e) + I was overwhelmed with how much people loved it. It also showed me just how much I can get done with a super strict scope and detailed plan!

[hr][/hr]



APICO had its 1st birthday! From a silly concept made in HTML to now published on all platforms with over 50,000 beekeepers playing - truly never thought it would go anywhere

Im forever grateful to everyone whos played and shared this funky bee game

[hr][/hr]



At this point trying to keep up with socials for 3 different games was getting far too much and I needed help - enter @mibyledraws who joined as the first official TNgineer!

Thank you for all your hard work, wonderful videos, and helping me keep on top of everything <3

[hr][/hr]



I got round to releasing the 2nd free content update for APICO, "What Lies Beeneath, with all sorts of weird and wonderful ocean friends

Its been tough to keep working on this mess of a game, but its worth it to see how much people have been enjoying all the new content

[hr][/hr]



Decided that I wanted to take the Mudborne concept into a full-game, and started planning out everything along with a new art style and vibe for it (theres only so far a sprite-rip of APICO can go lmao)

Its wild to see how far Ive started to come from tiny rectangle trees!

[hr][/hr]



Towards the end of the year I left my freelance contract + went full-time gamedev, not quite by choice but it was something I wanted to do for a while

Ill now be able to spend all my time on the games, as well as all the other little concepts Ive had bubbling away...

[hr][/hr]



I moved from GameMaker to LVE, built a small framework for future games like Snacktorio + Mudborne, and contributed to the engine itself

Was the first time actually helping making a substantial contribution to an open-source project and I learnt a lot!

[hr][/hr]



After a couple years in + out of development and a last minute engine change to LVE, I finally finished + released the demo for Snacktorio

Weve had some amazing feedback and its been so gratifying to finally get it out and see people enjoy it

[hr][/hr]



Looking ahead to 2024, itll be my first year as a full-time gamedev (as well as reaching lvl 30!)

Im planning to release the final update for APICO, as well as releasing either Mudborne or Snacktorio - might even have to drop some new demos too, as a treat

[hr][/hr]

Thanks for everyone who has supported me and TNgineers throughout the year.

Whether that was playing the demos, buying the games, sharing your progress, joining the discord, posting wholesome reviews, sending me cute bee pics - Im truly grateful to you all <3

Hi friends!

Its almost December, which means its time to recap what happened last month!

[hr][/hr]

Snacktorio: Ready To Order!
The demo for our factory-cooking simulator, Snacktorio, has finally been released! Thanks so much to all of you chefs, players and content creators for your support <3

If youd like to get a taste of whats in store you can watch the trailer below, or just go try out the demo on Steam!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIsDeQQokwM

[hr][/hr]

Cozy Quest Steam Festival
In the middle of the month we snuggled up and celebrated cozy games through the Cozy Quest Festival hosted on Steam, with APICO and Mudborne!



The organizers, Secret Mode, hosted a lovely stream to try out some of the games and demo taking part in the festival, and played the Mudborne demo while interviewing Ell, which you can watch here.

[hr][/hr]

10,000 FROGS
Our little froggy nature-sim reached 10,000 wishlists last month! We are so happy and thankful to each and every single person whos supported Mudborne, played it, and wishlisted it on Steam. Heres all 10,000 of you, live in-game:



[hr][/hr]

Aaand thats it for this months recap! Thanks for sticking with us and keeping the soups coming :)

Take care!
Manon, Ell and Jamie

I broke divepoints oops sorry

Hey Beekeepers!

Beeeen a busy bee working on the demo for Snacktorio but now thats finishing up I had some time to work through the backlog of various bugs and some MP fixes - thanks for all your patience!!

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Updated Steam Achievement descriptions to say 'half' rather than specific numbers as the numbers are now outdated
  
• Increased the pickup range of dropped items
  

• Fixed "Variable .species(100014, -2147483648) not set before reading it" (sc_beehotel1_change)
  
• Fixed "Unable to find instance for object index 129284" (sc_slot_shift_click SLOT_LDOWN)
  
• Fixed "Variable .oid(100032, -2147483648) not set before reading it" (sc_util_get_obj_at HIGHLIGHTER_STEP)
  

• Fixed salinity level of coral tanks being set to the ph level in multiplayer games
  
• Fixed sludge + coral achievements not unlocking when playing in a friend's game in multiplayer
  
• Fixed a duplicate boat being made in multiplayer when a client player dived back to the surface near a boat
  
• Fixed butterfly mutation cuases duplicate flowers
  
• Fixed Cultivator Bee entry showing the wrong sprite for the required Honeycore item
  
• Fixed Coral Flower items saying you could place them on grass, the liars
  
• Fixed Ashthorn not being able to be used to calm Stubborn Bees
  
• Fixed "Tier 3" label in the flower book overlapping chapter icons
  
• Fixed a couple of rogue PLAYER.NAMEs in magazines instead of showing your own lovely name
  
• Fixed Coral Tanks trying to process Prismatic Slivers
  
• Fixed beehives sometimes keeping the grumpy status after a queen ends its lifecycle
  
• Fixed time not going back to normal if you click a gate or boat while sleeping/benching (and in MP)
  
• Fixed being able to open the Butterfly Book by clicking the empty book slot before its unlocked
  
• Fixed being able to place Ocean Lanterns underwater in the cave walls
  
• Fixed footstep sound for grass playing when using the rubberring in deep water
  

Hi friends!

A month passed by since our last newsletter, heres whats been going on!

[hr][/hr]

FROG CON
We joined the Frog Con, an online convention for frog lovers that mixes educational panels with creative works, in the middle of the month. Mudborne was one of the froggy games and got played during the convention!

For the occasion, we shared more about the game on our socials, as well as some redesign work-in-progress sneak peeks!



[hr][/hr]

APICO Checklist Tracker
A fellow beekeeper created a checklist tracker & guide spreadsheet for APICO! Its truly an amazing resource, and includes the Ocean Update (3.0) new content.



Thank you so much DeluxeGremlin for this!

[hr][/hr]

APICO Community Spotlight
Fellow beekeeper Hazel shared this screenshot of her base in our community discord! Between the rainbow hive garden and the Mothense concert for the NPCs, its a dream place to bee. If you want to share youre own cute pics you should come join us!



In other APICO news, the lovely Chelsea, that you may know as myPotatoGames on Twitter, wrote a very wholesome review of our beekeeping sim! Its always heartwarming to hear such nice feedback <3

[hr][/hr]

Beemoji Mashup!
Last month, our discord bot beebot started sharing a beemoji mashup everyday, and that gave us an idea: what if you could make your own mashup, and beebot could send it to the server?



You can now submit your mashup by filling this form, and itll get added to the bots daily posts! :D

[hr][/hr]

Thats it for this months recap! Thanks for sticking with us and keeping these hives buzzing, its been a quiet month but we have some exciting stuff coming next time!

Take care!
Manon, Ell and Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Couple more bug fixes including a bunch of minor stuff I was putting aside in favour of more breaking issues!
Thanks again as always to all your reports <3

~ Ell

[hr][/hr][h3]Changes[/h3]

• You no longer get sent back to your spawn after the credits, and remain in front of the (now open) door (could this be a setup for the 4.0 update I wonder)
  
• Updated steam cloud mapping, should now sync the saves+modsfolders between all OSs properly
  

• Fixed SteamDeck not using the full height of the screen
  
• Fixed new bee produce being disgustingly undervalued by those ungrateful NPCs (x10 sell price)
  
• Fixed the new idol not being able to be used in the dream shrine
  
• Fixed the beehive breeding slot not being fully hidden when a queen was inside
  
• Fixed Filtration Hives filling sludge filters when not underwater
  
• Fixed lag on beebox/buttbox/beebank with lots of friends inside
  
• Fixed Filtration Hives filling sludge filters when no sludge tiles were nearby
  
• Fixed some NPCs getting ahead of themselves and congratulating you on finding all bees/butts early
  
• Fixed some rogue {PLAYER.NAME}s showing in dialogue instead of your own beeautiful name
  
• Fixed not being able to pick up flora with most tools (exception being nets on flowers for obvs reasons)
  
• Fixed being able to set your spawn point with a bed underwater or in caves
  
• Fixed being able to use the rubbering in the dev/dream areas
  
• Fixed coral species not generated hives when fully restored
  
• Fixed fishing then using a gate or divespot causing a weird ghost fishing menu
  
• Fixed not being able to dive back down a spot on gamepad when no shallow/boat nearvy
  
• Fixed heater/cooler icons overlapping with the moon icon in the top-left
  
• Fixed corrupted players.json files causing issues on start-up
  
• Fixed Shipsbane showing "thorny" butterfly as the req when it's "stippled"
  
• Fixed some fishing achievements being locked+relocked when changing between saves
  
• Fixed not being able to open non-beehives with a hivetool equipped
  
• Fixed being able to use the pencil on a backpack
  
• Fixed coral restoration not immedietely being detected in some situations
  
• Fixed coral that was pincered not counting as needing to be restored in that session
  
• Fixed Golden fishing rod having no tooltip info
  
• Fixed TDRAW hook being broken with modding
  

Hi friends!

September is already gone and oh boy, what a month! APICOs second major update came out - What Lies Beeneath :D

[hr][/hr]

APICO 3.0 Makes A Splash!
What Lies Beeneath launched on September 26 on PC! Beekeepers can now explore the ocean, restore coral reefs, clean the seabed, fish and, of course, discover all the new bees (including underwater ones!!). You can check out the patch notes here to see all the new stuff added.

If youre a console player, no worries! The update will eventually come to you, and well make sure to let you all know when it happens <3

[hr][/hr]

APICO Steam Sale
To celebrate the new update, APICO and its amazing soundtracks (Im not the one who composed it so I can say it) are currently on sale on Steam!

The game is 45% off, and the soundtracks are each 50% off until October 10th

[hr][/hr]

Bee Butts?!
We experimented a bit with the discord server this month: after a short career in sending cute bee pics, beebot switched to beemojis creation. Some are cuter than others, but its a little surprise everyday!

Weve also been very happy to see the players enjoy the update and sharing tips (and bugs) in the server, feel free to stop by! <3

[hr][/hr]

Whats Next?
In October, well join Frog Con, a lovely online convention for frog lovers that raises funds for amphibian conservation. In the middle or froggy cams, the artist alley and educational streams, Mudborne will take part to the con as a froggy game, October 13-23

Be sure to check it out, along with the other amazing froggy games well be alongside!

[hr][/hr]

And thats a wrap for September! We wish you all a good spooky month!

Take care,
Manon, Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Some more bug fixes and a couple a tweaks, hopefully this should be all of the major stuff sorted out!
Ill still be doing patches but less frequently now as things have got more stable (especially after the influx of new bees, welcome all!!)

If youve been enjoying the new content and want to see more dont forget to leave a nice review for the game!
Theres still one last big free content update to come next year - if youre interested in knowing more you can check out the roadmap here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1390190/discussions/0/3414305314950533292/

~ Ell

[h3]General[/h3]

• Added a check to make sure frosty/fiery beehives get spawned properly
  
• Changed solitary bee item tooltip to show the beehotel/habitat rather than beehive/hive
  
• You can now hammer glitched beehives (especially ones that rudely spawn in your beeautiful base)
  
• Removed "hydrophobic" from prismatic bee's hint as it caused confusion (myself included)
  

• Fixed selling to Bobbee with JP or CN language set crashing
  

• Fixed being able to use the shovel underwater
  
• Fixed coral tanks not being able to go back down to 0% salinity
  
• Fixed butterfly hotels not picking up nearby algae/kelp preventing sunken admiral usage
  
• Fixed the beebank being a bit wonky in multiplayer
  
• Fixed butterfly box setting lifespan to 0 when removed. You can put 0 lifespan butts back in buttbox if you want to reset the lifespan back
  
• Fixed shell scaffold in calcified bee entry always showing as discovered
  
• Fixed coral tanks not being able to go down to 0% salinity
  
• Fixed bug hotels in the caves saying the native flora used was wrong
  
• Fixed prismatic bee magazine showing "$magazine_prismatic_b" instead of the second paragraph
  
• Fixed cultivator bee entry in book crashing once you'd discovered Honeyed Root
  
• Fixed sea cauliflower not applying the +2 lifespan
  
• Fixed tidewort not applying the +2 stability
  
• Fixed honey visual on hives not disappearing after using a hivetool
  
• Fixed tooltip for kelp + algae flora items being the wrong way round and saying they come from shrubs
  
• Fixed walking near the hivemother's door after opening it retriggering the opening sequence
  
• Fixed being able to move stuff into an invisible backpack/trash slot on steamdeck when opening another menu
  
• Fixed being able to see the quick queen button on steamdeck (you just use the r-stick control as displayed to QQ on gamepad)
  
• Fixed butterfly box UI going weird when removing butterflies on steamdeck/gamepad
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Continuing to crush these (not nice) bugs as they come in, keep 'em coming >:)
The game goes on sale today at some point for a whole week (valve are being all cool and mysterious and won't tell me what time), so if you've been waiting to grab the game at a nice discount you won't have to wait much longer!

~ Ell

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed adding/removing bees to a beebox/beebank not syncing up in multiplayer
  
• Fixed buttboxes just not working at all in multiplayer
  
• Fixed buttbox layout for large numbers of butts
  
• Fixed rehabeelitator not working generally after restoring any of the underwater bees
  
• Fixed queen lifespan not counting down in a certain golden location
  
• Fixed Captain just giving away striped walls until he went out of business
  
• Fixed ocean butterflies not showing a tooltip when highlighting the right panel in the book
  
• Fixed kelp/algae not showing their discovered sprites for sunken admiral page
  
• Fixed degrumpifyer drones not potentially passing that onto the queen they make
  
• Fixed degrumpifyer not using up honey
  
• Fixed Beenjamin's hints being for the wrong species in the later tiers
  
• Fixed some of the hotbar bee icons being offset slightly
  
• Fixed habitats not working for coral/underwater bees
  
• Fixed habitats not showing correct environment sprites for the new species
  
• Fixed conditions for Crystalfin being wrong
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Few more fixes and tweaks, hope youve been enjoying all the new content so far :D

~ Ell

[h3]Balance[/h3]

• Increases the radius of the lure's grab area
  
• Decreased the speed of some of the fish slightly
  

• Fixed "variable co_core.working not set before reading it" on some quick-queen hotkey presses
  
• Fixed "sc_button_press unable to find instance for object index" when closing a pencil re-naming menu
  
• Fixed game crashing when trying to drop a fish back in deep water with right-click
  

• Tweaked api_slot_fill and api_slot_drain to prevent issues
  
• Fixed NPCs not having the correct slot position to account for the new multiplyer buttons
  

• Fixed Prismatic Fragment item missing a tooltip
  
• Fixed Coral Scaffold having no lore in the bee book
  
• Fixed open menus not updating position & GUI after resizing the window until you move
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Couple quick fixes while you explore the depths, thanks for all the reports!! <3

~ Ell

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed being able to hammer sludge or seaweed underwater (oops)
  
• Fixed hammer highlight showing when hovering on coral or sludge
  
• Fixed some 3.0 achievements automatically unlocking (you gotta work for that)
  
• Fixed Bumblemore item spawning in the lost+found on new 3.0 worlds
  
• Fixed not being able to place scaffolds on damaged coral near coral beehives
  
• Fixed Captain just GIVING away lamps, what is this a charity???
  
• Fixed Sunken Admiral book entry not showing kelp/algae items
  
• Fixed coral/ocean/geode solbees & butts having wrong background in the books
  
• Fixed "Lost" Butterfly just saying "lost" (he like me foreal)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Well here we are gang, the 3.0 update, aka What Lies Beeneath, is finally here!

Its been a long time planned and lots of things got in the way but here it is!
As Ive mentioned before, while the 1.0 is a finished game in its own right there was lots of things I still wanted to do with APICO - one of them was focus on the empty ocean areas, as well as play with the idea of underwater bees!

What Lies Beeneath is the second of the three (free) content updates, and covers a whole host of stuff including:

• New NPCs! Skippers Dad, who loves to fish, and Director Bumblemore himself from MPCO arrive!
  
• Fishing! Make your own fishing flies and fish for 15 different species across the islands!
  
• Coral Reefs! New coral reef areas with their own bees and butterflies that need to be restored!
  
• Coral Restoration! Restore the coral through the power of bees and get some awesome rewards from Bumblemore!
  
• Deep-sea Diving! Head down to the sea-floor to discover a whole host of underwater friends
  
• Ocean Clean-up! Help Bumblemore clear the seabeds, and discover some forgotten areas in the process
  
• Butterfly Upgrades! New butterfly related machines so you can hoard to your hearts content!
  
• More Friends! 11 new social bees, 5 new solitary bees, 10 new butterflies, 15 fish to
  
• QoL Stuff! Quick store, trash slot, a tool that lets you gather honeycomb/frames without opening menus???
  
• More Music! The wonderful SEA-sides by Mothense have been added <3
  
• More decoration! Lots more decoration items, tiles, walls and more!
  
• More achievements! 15 more achievements to ruin your 100% achievement score!
  
• Even more freakin bugs because theres just one developer!!! (me) :D
  

• The phase of the moon has been added, and is shown next to the night icon at night (top left)
  
• Moon phase moves forward 1 phase with each in-game night (I like accuracy but I'm not that mean)
  
• Added Tom's Pocketwatch, given by the new moon quest, which displays the time, weather forecast (if any), and moon phase
  
• Tom's Pocketwatch counts as a key item so can also be got from the Lost+Found if you lose it
  
• You will have better luck generally during a Full Moon
  
• Lunar Bee now requires a Full Moon to appear Honeycore now only re-grows during a Full Moon (weird I wonder why)
  
• You'll find other things that rely on a Full Moon too...
  

• Introducing The Captain, aka, Skipper's Dad, found on his pier to the south-east of Port APICO!
  
• He'll teach you how to fish and finally chill out for once ya landlubber!
  
• Added the Fly Workshop, bought from The Captain, this allows you to craft your own fly fishing lures
  
• Added Fishing Rods, bought from The Captain - use with a lure to fish in deep water!
  
• Added the Fishing Board, used to keep track of the fish you've discovered, and their bumbly variants
  
• Birbs can now drop feathers when scared off!
  

• Introducing Director Bumblemore, head of MPCO & ocean conservationist, found near the Tundra!
  
• He'll arrive after you've unlocked the Forest and Swamp gates and teach you about coral!
  
• Added various coral related items, sold by the Director
  
• You'll now discover 3 different coral reefs scattered around the oceans, in various states of restoration
  
• Gather fragments of coral and restore them in Coral Tanks
  
• Use Coral Scaffolding along with nearby bees to help regrow your coral
  
• Once you restore a coral reef new flora and flowers will grow, letting you attract coral butterflies and solitary bees
  
• Restore each of the 3 coral reefs to get some very cool items from Bumblemore!
  

• Speak to Director Bumblemore to learn about ocean diving and all the strange bugs down there...
  
• Added the Diving Helmet which lets you dive to the ocean depths (can buy from Bumblemore after 1 reef is restored)
  
• Added three different underwater areas to find and explore! Don't get lost...
  
• Added Sludge, a strange run-off from the mainland collecting on the ocean floor (gross!)
  
• Added the Filtration Hive, that allows you to use Filters instead of Frames to clean-up the mess
  
• Added the Sludge Extractor, that allows you to clean Filters and gather items from the sludge
  
• Cleaning up Sludge might reveal secrets that have been hidden a long time...
  

• Added 11 new social bees, who make their homes across the reefs and the ocean floor
  
• Added 5 new solitary bees, who can be found nesting in the reefs and deep underwater
  
• Added the Hive Tool, a craftable tool that lets you harvest honeycomb + filled frames from beehives without having to open them (ikr!!!)
  
• Apiaries now have a special visual when the frames inside are filled to save you looking (a throwback to the original concept art for APICO!)
  
• Added the Degrumpifier, a machine that allows you to remove grumpiness from bees (bought from Bumblemore)
  
• Bees buzzing around now match the color of the species in the beehive! (so many pretty colours!)
  
• Beehotels + Habitats will show a bee visiting on the overworld alongside the notice bubble when a visitor is near (for vibes)
  
• You can now use "R" to quick queen when a hive menu is hovered on PC
  
• Repopulating a species entirely will spawn some natural beehives of that species in their preferred biome (if you've already repopulated a bunch of species just put a random bee in a rehabeelitator to retrigger all of them)
  
• There's a couple of new colors of natural beehive that will spawn (you can also use Dye Station to get them - pink, lime, brown)
  

• Added 10 new butterflies, who flit about the coral and the sea bed
  
• This includes the competition butterfly, designed by Holli! (Congratulations again!)
  
• Added the Butterfly Box, a mass butterfly release machine, sold by Sto (doesnt affect conservation)
  
• Added the Lepidoterarium, a mass butterfly storage machine like the Beebank, sold by Sto
  
• If there is no room for new flowers, butterflies in hotels will mutate existing flowers instead
  
• Hovering a flower with a butterfly with a net now shows a preview of the butterfly species
  

• Added 8 new strange types of flowers, found out to sea as well as deep below
  
• Variant flowers can now spread and mutate back into their original variants
  
• If theres no room for new flowers, butterfly hotels will mutate existing flowers instead
  

• Added 15 new achievements to cover all the new areas of content!
  
• Added 6 new amazing music tracks - the Sea-Sides! Moths gone and freakin done it again gang
  
• 3 of these tracks you'll hear as part of the normal day/night cycle, 3 you'll only hear underwater...
  
• You can now use the quick-store button to the right of your hotbar to move inventory items into nearby crates (you can also press "Q" when not highlighting a menu to do the same thing, or "R3" on a gamepad). Quick-store will move all items in your inventory (not hotbar) into nearby crates as long as the crate has that item (and room)
  
• When opening your inventory, you now have a separate trash slot and backpack slot, free of charge! (on gamepad, use triangle/Y while highlighting the backpack slot to open it)
  
• Pressing "Delete" on MKB over an inventory slot will send that item to the trash slot for you
  
• Added new ocean-themed decor: fishing crates, worn crates, water buoys, water lanterns, new pier tiles, striped wall, and new banners
  
• Added new critters to the world, not just birds! Frogs, fish, snails, dragonflies - oh my!
  
• Character Creation & the Dresser now have a Randomise button, get ready for some crazy combinations
  
• Also added some new hat/hair options to pick from, including your own Skipper Hat!! (check the Dresser!)
  
• Gates are now visible on the map alongside the boats + NPCs
  
• On MKB you can now remap the R key (respawn + quick queen hotkey), as well as Y (butterfly book)
  
• Item stack size has now been increased from 99 to 999 (ur welcome)
  
• Alchemy Bench now shows a hint in the UI for number of recipes found vs total recipes to find (spoilers, it's 11)
  
• Banners placed on fence posts now sit slightly higher to look "correct"
  
• NPC hitboxes have been increased to make them easier to talk to / bonk
  
• Added beehotel icons to items that can be used in beehotels to help hint at what can be used/saved
  
• NPCs now have multiplyer buttons above their stock allowing you to quickly buy 1x, 5x, 10x, 20x, 50x and 99x of any stackable item
  
• You can now shift-click buy items if you have inventory room (for quick buying singular items like frames) - works for gamepad too
  
• The game will now store a backup save in "/backup" before saving (same root folder as your "/saves")
  

• Basic, treated, and honeycomb frames have an extra use each - now 4, 6, and 3 respectively (this will only apply to newly created frames after updating to 3.0)
  
• Achievement unlocks for the "3-tier" type achievements have been adjusted to compensate for the new bees/butts
  
• Flowers and sawdust bricks will now give 80s of time per item in a Smoker (used to be 60s)
  

• Multiplayer has been changed so that when you join a host game you'll be able to pick from all your multiplayer characters. You can make up to 5 different multiplayer characters. (before only one multiplayer character existed per host and you couldn't pick it)
  
• Revamped the UUID system to fix the issues some people were seeing with not being able to see friends
  
• Fixed butterfly restoration status not being synced to the client
  
• Fixed not being able to use the shrine or door in the dream as a client
  
• NPC dialogue progress should now be saved for clients properly
  

• The accessibility menu has been redesigned, with each option having a proper description
  
• A new accessibility option has been added to help distinguise between similar bee items (Bee Labels). This will add the first 3 letters of the species name to any slot a bee is in.
  
• A new accessibility option has been added to allow you to modify bee lifespan/productivity values GLOBALLY. This allows you to make all bees live longer/slower or work faster/slower depending on your preference. Remember that if you make bees lifespans extremely short they might not produce anything! (Both these options will be inherited from the host when playing in multiplayer)
  

• Made sure PS5/Dualsense controllers can be used with a PC
  
• Made sure PS4 controllers can be used with a PC
  
• Fixed "SELECT" button not working as a menu button on PS3 controllers
  
• Fixed "VIEW" button not working as a menu button on Xbox One controllers
  
• Fixed using up on the DPAD to open the quest book also moving up 1 chapter (finally)
  

• Fixed a bunch of butterfly effects not working properly in butterfly hotels (princess, marsh, wtempest, faded)
  
• Fixed a bunch of typos, and added a bunch of new ones I'm sure! Fixed delay of highlighting GUI elements like time of day or weather icons in top-left
  
• Fixed using a bed in a certain "special" area setting your spawn position thus softlocking, doomed to be stuck with me forever
  
• Fixed "Not enough money" error not taking into account any discounts
  
• Fixed being able to place grass in the devland (sorry)
  
• Fixed blank/empty/corrupted save files causing the game to never be able to start
  
• Fixed some button states not updating immedietely after being clicked
  
• Fixed picking up shiny butterflies not counting as unlocking the shiny butt
  
• Fixed the messenger bees not being shown flying away when using an altar
  
• Fixed being able to click on the Hivemother Door through menus/buttons
  
• Fixed Beenjamin asking for a "Behaviour Behaviour" when really he wanted a "Cathemeral Behaviour" (what a joker)
  
• Fixed Royal Trumpet not working on beehives that are offscreen
  
• Fixed the bee book intro chapters having "bee" added the chapter hover tooltip
  
• Fixed the solitary bee book overview chapter not staying stickied to the top
  
• Fixed Hivemother Door opening sequence having a yellow bg instead of a grey one
  
• Fixed a crash caused when trying to drain a raintank with a canister containing any non-water liquid
  
• Fixed credits not being visible when high contrast text is enabled
  
• Fixed guidebook scroll not scrolling enough when enough modded quests got added
  
• Fixed nana's postcard text not being visible when high contrast text is enabled
  
• Fixed NPC dialogue prompts not showing a visual highlight if you close an NPC menu mid conversation (how rude)
  
• Fixed slight delay of the "Set Sail" text not showing immedietely on character creator screen
  
• Fixed beehives that are left during the 5s of breeding and go offscreen not making the queen until they're back on screen
  
• Fixed not being able to catch Greater Dreamers or Moth(ense) when using a golden net
  
• Fixed shiny bees not doing their lovely shine animation
  
• Fixed lanterns not having any shadows
  
• Fixed "Press ESC to close all windows" showing all the freakin' time
  
• Pre-emptively fixed the fact that you could equip the rubber ring and then sail a boat through solid land (it was super fun soz)
  
• Purple dyed beehives in the Dye Station are now actually purple
  

Tune in here or on the store page to watch a silent playthrough of some of the new content!
Update will be out at 2pm BST today <3

Hey friends!

This month I took the plunge into going full-time in gamedev - up until this point I've been doing freelance work for about 50% of each month.

This meant I could sit down and properly get stuck into the 3.0 update, and I really did this month as (spoilers) I finished it!

This post will contain spoilers of 3.0 content.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Engine Tune-Up[/h2]
So one of the things I ended up finally doing was upgrading the version of GameMaker APICO uses. I haven't updated for a while as the version I used (2022.6) was the last version an older type of Xbox port accepts, any newer versions I'd need to upgrade the multiplayer code to use Playfab (which I didn't fancy doing).


rip XDK it was nice while it lasted

However there were a few things starting to cause issues:

• GameMaker support wouldn't fix any issues I had, as the version I was using was too old
  
• The Steamworks integration for 2022.6 sometimes just crashes on certain Windows machines, and doesn't support older MacOS versions
  
• Some issues with tiles that were getting annoying to work around, plus the sprite editor having a bug with copy/paste from aseprite (making importing assets a pain)
  

• A coral tool to allow the player to gather fragments from existing living coral
  
• Coral tanks that take a fragment and let you adjust salinity + pH to match, when met the fragment then grows into multiple "restored" coral tiles
  
• Scaffold that can be placed on dying (dark blue) coral, which you then place the "restored" coral in. Nearby beehive action then restores the tile completely
  

• 
  
• Using "Filter Hives", the player can use underwater bees and special "Filter" frames like they would a normal hive but near sludge
  
• When filling these frames, the bees also clear out some of the sludge, which can then be removed from the filter in a Seperator (which acts like your Extractor but produces sludge not honey)
  
• The sludge can be further refined at a Percolator, a special machine Bumblemore has that let's you dredge the sludge for any special items you might have missed
  
• Clearing the sludge from one of the 3 underwater caves uncovers a divepoint to an even deeper cave...
  

Hey friends!

August came and went, my first month technically doing gamedev full-time! Both exciting and terrifying :'D

[hr][/hr]



APICO 3.0 Coming Soon
Unless youve been living in a pineapple under the sea, youve probably seen that the APICO 3.0 update, aka, What Lies Beeneath has been announced as coming soon! Bee sure to check out the new trailer!

If youre a content creator or streamer interested in trying out the new content you can also fill in our creator preview form.

[hr][/hr]



MibyleDraws Joins The Gang
Pleased to say that the lovely Manon (also known as MibyleDraws) will be joining us as our PR & CM!

If you've been enjoying anything posted on socials this last month (like all the ), then you have Manon to thank for it!

[hr][/hr]



G.Round Playtesting
G.Round is a playtesting platform where you can get your hands on a bunch of different indie games and feedback directly to the developers!

Currently you can playtest both Mudborne and Rift Breach, and give us feedback as well as chat with other players in the G.Round discord!

[hr][/hr]



Socials Consolidation
Now that weve got 4 different games being juggled about, its impossible to manage 6 different accounts on each platform (we know, weve tried)

Weve now combined all games into a single TNgineers account on each platform, so be sure to follow to not miss anything! (, Twitter, Instagram, Steam)

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on August, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie & Manon

Hey Beekeepers!

Unless you've been living under the ocean, you've probably seen that the 3.0 update, aka, "What Lies Beeneath", will be coming soon to PC!

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1390190/announcements/detail/3653036045491628305

As part of this, we're looking for content creators who are interested in trying out the new update!
If this sounds like your cup of Apicola, and you want to stream or let's play the new update early, please fill out this form below:
https://forms.gle/FBmvJU7gdhNsP87W9

~ Ell

Hey beekeepers!

Excited to announce that APICO 3.0, aka "What Lies Beeneath" will be coming soon to PC!

You can look forward to:

• New areas: Dive deep down to the bottom of the ocean and discover a new bee-ome with new areas to explore that include deep-sea flora and fauna, a coral reef system, and more!
  
• New Bees: Discover, collect, build homes and breed new species of bees found only at the furthest depths of the ocean, and collect their resources for craftables and quests.
  
• New Quests: Harness the help of your newfound bee friends to restore the damaged coral reef system and clean up underwater pollution to help the bee-cosystem and its inhabitants thrive.
  
• New Fishing Mechanic: Skippers dad, Captain, arrives at the archipelago to teach you the ins and outs of a new mechanic fishing!
  
• And More: New quality-of-life improvements, including inventory trash can, backpack slot, quick store to nearby chests, quick gathering from hives, new a11y options and more!
  

Hey friends!

Some good progress on the 3.0 this month, finally taking a huge bite out of all the coral related mechanics (wouldn't recommend, tastes awful)

This post will contain spoilers of 3.0 content.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Night On The Tiles[/h2]
So where we'd left off we had finished fishing and added Captain, Skipper's dad, along with a bunch of cute fishing themed decoration items. This meant it was time to move onto 2nd of the three areas of this update - coral reefs.

I had already sketched out a lot of the coral stuff a long time ago, but it was time for a quick refresher on what was needed and to get my head into the zone for the new mechanics.

the scaffolds are used to regrow dead coral regions

First up was getting the coral into the game - my quick dirty hack idea was to make them into floor tiles (like the wood tiles you can place). This would mean they could act like pier tiles for object placement, and tie in nicely with a lot of other tile based stuff that already existed.


captain peepin

The dark blue tiles are "dying" coral which needs to be restored. Restoring all the dying coral restores the reef, and flowers/flora bloom allowing you access to the butterflies and solitary bees that make their home in the reefs.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Personal Chemistry[/h2]
First you need to collect coral slithers (gently), which you can then put in a coral tank where you control the environment to make sure the coral is comfortable and can grow big and strong. This uses acid+alkali (first bought from bumblemore, then later from bee products), and salt!


yea now there's a chemistry lesson to go with the biology ones fight me

Once you've grown your new coral pieces, you can place scaffolds for them to sit in. The action of nearby coral bees will slowly help the new coral grow and restore the dying coral underneath it.


sped up for GIF purposes!

It's a slow process overall, as it's meant to be something you do alongside your usual bee-related schenanigans - but once you've restored a reef it's done, and you have access to not only the new bees/butterflies attracted to the bloomed flowers. Plus, Bumblemore gives you some pretty sweet items for each of the three reefs...

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Setting The Scene[/h2]
Bumblemore himself can be found out in the Tundra, I wanted a bit more of a fancier setpiece given his importance in the gameplay, and took the opportunity to update poor Skipper's piece of crap that hasn't been updated since the original alpha in 2020 - especially now there were a few more lore additions in this update that meant it'd make sense to match the two ships.

whats that weird little black box I wonder...

Once I was happy with that the only thing left was to add all the new bees and butterflies, and damn it's actually been so long since I added a social bee I forgot how much was involved...

Luckily past me had drawn a bunch of the coral bees already, so I only needed to draw two new ones, but loading in all the assets and all the correct dictionary entries took ages!

some new friends to discover out on the high seas!

With all that loaded in I could test all the new mechanics fully. All that remains now is to actually spawn in the coral reefs automatically when the world loads (like how Sto + Codey pop into existence), and check I don't break things massively, but not too worried on that as it uses the same system as the 2.0 NPC areas, and we have way more open ocean to play with.

With that done and the new set-piece in I can add Bumblemore and all the goodies he sells, including all the sweet diving equipment - but thats for next month!

[hr][/hr]

So not bad for a couple weeks work this month! We had a bit of crunch as well trying to get all the new writing and text ready to give to the localisation team early as they have quite a long lead time at the moment, but next month I should be able to finally make a stab on the last, and arguably most exciting part of the update (deep sea diving), and get a finished build over to QA!

Also, welcome to all newbees who've started their adventure thanks to the Wholesome Games sale! If you've been enjoying this silly lil bee game pls give it a nice review on Steam - it helps us massively and keeps me motivated through some of the gnarlier parts of these content updates <3

~ Ell

[This post was released early for KoFi Supporters]

Hey friends!

Another month flies by, it feels like I was only just writing the June recap! Here's whats been going on.

[hr][/hr]



APICO Wholesome Games Sale!
The lovely people at Wholesome Games have organised a Steam Sale thats host to all sorts of cosy games, with some sweet discounts on offer!

As part of the sale, APICO will be 40% off until 7th August, with both OSTs 50% off as well.

[hr][/hr]



APICO at /r/place
For the redditors among you, you might have heard of a little thing called /r/place - a community canvas where everyone can get involved.

Thanks to the help of the community, we were able to get APICO immortalised in a small section with a bunch of other indies you might know!

[hr][/hr]



Itch.io Selects
We were lucky enough to have APICO selected for the Itch.io Summer Selects Bundle, a special bundle containing APICO and 5 other cool indies!

Thanks to everyone who bought the bundle and supported us, we hope you enjoy all your new sweet games <3

[hr][/hr]



APICO 2.2.3 for Xbox/Playstation
For our console friends, 2.2.3 is now live on Xbox / Playstation. This was a small update but contained some important fixes and means the consoles are now in-line with PC!

Unfortunately Nintendo wasnt as kind with approval and still wont let the patch through, however youre not missing out on anything major!

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on July, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie

Hey friends!

Was a bit busy with Rift Breach and Snacktorio this month, but managed to polish off the rest of the fishing related stuff!

This post will contain spoilers of 3.0 content.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Gone Fishing[/h2]
So continuing where I left off I finished up the rest of the fishing minigame.

gotta be quick!

I'm still not sold on it 100%, but I just wanted something a bit more visually interesting than the usual "click and wait and click again" type fishing we're all used to.

I also properly fleshed out all of the fish and their spawning conditions, biome, time etc. Doing this made me realise there were some "missing" biomes that needed some fish too so I drew a couple of new fish to even things out at a nice round 15.

so many new friends to discover!

With that done I did some testing with the different lure types and then that was fishing done!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Captain Cabinets[/h2]
With that done I needed the fishing NPC, Skipper's Dad, so that I could then introduce him, fishing concepts, plus some different fishing themed items and decor.

look at all these new goodies!

I wanted to add a few different things that people could add near their docks, as well as a new type of pier tile to mix things up a bit. Alongside the new fishing board + lure workshop I felt like it made for some cute seaside building!

bird? what bird?

After giving him his own spawn area / base, the only thing left is the writing for the Captain himself, but I'll be giving Jamie all the writing in one go as it helps make everything a bit more consistent with each other

[hr][/hr]

With the fishing done and the Captain added, it means I can get stuck into the coral reef and diving stuff next, which is the majority of the 3.0 content but I had to add a lot of "new" systems to get the fishing working which held me up a lot.

~ Ell

[This post was released early for KoFi Supporters]

Hey friends!

We're now halfway through the year, which is a scary thought given all the things I still want to get done in 2023... better get to it!

[hr][/hr]



APICO releases on Xbox!
So after a very long time, APICO has finally released on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

This is the latest version of the game, and includes all the beeautiful butterfly content! We hope all the new beekeepers enjoy their stay at Port APICO <3

[hr][/hr]



Rift Breach at NextFest
Rift Breach got a bunch of new updates, and the demo was re-released for Steams Nextfest, which you can still try out!

Unfortunately it didnt really gather any response or interest, so itll be going into cold storage for a bit while we work on the other games.

[hr][/hr]



Mudborne Indie Cup Nominee
Mudborne got nominated for the Rising Star award in the 2023 UK Indie Cup!

We didnt win in the end, but the fact that a little 1 week froggy demo managed to get a nomination is still amazing to see!

[hr][/hr]



Hello Snacktorio
Feed The Beasts is now Snacktorio! We had to change the name for legal reasons and we asked the Factorio team as a joke, but they said yes.

Its weird having to call it something different after 3 years but here we are - you can find us in all the same places just a different name and logo.

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on June, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie

Hey friends!

A slow but steady start made this month into the 3.0 content, with a bunch of little tweaks to get us started!

This post will contain spoilers of 3.0 content.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Birthday Bee![/h2]
May was a special month as it's the birthday month for APICO having been released a year ago on World Bee Day (20th May)! We had a lot of different sales + deals to celebrate, leading to DOUBLE the amount of players we'd had up until that point in one week.


(To all the new bees - welcome! I hope you enjoy this silly lil bee game <3)

Safe to say I was pretty busy running around putting out fires and answering a million questions all over the place - but I did manage to still get some development work done eventually!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Where To Beegin[/h2]
One problem I have with gamedev in general is getting p. overwhelmed with how much there is todo - you've seen the list of stuff planned for 3.0 and when broken down into dev work it's even longer!


here's just some misc + fishing stuff broken down - not even the coral or ocean stuff yet!!

What I try to do is break it down into smaller sections, and then start with the "quick wins" to try and make a dent in the list first so as to not get too demoralised. When there's only one developer it's definitely a LOT (let alone the fact I have 2 other games on the go at the same time)

I started out working through some quick fixes and changes though, like adding the moon, moon phases, and a cute little pocketwatch to give more details on the top-left GUI icons you always see.



I also did some stuff like creating new natural beehives when you repopulate a species (to add to the feeling of actually impacting the world), updating some of the logic with butterflies + flowers, and adding in some new hairstyles - basically just lots of little things to help settle back into the codebase.


this one looks weirdly familiar...

With that I was starting to feel a bit more warmed up and more used to how APICO does things, so I added the first new machine for 3.0 - the fly workshop!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Fly Fishing[/h2]
I've wanted to add fishing to the game for a while, as I think it's a nice "time-waster" to fill in the gaps between waiting for certain things in APICO, but didn't give much thought outside of the general concept.

When I sat down to look at it properly I thought fly fishing would be the best route, as needing to craft little lures seemed like the perfect vibe for APICO. Crafting lures would also let me give some of the special bee produce a use, as it would effect the overall lure "luck" and the player always has plenty of them.


about time we had a new mechanism huh?

The fly workshop takes hoops, twine, glue and feathers (dropped from birbs!), along with your special produce to make a little lure - the stats decided by the materials you use.

Once you have your lures you'd be able to use them along with a rod to cast into any deep water to start the fishing minigame! I spent a bunch of time deciding the best way to do this, and what I settled on was a two-parter, first cast the lure out, and then wait for fish to appear and get within "range" to grab 'em.


grab radius is based on how close you cast to the center yellow "goal"

It also took me far too long getting a nice "arc" for the lure when cast, and I wanted a nice back and forth animation to mimic the way fly fishers actually cast their lures.


i hate maths so much

With that I had the actual grab minigame todo, which will involve the little fishies coming near and attempting to eat your delicious honey flavour lure - unless you grab them in-time, which then catches you a fish!

Different conditions/biomes/weather will affect the fish caught (as you'd expect from APICO), and ultimately it'll just be an optional collect-them-all - although you will get some new special items for doing so...



I'm taking my time on the minigame as I want to get it right - and there's nothing quite like it in APICO so it's a challenge trying to make something fit correctly with what players are used to!

[hr][/hr]

Once I've finished off the fishing i'll be adding Skipper's Dad, and then fishing will be done for now and we can move onto Coral Reefs!

I've got to go back to Rift Breach for a bit next month for NextFest but have set aside some time for another chunk of 3.0 goodies.

~ Ell

[This post was released early for Supporters]

Hey friends!

May has flown by, and it's an important anniversary month for both APICO and myself personally, marking the start of me making games 3 years ago. Here's whats been going on:

[hr][/hr]



APICOs Birthday
May 20th was APICOs birthday! We had lots of deals and sales to celebrate - dont worry if you missed out though as we have an Itch.io one still to come!

The hive doubled in size in just a week, so thank you to all the newbees that have joined us - we hope you enjoy <3

[hr][/hr]



Butterfly Design Winner
Voting has now ended for the Design A Butterfly competition, and the winner was @Hollibees Sunset Butterfly

Everyone had such a difficult time deciding, thank you for all the artists for their wonderful entries!

[hr][/hr]



APICO On Xbox
So its been confirmed APICO will be coming to Xbox soon, stay tuned next month for some date announcements!

Xbox initial release will include the 2.0 butterfly update by default <3

[hr][/hr]



APICO 3.0 Beegins
The groundwork for 3.0, aka What Lies Beeneath has started, with a hefty devlog you can read over on Ko-Fi or Steam!

No dates to announce yet but were still aiming for Q3/Q4 this year <3

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on May, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

It's World Bee Day tomorrow, which means it's APICO's birthday too!
To celebrate, there'll be a Daily Deal from 20th May - 27th May for APICO + the OSTs (50% off!)
There'll also be some free key giveaways over on the APICO Twitter account throughout the day <3

[hr][/hr]

3 years ago I was stuck in lockdown, and drew the first sketch that would become APICO - I had no idea where it would end up...

[table]
[tr]
[td]The first sketch for APICO (Twitter)[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

2 years ago I rewrote the first demo (written in HTML + vanilla Javascript!) into GameMaker and released it properly to the world, and was shocked to find so many other people loved this silly bee game!

[table]
[tr]
[td]The first design for the beehive menu![/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

1 year ago on May 20th the full game released, and it's wild to think how far it's come and I'm forever grateful for all the people who've played APICO and sent me such lovely messages about how much it meant to them. I never expected it to be much more than a fun side project but it's opened a door to letting me keep making silly games and expand APICO in ways I'd never thought I'd have been able to!

[table]
[tr]
[td]The multiple menu system is tested...[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Tomorrow I've been lucky enough to get a Daily Deal with Steam, and APICO (along with Moth's wonderful OSTs!) will be 50% off for a whole week!! If you or your friends have been waiting for a big discount, this is the one! (This would also bee the perfect time for a nice review if you haven't got round to it, as a little birthday gift for your fav bee game wink wink nudge nudge :D)

[table]
[tr]
[td]APICO as we know it now starts to take shape...[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Thanks again so much to all of you, whether you've beeen here since the janky alpha days, or only recently stumbled upon the game through the butterfly update! There's still lot's more for us all to look forward to in the world of APICO and I appreciate all of you for beeing on this journey - I can't wait to see where it takes us all! <3

~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a quick one to say the "Design A Butterfly" competition has now ended, and it's voting time!
Please check out all the final designs + choose your favourite here:
https://forms.gle/pCtF4HWZz262i3uZ6

The winning design will be added into the next major update - YOU have the POWER

~ Ell

Hey friends!

Last month was mostly uneventful, mainly due to me being ill for a good chunk of it, however I did still manage to take some time to draw out a whole host of the new stuff for the 3.0 - so let's get into it!

General heads-up that this post will contain spoilers of 3.0 content - if you're wanting to go in completely blind I totally understand but if so you might wanna skip this one!

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Planning[/h2]
From the last devlog I had planned out most of the general concepts I wanted to cover in the 3.0, however a lot of them were just rough ideas. What I wanted to do now was plan them out in more detail, and I'm a very visual person so really it was time to start sketching stuff out!



The only major difference I'd say between those plans in February is I'll no longer be doing the bug hotel stuff - as you're about to see the 3 main areas of fishing, coral reefs, and deep-sea diving cover a LOT of ground, so I don't want to give myself too much work over a "nice-to-have"! (RIP ladybugs)

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Fishing[/h2]
So first up is fishing - I'd already decided I wanted to do fly fishing, as I think the lure crafting side of things is very APICO, and I thought it would lead to some neat minigame ideas of luring the fish rather than straight up hooking them.

To start off I drew a bunch of fish! At this point I was still a bit sick so I thought this would be a nice way to ease into things. Fishing would just be a nice little time waster, so I just wanted some cute collectibles and a fun shiny "bee" variant for each.

puffer is the indisputable king here

To craft lures we'd need a crafting bench of sorts, and it's been a while since we had a mechanism so I felt like this would be a good place for it as we could re-create the winding of twine on the hooks in-game.

The idea is you'll use lures, twine, glue, random bee produce, and a feather (dropped by scaring birbs) to form a lure - each lure has various stats based on the items that were used when it was created, i.e. luck, durability

the lure workshop!

Once you have your lures you'll be able to cast them out with a fishing rod and start a small fishing minigame. I'm thinking of two parts, first a casting "click when meter is in yellow" classic, and then I'm thinking that you'll be greeted with a sort of menu that shows your lure and various fishy friends around it, and you'll have to try and net them when they get close enough.

altho items with no outlines? blasphemy

I was originally thinking a sort of "red light green light" type reel in minigame, but think that would get annoying having to do that each time, and I think a little underwater scene would be cuter.

Finally for the fishing mechanics I wanted one place where you could view your progress without creating yet another book - plus it wouldn't make sense to have a whole book for what is quite a small part of the game. My idea is to have a noticeboard-style menu that would give you hints and show progress.

who's that FISH!

As part of this update I want to revamp both the bookshelves in a similar way, so I thought this would be a good way to reinforce the concept of these sort of menus as with the bookshelves there'd then be 4 of these types of info machines.

Finally we have Skipper's Dad, a new character who you'll meet that will introduce you to fishing and crafting lures!

HOH HOH

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Sea-Sides[/h2]
On a related note, as part of the 3.0 update, Mothense will be returning to create 6 new tracks as part of the APICO "Sea-sides". Like the "Bee-sides" these will be additional tracks added in-game, 3 while you fish, and 3 while you explore the ocean depths!

You also might be able to find some in-game playable versions of them through exploring the new areas too...


old and crusty, but still works - like me! :D

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Coral Reefs[/h2]
With the coral side of things, I spent a lot of time trying to work out how I wanted things to fit together. I wanted a focus on restoring the coral, but I didn't want it to get annoying.

I also needed to make sure it still related to bees and also gave a decent reward for doing so - lots to juggle! Before I got completely overwhelmed I drew the different coral reefs and their flora/fauna/friends

the three different types of coral

The idea is that there'll be 3 sets of coral in three different areas - each coral has a specific water quality it prefers (more on that later). At the start there'll only be small patches of bright coral, the rest will be the darker "dead" patches you see on the far left of the above image.

You'll be able to scrape bits of coral off for samples, which you can then grow in tanks to turn into full coral - using different pH and salinity levels to match the requirements of the coral.

mudborne influence you say? i dont know what you mean

Once you have grown coral, you'll be able to place it in sort of empty frames on top of the dead coral patches. The activity of beehives on the coral areas will then help grow the patch until it becomes a full coral tile. The idea will be that by growing patches you can link up all the seperate coral areas through the dead patches, until everything is connected.

Once a coral reef is fully connected and restored, the flowers and flora will start forming/blooming, and then you'll have access to the butterflies and solitary bees that like coral but the habitat wasn't restored enough.

some new pastel friends

I think this way it should feel like a nice side project to work on restoring the reefs, using your coral bees to help you - and then as a reward you can unlock a host of new flowers, butterflies, and solitary bee friends.

As part of these new areas, as well as the ocean diving, you'll meet Director Bumblemore - a familiar name I'm sure to those who've been restoring their solitary bee populations!

what if Beenjamin, but not an asshole?

Although he's the general director for MPCO he specialises in ocean conservation, so he'll introduce all the coral reef and deep-sea diving stuff.

As part of the coral mechanics you'll be using acid / alkali / salt to manage your pH levels - at the start you can get this from Bumblemore but as you'll always come to find in the world of APICO the bees usually have an alternative solution. When it comes to salt, I wanted to solve another issue players often feedback which is wanting to remove grumpiness from bees.

As a result, I present to you, the Degrumpifier:

yes the bees are grumpy becos their literally salty

[hr][/hr]

[h2]What Lies Beeneath?[/h2]
As part of the final of the three main sections, we then have the deep-sea diving, as the update name implies! For this section I had a rough idea on what you'd do and what it would look like, but it took me a while to decide on a purpose for the player while down there outside of "explore and collect some bees".

The general idea is at a certain point Bumblemore will give you a diving helmet, which can be used on specific deeper parts of the ocean to travel to the ocean floor - a new biome that covers all the deep water of the world (basically the inverse of the map)



Down here you'll find some new, very strange looking bees, as well as a whole host of treasures to discover and new flora/flowers to find. You'll also find sludge - an unfortunate collection of goop that has formed from Mainland runoff.

Using a special type of beehive, you'll be able to swap out your standard hive frames for hive filters - a special type of frame that stores the goop as bees get to work, and lets you clean up the patches of sludge over time.

a little twist on something you already know very well!

Once filled you can extract these filters like you do your frames, but instead of honey you get less delicious sludge to be disposed off, plus any other little treasures the bees picked up!

maybe dont turn that stuff into mead

While working on cleaning up the seabed, you'll be able to discover some new species of bees, some odd little solitary bees, and a couple of strange aquatic butterflies that appear to thrive down in the depths.

Once you've cleaned up the sludge patches, you might even find the entrance to something even deeper below...



[hr][/hr]

[h2]Other Stuff[/h2]
Outside of these 3 main areas there'll be a bunch of other QoL stuff too, some new a11y options, some better sorting for beeboxes, quick stacking to nearby chests, better storage options for butterflies - basically all the general feedback thats built up since 2.0!

unlimited butts!!!

As mentioned I'll also be revamping the bookshelves to have a more interesting interface than just a ream of text, plus a few other tweaks here and there!

[hr][/hr]

Now that pretty much everything is drawn it's a lot easier for me to see how it'll all fit together, and in May I'll be sitting down to spend some time working through all the new mechanics, so hopefully come next month we should be able to see some of these pretty screenshots come to life!

~ Ell

[This post was released early for Supporters over on Ko-Fi]

Hey friends!

April has been and gone, finally bringing some sunshine and bumblebees to the garden! Here's what we've been up to:

[hr][/hr]



2.0 Update For Consoles
In case you missed it, a release date for consoles for the 2.0 Butterfly Update has now been announced!

I Cant Beelieve Its Not Butter(flies) will be fluttering over to Nintendo Switch & Playstation on May 11th - save the date!

[hr][/hr]



Butterfly Competition
The Design A Butterfly competition has now ended!

Thanks so much to everyone who took part. Well setup a post soon for voting to let you all decide your favourite that will be added into the 3.0 update!

[hr][/hr]



Mudborne
Mudborne has now already reached over 1000 wishlists!

Thanks so much to everyone whos checked out the demo - well absolutely be coming back to this one later in the year, and start planning a full game! <3

[hr][/hr]



Family Gaming DB
Were super happy to say that the Family Gaming DB gave APICO the

Weve spent a lot of time making sure APICO is enjoyable for all ages, so it means a lot to be given this!

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on April, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a few fixes to get out the way so I can focus on the 3.0 build!
Ive mentioned it before but really appreciate all the peeps who let me know issues in the bug report form, and a big shout out to the beekeeper who gave me some super detailed steps on the infinite item dupe in MP that helped me put some fixes in place for it <3

~ Ell

[h3]Multiplayer[/h3]

• Finally found the cause of the infinite item duplication that would occur with dropped items on certain frames (wahoo!)
  
• Fixed nurseries not seeming to incr. pop levels for butterflies for clients (again?)
  
• Fixed canisters duping when moving input/output canisters in barrels rapidly
  
• Fixed when clients bought multiple backpacks at the same time some of those backpacks no longer worked - this will not fix existing bugged backpacks im afraid :(
  
• Added some changes to make sure players get a valid UUID when playing online if the server has gone down
  

• Fixed the "sc_slot_uncache: unable to find instance for object index" crash
  
• Fixed the "sc_world_add_missing_bees: index out of range" crash that occured rarely during worldgen
  

• Fixed dropping butterflies on gamepad just dropping the item rather than releasing them
  
• Fixed pinned menus staying pinned for gamepad players
  
• Fixed backpack item in the slot not visually updating to be open when clicked initially
  
• Fixed placeable items being placed when equipped and clicking the close buttons of menus (finally)
  
• Fixed Candlemaker menu help popup labelling the beeswax + log slots wrong
  
• Fixed NPC shops not showing slots for a second when opening them sometimes
  

• Fixed modded recipes that use flowers not using up any flowers when crafting at the mod workbench
  
• BDRAW hook added which is the counterpart to PDRAW, BDRAW is drawn right before the player itself, then PDRAW is drawn ontop
  

Hey friends!

March has flown by, and with it the weather has slowly turned from wet and rainy to... well still wet and rainy cos it's the UK baby!!!! Here's what's been going on

[hr][/hr]



Mudborne
Another friend joins the gang! Ell took part in a week long game-jam, and the result was Mudborne, an APICO-like focused around frogs + mushrooms.

You can read more about the development of the game over the 7 days, or just try the demo out for yourself on itch.io or Steam!

[hr][/hr]



Beenus
Speaking of friends joining the gang, we have a new TNgineer! Some of you might recognise StarVenus/Beenus from Discord or /r/APICO, were delighted to announce shell be joining us as a social + community manager!

Its getting a bit hectic managing 3 (now 4) games, so reinforcements were needed, and have arrived!

[hr][/hr]



FTBS Steam Page!
Feed The Beasts finally has a steam page, so you can get those wishlists in and follow us for updates on the progress of the game!

Were slowly edging towards a demo release, and cant wait to share it with you all!

[hr][/hr]



Butterfly Competition!
Some of you may remember our Design A Bee competition back before the butterfly update - well were doing another one, and this time its for designing your own butterfly!

The winning design will be added to the game, plus the designer will win a bunch of prizes too - check the announcement post for more info!

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on March, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie (AND BEENUS) <3

Hey Beekeepers!

An APICO devlog? That can only mean one thing - new content! However don't get too excited as this month's devlog was mostly just planning :')

Saying that, there's a couple of pretty pictures at least, hope you enjoy!

https://ko-fi.com/Post/APICO--February-Devlog-2023-Y8Y6J5L5U

~ Ell

Hey friends!

February has been and gone - I know it's the shortest month but damn that was quick! Here's what's been going on:

[hr][/hr]



Moth Symphony
Our favourite moth composer released their debut album, Moth Symphony! Moth is currently three for three on composing TNgineer game music so might as well be one the family and they deserve the shoutout!

If youre a fan of APICOs music then youll very much enjoy this, you can grab it on Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music.

[hr][/hr]



Ocean Views
As you might have seen, weve started planning out the next major content update for APICO - What Lies Beeneath!

This update will cover fishing, deep sea diving, coral reefs, more bugs (and actual bugs), and a whole lot more! Follow along on Ko-Fi for the February devlog thatll be out in the next week or so to find out what were up to <3

[hr][/hr]



Toktik???
God help us all Ive only gone and make some Tiktok accounts! But fret not, for next month well be introducing our first new TNgineer to join the team wholl be taking over our social media + community management and will be at least 40% less cringe than me*

If you want to get in early you can follow , , and over there RIGHT NOW

[hr][/hr]



Achievement Unlocked!
This month we also applied for the Xbox Dev programme and got accepted! Were still signing some paperwork but once settled it means well have our own Xbox DevKit, Hivemother help us all

We got accepted from proposing Rift Breach (so guess thats happening now) - but should also help us sort out APICOs Xbox build, which has been in limbo for a hot minute/hour/day/year/century

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on February, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie <3

*thats a big ask I know

Hey Beekeepers!

Some more small fixes and a few multiplayer tweaks - thanks to the people who reported these!
Ill be off on a short break with my partner for the next week, so catch ya soon <3

~ Ell

[h3]Multiplayer[/h3]

• Fixed some issues with beehives offscreen of the host acting up for the client
  
• Fixed host Rehabeelitators sometimes clearing client slots before the client recieved the repopulation points
  
• Fixed an issue with nurseries not always giving the client the repopulation points
  
• Fixed clients not getting "beetrice" points from the offspring of host hives
  

• Fixed camera issue still ocurring at the bottom of worlds when not in a boat
  
• Fixed some tooltip transparency issues
  
• Added a check to respawn jurassic hive if RNG of the worldgen somehow missed it
  

Hello friends,

A new year has begun! Id like to say I eased back into things slowly after having Christmas off but I literally started the month by releasing a new game lol. Heres what weve been up to:

[hr][/hr]



Butterfly Charity Donations
With the butterfly update for APICO we had a new influx of players beeing introduced to the wonderful world of bees! This also meant we could make a new batch of donations to various conservation, pollinator and butterfly charities.

New donations included Pollinator Partnership, Regional Science Consortium, and Butterfly Conservation! You can view all the donations made from APICO sales here.

[hr][/hr]



Lunar New Year
To celebrate the Lunar New Year on 15th January, we finally released a Simplified Chinese localisation for APICO! This had been a long time coming and we can thank Whitethorn Games for helping arrange this.

You can check out this language option in version Papilio 2.2.0+

[hr][/hr]



Rift Breach
So like I mentioned, a new game is here! Sadly not Feed The Beasts just yet (although thats well on its way!). I wanted to work on a much smaller scope game to help me creatively, and the result was a small player-cedural sci-fi dungeon crawler called Rift Breach that I made in 3 weeks.

You can read more about the thinking behind the game as well as the development here, and you can go play the demo over on Steam now!

[hr][/hr]



New Website
Well I say new, but truth be told weve never had a website for TNgineers, only APICO! Now that we have 3 games to keep on top of I wanted to make a one-stop shop for all things TN to try and keep on top of things.

You can check it out over on tngineers.com, which has some general information as well as links + presskits for all 3 games!

[hr][/hr]

So thats a wrap on January, bee safe and well see you next month!

Love,
Ell & Jamie <3

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a few small fixes for the last update, including the weird camera bugs at worlds end!

~ Ell

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed inventory highlight not updating when scrolling the mouse wheel
  
• Fixed the weird camera shenanigans when at the edge of the world
  
• Fixed predictor/beebox/beebank card chars overlapping too much in Chinese
  

Hey Beekeepers!

A small update to celebrate the Lunar New Year by (finally) adding Chinese as a new language option to the game!



Plus a few little fixes while I was there (as a treat)

!

~ Ell

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Added Chinese! <3
  
• Various performance tweaks, mainly for consoles, but PC should also benefit
  
• Moved shop button on NPCs to be more gamepad friendly
  

• Fixed the "Unable to find instance sc_butterfly_despawn" crash
  

• Fixed changing a habitat's species not syncing with other players
  

• Fixed not being able to use the net on the computer when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to interact with Moth(ense) when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to use the net on the Hivemother's door when using a gamepad (r u sensing a theme)
  
• Fixed pinned menus still using their pinned position if you switch to a gamepad
  

• Fixed custom menu change event not firing on standard change event triggers
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Hope you had a wonderful holidays, and happy new year to you all!
This is just a small update to address a few bugs and MP issues - theres another patch on the way for some other MP issues and a few steamdeck related bugs.

~ Ell

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Productivity values have been changed so that "sluggish" - "normal" (1) (4) bees take a little bit more time to fill a frame
  
• Added a warning to natural beehives when breeding two different bees to make sure it's clear these will not crossbreed
  
• Nearby or active Jukeboxs & Tape Players will now show on the map so you can hunt them down and silence them
  
• Reduced the speed of NPC dialogue menus
  

• Fixed crash "sc_button_press variable .unlocked cannot be resolved"
  

• Fixed a multiplayer bug where a player joining for the first time couldn't use the butterfly/solitary bee books without crashing
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where the backpacks created by the client could merge/override with player backpacks
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where the joining player couldn't click on anything (but could still move) until you interacted with a menu
  
• Fixed a multiplayer bug where the controls/accessibility menu GUI moved with the player
  

• Fixed an issue with beehives not onscreen when the game loaded not getting their flower list set properly
  
• Fixed an issue with Royal Trumpet effect only working once for beehives offscreen
  
• Fixed clicking a gate marker triggering a mouse click in the place the marker was before you teleport
  
• Fixed Nana not remembering what you talked to her about when you speak to her in the dream (bless her)
  
• Fixed Hermit Bee not being calmed by the flowers that say they calm it in the flower book
  
• Fixed Glitched Bee counting to total for Barnabee/Beenjamin dialogue options
  
• Fixed Cargo Boat going invisible when sailing far enough away from it's own menu
  
• Fixed typo with Royal Trumpet
  

• Fixed crash when using the player menu as a target for api_add_slot_to_menu()
  
• Fixed api_get_zoid_from_inst() and api_get_inst_from_zoid() giving an error when trying to use them
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a small patch to cover a few little bugs in advance of any new players who might pick up the game over Hivemas, as a little butterfly did tell me that the game + OSTs will be on sale over Xmas! <3

~ Ell

[h3]Crash Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed corrupted butterfly items causing a "gml_Script_sc_butthotel_alarm0" crash when used in hotels
  

• Fixed Lunar Magazine not being in the dictionary so not spawning
  
• Fixed Sto's location being wrong in the Full-Beetal Alchemist quest
  
• Fixed the last two butterflies' "flowers" staying blackin the butterfly book when discovered
  
• Fixed a certain bee not showing any special produce info or having a completed heart post-it
  
• Fixed Frostips not showing their special effect in the tooltip
  
• Fixed seeing "ghost" butterfly icons on lilypads (icon but no butterfly)
  
• Fixed some non-flower butterfly spawning issues
  

• api_add_slot_to_menu() and api_use_item() should now trigger the menu's change event
  

HF1: Fixed lunar bee letter missing from dictionary

Hey Beekeepers!

We're super excited to announce that Mothense's OST Bee-sides are now available on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2230810/APICO_OST_Beesides/

The Bee-sides are tracks that started as concepts that didn't make the cut for the original soundtrack. These concepts were then later developed and mastered into beeautiful tracks in their own right. You may recognise some of them already, as they were also added in the 2.0 Butterfly Update!

We hope you enjoy these wonderful tracks - all proceeds from both the OST + Bee-sides goes directly to Moth, so you'll be supporting the artist directly by buying it <3

~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Just one last update to polish off some remaining bits and bobs!
Thanks again to everyone whos been reporting bugs as well as giving us all the lovely feedback on the butterfly update, its so wonderful to hear how much youve all been enjoying the new content!

Things will be winding down now a bit for Christmas, Ive got some optimisation stuff to do for the Switch builds, and our other game Feed The Beasts is feeling a bit left out, so there wont be any new patches aside from breaking stuff for a while now! Then in the new year I can start working on the plans for the next content update - What Lies Beeneath >:)

~ Ell

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Magazines should show in the Lost+Found if they're lost / never spawned correctly
  
• Updated the bee hotel explanation quest pics to show the shrub cuttings IN the hotel
  
• Bee hotel input slots will now show the biome-specific flora needed (rather than showing generic flora icon)
  

• Fixed not being able to use the magnifying glass on a solitary bee in bee hotels/habitats on gamepad/deck
  
• Fixed not being able to fully move the mouse to the left of the home screen after starting the game in fullscreen
  
• Fixed chapter highlight tooltips in the solitary book not having a name
  
• Fixed some of Sto/Codey dialogue being available before actually talking to them for the first time
  
• Fixed running making a new world in the same slot as one you just deleted visually showing the same chapter completion badges
  
• Fixed Mothlight flowers not producing light as their description implies
  
• Fixed Pondshine in hydroponic pots and Mothlight in normal pots not lighting up
  
• Fixed Candles in Workbench not showing the correct sprite
  
• Misc. locale changes
  

• You can now pass an optional "title" key in your menu definition for the title bar text - if not specified will be blank
  
• Fixed not being able to use customX: slots with other validations or other customX: slots
  

HF1: Fix for modded NPCs crashing when loaded/spoken to

Hey Beekeepers!

Well here we are 2 weeks in from the butterfly update, and things are mostly stable (as stable as a game about bugs can be anyway!)
As things calmed down I had a chance to start working on the Modding API, and so this update adds in a whole host of new modding methods that you can use to interact with the new content - hopefully we can all look forward to seeing some new mods that bring us all new butterflies, solitary bees, and incense!

Theres also a few different fixes and some minor stuff I was putting off until there was literally nothing left on my TODO list, plus a couple tweaks.

As a side-note, not sure whats happened but recently theres been a large influx of reviews and theyve been so wonderful to read - thanks so much to everyone whos been taking to time to write such lovely things about bee game! It really does mean a lot. <3

~ Ell

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Reduced general net durability (when buying new nets)
  
• You can now pick up lilypads regardless of whether you have tools equipped (like flowers can be)
  
• If you didn't get a magazine for Lunar Bee when conserving it, one should now spawn when you load the world (maybe)
  

• Fixed butterflies in butterfly hotels visiting all flowers, rather than the ones they like (also led to weird cross-mutation)
  
• Fixed butterflies in butterfly hotels visually not visiting the flower accurately
  
• Fixed butterflies in butterfly hotels not matching the range shown by the hotel
  
• Fixed achievement for getting all bee-sides not unlocking
  
• Fixed Dreamshards selling for honeycore instead of rubees
  
• Fixed Pots, Compost Bin, Altar, and Shrine having missing input tooltip item icons
  
• Fixed butterfly nets not losing durability when catching butterflies
  
• Fixed axes losing durability when used on things that can be picked by hand
  
• Fixed incense7 (yellow-green) not having a name
  
• Fixed /gimme butterfly crashing when not specifying a species
  
• Fixed mined honeycore regrowing offset from it's original position
  
• Fixed chrysalis slots staying "locked" for clients during multiplayer when the butterfly hatches (hopefully)
  
• Fixed some languages having NAME BUTTERFLY instead of BUTTERFLY NAME
  
• Fixed new flowers not showing their effect name in the tooltip
  
• Fixed Beenjamin having the jurassic prompt before you find the species if you found enough bees
  
• Fixed plushie items not having a tooltip title
  
• Fixed NPCs not updating their "!" when you clear their dialogue but close using ESC
  
• Fixed clients not getting solitary bee repopulation updates (also hopefully)
  

• Fixed api_get_menu_objects() not respecting no co-ordinate being passed in (was supposed to default to player if none given)
  
• Added two methods that use "zoids", unique ids that are used to identify objects across games in multiplayer. By using zoids you can avoid the issue of instance ids changing every session and store links to zoids to get the correct instances back on reboot.
  
• Added api_get_zoid_from_inst(), which returns a unique id value (zoid) for the given instance id
  
• Added api_get_inst_from_zoid(), which returns the instance id for a given zoid, both these methods allow you to store
  
• Added api_define_solitary(), which lets you define your own solitary bee for people to discover in bee hotels
  
• Added api_define_butterfly(), which lets you define your own butterflies for people to catch
  
• Added api_describe_butterflies(), which will get the metadata for all butterflies
  
• Added api_define_incense(), which lets you setup a new incense and alchemy recipe (you need to implement the effect yourself though!)
  
• Added api_has_incense(), which will check if a specific scent is affecting a given position
  
• Added api_create_butterfly(), which lets you manually spawn a butterfly inst onto an object (flower, generic obj, menu_obj...)
  
• Added api_get_progress() method that returns the players current progress (i.e. bees found, butterflies repopulated etc)
  
• Added api_define_npc2() method that takes into account new menu sprite changes and new dialogue changes for NPCs - you can still use api_define_npc() but you should upgrade when you can!
  
• Added api_define_menu_object2() method that takes into account the menu sprite changes (you now only need 2 frames and dont need to add the tab title) - same as above RE the old method
  
• Added api_game_state() method that returns various game state bools (paused, game loading, world loading etc)
  
• Added basic _field values to the destroy hook when a menu object is destroyed (limited to basic datatypes)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

I hope you've all been enjoying your time with the butterflies and new bees!
It's that time of year where Steam opens up it's Award Nominations!



Every year Steam has a bunch of different categories, "GOTY", "Labour of Love" etc, and as players you can nominate your favourite game for the category that fits it best!

There's lots of different categories but our suggestion for APICO is "Sit Back and Relax":

This game is the antidote to a busy day. It's smooth, it's relaxing, it lets your worries melt away. This game is your moment of zen.

Sounds pretty APICO to me!

If you have a spare moment today, please consider helping us out and nominating APICO for the category you think is best - you can cast your vote from this event (apparently) and also from the store page here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1390190/APICO/

~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Just another little update to cover a few more fixes!
Thanks again for everyone who has been reported these issues.

~ Ell

[h3]Crash Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed "gml_Script_sc_nursery_alarm0" when removing butterflies on the frame they form
  
• Fixed "gml_Script_sc_centrifuge_alarm0" when removing a frame on the frame (nice) it's extracted
  
• Fixed crash when clicking on flower book flower icon links
  

• Fixed flower book showing total flowers as 24 instead of 23
  
• Fixed MacOS having some case sensitivity issues causing problems with uncapping/extracting frames
  
• Fixed the "flora" for a certain solitary bee
  
• Fixed Lunar Bee not being able to be used in a Habitat
  
• Fixed Lunar Bee's special product being just normal water lmao
  
• Fixed bee hotels not counting down guests when there's an error (i.e. not enough flora)
  
• Fixed bee hotels having all guest slots filled when spawn proc'd
  
• Fixed bee hotels not immedietely showing a bubble when a guest is visiting
  
• Fixed butterfly hotels counting down ALL butterflies at the same time, rather than 1 by 1 (this was not intended)
  
• Fixed being able to spawn solitary bees / eggs / caterpiller / chrysalis using the computer (leads to bugs)
  
• Fixed other biome tracks playing in the hallow
  
• Fixed gamepad being able to click on "locked" slots (solitary bee, chrysalis etc)
  
• Fixed chrysallis slots not being reset to "locked" when save+reloading
  
• Fixed butterfly book not fully getting translated when changing language
  
• Fixed bee-sides achievement triggering from just track discovery
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a small update to cover the common bugs/crashes that have been seen - thanks to everyone thats been reporting these issues.
Also a couple small changes, including the ability to release butterflies by dropping them, in future Ill look into some sort of larger storage for the hoarders amongst you (so basically all of us lol)

I hope youve all been enjoying the new content!
If you have, and you have a spare minute, please drop a nice review if you can - it really helps out APICOs visibility on Steam <3

~ Ell

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• You can now hammer candles to pick them back up!
  
• You can now release butterflies by dropping them (right-click on MKB, hold and close inventory on GP)
  
• Made flora tooltip mention it can be found in shrubs
  
• Increased drop rate of flora from shrubs
  
• Removed sort button from nursery (oops)
  

• Fixed "sc_library_draw" crash on gamepad/deck when getting having 1 but not the other of the bee books (this is the same as 2.0.0 HF1)
  
• Fixed "co:core Variable .talkbuttons not set before reading it" when scrolling the mouse on NPC shops
  
• Fixed "ds_map_find_value argument 1 incorrect type expecting a Number" when clicking a butterfly icon in the flower book
  
• Fixed "sc_nursery_alarm1 .species not set" occuring in certain situations (maybe)
  
• Fixed "ob_butterfly:unable to find instance for object index" when removing / emptying flowerpots (or flowers occasionally)
  

• Fixed menus not having their highlight when hovering/dragging
  
• Fixed achievement trigger for "Moth to a flame!"
  
• Fixed achievement trigger for first butterfly/first bee (and first repopulations) for both having the wrong value so these should pop now
  
• Fixed nursery pupa going into negative if the "no food" error was showing
  
• Fixed various "use with" and "valid item" tooltips showing pink cubes instead of things, might have missed some tho!
  
• Fixed couple typos in the cross-mutation quest
  
• Fixed a prompt option for Beetrix being "$npc2_P_JA" - she didn't have a clue what you meant but just played along anyway bless
  
• Fixed butterfly population restored notification not cleared when opening the butterfly book
  
• Fixed a certain butterfly not picking up it's "flower" when in a hotel
  

HF1: Fixed gamepad/steamdeck crash with "sc_library_draw" on getting/having the bee book

Hey Beekeepers!

Welcome, finally, to the 2.0 update, A.K.A. the I Cant Beelieve Its Not Butter(flies) Update!

Its been a while and weve been working very hard on lots of new things for you all to enjoy, and I hope you do!
As Ive mentioned before, although the 1.0 is a finished game in its own right there was lots of things I still wanted to do with APICO and lots of other things I wanted to add.

This 2.0 update is the first of three planned content updates (Terraria / MC style), and covers lots of new things including:

• New NPCs! Meet new friends Codey & Sto, research partners from the Mainland (!)
  
• Butterflies! Beeautiful flapping friends to find and discover
  
• Solitary Bees! Bees that dont work in hives but live alone??
  
• New Flowers! More fancy flowers, each with their own new effects on the environment!
  
• More books! We know you love reading, otherwise why are you playing APICO? <3
  
• Improved Dialogue System! Now you wont miss all the wonderful writing Jamie has done, plus some new dialogue!
  
• Incense! Finally you can make candles, plus your own incense through the magic of Alchemy!
  
• More Music! The wonderful bee-sides by Mothense have been added <3
  
• More decoration! Lots more decoration items, tiles, walls and more!
  
• More achievements! 16 more delicious achievements to get hold of!
  
• Loads more freakin bugs I am sure because I am just one person!!! :D
  

• Added new NPC, Sto! Sto is a researcher from the Mainland who will introduce you to Butterflies and give you her journal to learn more! You can find Sto to the west of the first forest island.
  
• Added butterflies! Butterflies spawn randomly based on their preferred flowers and conditions. There are 15 butterflies to discover, along with golden variants! Buy a net from Sto to start catching them.
  
• Added 10 new flowers! Through cross-mutation of butterflies you can discover these strange variants and their new flower effects.
  
• Added Butterfly Hotels! Butterflies in hotels can cause all sorts of strange effects to the nearby environment, as well as mutate nearby flowers.
  
• Added Nurseries! Used to help repopulate butterflies by taking their eggs through the natural lifecycle
  
• Added new NPC, Codey! Codey is a researcher from the Mainland who will introduce you to Solitary Bees, and give you her notes to learn more! You can find Codey to the east of the second forest island.
  
• Added solitary bees! Solitary bees dont live in hives, and will only appear through Bee Hotels under the right conditions! There are 12 solitary bees to discover.
  
• Added Bee Hotels! Bee hotels let you create small ecosystems that can attract different solitary bees for you to discover, along with golden variants!
  
• Added Habitats! By building specific habitats for solitary bees, you can help repopulate that species! Theyll even leave you little gifts!
  
• Added new NPC, Moth(ense)! A moth??? Where are they? What do they sell? Thats for you to discover
  
• Added two new glorious books, Stos Butterfly Journal (open with Y when discovered), and Codeys Notes (accessed from the bee book via Tab when discovered)
  
• Added more actual lore (oh my god), and a chance to learn more about (and help) the Mainland!
  
• Added some new quests to cover candle making and incense, plus cross-mutation of flowers
  
• Added new flora items found by picking shrubs, used with butterflies & solitary bees
  
• Added new decoration tiles, including variants of edging + pier tiles, marble tiles and giant lilypads
  
• Added two new carpets, a green and a white variant
  
• Added a new plain shrub wall to go with the marble and wood shrubs
  
• Added Mothenses Bee-sides to the in-game music rotation, meaning 11 new tracks will now play
  
• Added the bee-sides in-game as collectables, but where might you find them I wonder?
  
• Added a bookshelf item that can store your books, changes appearance based on how many books are in it
  
• Added a new watering can item, that can instantly grow any placed flower seed
  
• Added a couple more hair styles (including Abbees sweet do)
  
• Added a couple new colours to the character customisation & Dresser (pink & purple wahoo!)
  
• Added some new decoration banners that can be placed on walls, 5 to collect in total!
  
• Added the Desalinator, an alternative source of water unlocked from Skipper after 10 social bees are discovered
  
• Added the Candlemaker, which lets you create candles from beeswax (finally)
  
• Added the Alchemy Bench, sold by Sto it lets you create different types of incense based on different combinations of items - theres 11 to discover!
  
• Added the Incense Burner, sold by Sto it lets you burn the various incenses, each with their own unique effect
  
• Added new ambient background noise for other biomes for both day and night!
  
• Added 16 new achievements!
  
• Added some secret things to discover!
  
• Added a new accessibility option to remove RNG from butterfly spawns (so only conditions need to be correct, does not affect completion/achievements)
  
• Added a new accessibility option to remove RNG from solitary bee spawns (again so only conditions need to be correct, does not affect completion/achievements)
  
• Added a new accessibility option to remove all buzzing sounds from hives / lone bees
  
• Added a new accessibility option to override the recommended zoom level (use at your own risk, youll get overlap/cutoff of menus if you use a zoom level higher than your screen can fit
  

• Dialogue system has been overhauled - instead of having them only show the latest trigger, they now show all triggers along with a prompt for each one. Theres probably a lot of dialogue you missed, plus new dialogue to enjoy!
  
• NPC shops have been changed, with some NPCs having entirely new stock (notably Abbee!).
  
• NPC shops now have two special slots so its easier to get the special you want.
  
• You can now pick up flowers when using tools rather than need to change to a non-tool item to interact with them
  
• You can now place flowers onto shrub walls for decoration (note: they do not function as flowers for butterfly/bee purposes)
  
• You can now use shrub saplings in the Squeezer
  
• You can now create deep water by using a Honeycore Shovel on a shallow water tile
  
• You can now dye natural beehives in the Dye Station, allowing you to get the rarer coloured natural hives you find in the wild.
  
• You can now hammer the smaller honeycore crystals with a Honeycore Hammer to pick them up and move them
  
• Shrub walls now change appearance based on the biome they are used in (both the 2 existing shrub walls and the new one)
  
• General menu drawing optimisation to reduce texture page sizes + reduce texture swaps which should buff performance on slower devices
  
• Improved current highlighted object with an arrow symbol above it
  
• Made the target menu a little bit clearer with an arrow symbol above it
  
• Magazine rack now changes appearance based on how many magazines are in it
  
• Changed overall progress level to account for new content, max is now 105% (sorry Cornflower!!! <3)
  
• Every 5th noticeboard quest completion now gives you a decorative plushie for that NPC! Theres 11 to collect, some found in other places! :D
  
• Composter now also produces the new flora items of the biome its in, along with grass as normal (you can also get flora from shrubs)
  
• Lights now use candles (new item) to craft instead of just beeswax!
  

• Fixed painted walls not showing their windows
  
• Fixed in-game controls remapping keys not being selectable the first time its opened
  
• Fixed treetop produce arrow not having a highlight
  
• Fixed treetop menu not visibly selecting after being placed until you move for the first time
  
• Fixed snow infinitely creating snowballs when using a spade
  
• Fixed the healthbar of big rocks being off-centre (yes someone reported that)
  
• Fixed the Chaotic Bee not correctly showing as being calmed by its flowers in the flower book
  
• Fixed flower icon tooltips in the overview chapter of the flower book
  
• Fixed menus getting deactivating if their top-left corner went offscreen on the left or top
  
• Fixed not being able to separately hammer windows + walls (originally would hammer both together)
  
• Fixed some buttons not showing highlights when invalid (like the workbench craft button)
  

• I made sure I didnt break stuff which is as good as we gunna get for 2.0, however with the next set of bug fixes for this update Ill be adding new modding APIs and changes for stuff like the new NPC dialogue system, and custom butterflies/bees etc, so youll have to wait a bit longer for custom butts!!
  

Attention Beekeepers!

Butterflies? Solitary bees?? Alchemy?!? Oh my!

We're excited to announce that our first free content update, "I Can't Beelieve It's Not Butter(flies)!" will be released on PC this weekend, on 12th November!!



This is a free update geared around butterflies and solitary bees (bees that dont live in hives!) In it youll meet Mainland research duo Sto + Codey, and aid them in rediscovering and repopulating stocks of bees & butterflies to help improve things back home.



This update consists of early-mid content - you will be able to use your existing save!
Things to look forward to include:
- New NPCs! Meet new friends Codey & Sto, research partners from the Mainland (!)
- Butterflies! Beeautiful flapping friends to find and discover
- Solitary Bees! Bees that dont work in hives but live alone??
- New Flowers! More fancy flowers, each with their own new effects on the environment!
- More books! We know you love reading, otherwise why are you playing APICO? <3
- Improved Dialogue System! Now you wont miss all the wonderful writing Jamie has done, plus some new dialogue!
- Incense! Finally you can make candles, plus your own incense through the magic of Alchemy!
- More Music! The wonderful bee-sides by Mothense have been added <3
- More decoration! Lots more decoration items, tiles, walls and more!
- More achievements! 16 more delicious achievements to get hold of!
- Loads more freakin bugs I am sure because I am just one person!!! :D



We are very excited (and very tired), and can't wait for you all to enjoy the new content!! <3
(P.S. a little butterfly told me there may or may not be a release discount with this update xx)

pls share our announcement tweet if you can here:
https://twitter.com/apico_game/status/1589567641542225920

Hey Beekeepers!

After being able to have a well-needed break from all things APICO, and easing myself back in with planning the butterfly update, I started work on some new sprites as well as begin adding the first new items to the game as part of the upcoming content update!

Read the full devlog here:
https://ko-fi.com/Post/APICO--August-2022-Devlog-S6S0EQLIJ

Hey Beekeepers!

Have you ever looked at my silly bee designs and been like damn Ell I could do better - well now is your chance! Design your own APICO bee and the winner will be added to the game in the upcoming Butterfly Update!



You can use any art medium, digital, analogue, macaroni art, whispered ideas to your nearest beehive etc etc

To enter:
- follow @apico_game on Twitter + RT the post below
- comment on the post with your design OR post it with the tag #APICOBee

Entry will close on 30th September.
5 entries will be picked from which popular vote will design the winner!

Winner will receive 5 APICO keys, an APICO t-shirt of their choice, plus have their winning design added in the upcoming Butterfly Update as a solitary bee to discover!!

Twitter Post:
https://twitter.com/apico_game/status/1564541116011188224

HF1: Fixed Grandpa's Axe spawning immediately and infinitely

Hey Beekeepers!

Its been a hot minute - welcome to all our new pocket beekeepers reppin on the Switch <3
This update is mostly to cover a bunch of stuff that has come from our handheld friends, although anyone who plays with a controller or on Steam Deck will also benefit from the changes and fixes!

As you might have seen on Twitter weve started work on all the new goodies for the Butterfly Update - itll be a while before that update is out though as theres a lot of stuff coming with it!

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• You can now drop half of a stack of items when holding them into an empty slot using Square/X/Y (quick move button) on gamepad/console
  
• When closing a menu while still holding an item on gamepad/console, the dropped item will now be further from the player so it's not picked up immedietely
  
• Increased retrigger speed for holding down slot movement/chapter selection dpad/analogue stick on Switch
  
• Added the ability to sort your backpack by R stick clicking an empty slot (like crates) on gamepad/console
  
• Added a visible autosave message on gamepad/console
  
• If it hasn't rained in 3 days in a row after Day 4 then the chance of rain will be doubled (swamps still remain 100% chance)
  
• Grandpa's Axe will now appear in the Lost+Found if you didn't look after it (single tear cry emoji)
  
• Changed a lot of the slot selection in machines on gamepad/console so things should feel more "correct" moving around slots (instead of moving the cursor to the bottom storage bar)
  
• Made it clearer in the guide you can use triggers or R stick to change tile/wall placement
  

• Fixed "ds_map_find_value argument 1 incorrect type (undefined)... at sc_get_tooltip()" crash
  
• Fixed "ds_map_find_value argument 1 incorrect type (undefined)... at sc_centrifuge2_add()" crash
  

• Fixed joining player progress not being saved on Switch due to a file mounting issue
  
• Fixed some slower particle effects on Switch
  
• Fixed boat + mead buff speed not being 2x base speed on Switch (boo, hiss)
  
• Fixed Bobbee's shop showing your Rubee total underneath instead of your Honeycore total on Switch
  
• Fixed not being able to use the right stick click to gather honeycomb in beehives on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed Honeycore Shovel not digging up grass properly on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed not being able to place down grass properly on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed microscope notification message being empty on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed GUI tooltips showing on top of the GUI element on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed not being able to dig up snow with spades on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed not being able to close the backpack if you opened it while traveling in a boat on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed changing recipe in the workbench not visibly updating requirements until you click on it on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed seeing a tooltip for a backpack instead of the cute player tooltip when highlighting the player
  
• Fixed not seeing a visual for the tile you are hammering underneath you if you had a backpack on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed being able to select an invisible "production" meter in Swarmers on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed not being able to place windows on selected walls on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed menu objects not hammering in 2 hits (to prevent accidents) on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed book-based notifications not opening to the correct page when opening the corresponding book on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed sometimes getting a Verdant Bee from an Uncommon X Forest cross if you hadn't discovered the Verdant Bee yet
  
• Fixed joining player saving in a boat not returning in a boat when rejoining the same host's world
  

Hey Beekeepers!

I think this is technically the first "real" dev log we've had for APICO on Ko-Fi since moving all our devlogs over from Guilded! (Which, if you've missed those you can still read all of them here, starting with the first one from when we moved APICO over to GMS2!)

Now that things are starting to settle with APICO since the release I've been able to actually take a break, as well as start to have a think about the first of the 3 planned content updates - I Can't Beelieve It's Not Butter(flies)

Read the full devlog here:
https://ko-fi.com/Post/APICO--June-2022-Devlog-Q5Q1DHL4C

Hey Beekeepers!

Just some more bug fixes as well as a couple bits to feed the insatiable modders!

~ Ell

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed beehives placed offscreen by joining players sometimes not reactivating after a queen finished their cycle
  
• Fixed the raintank gathering rain while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Beenjamin being able to ask for an "Inheritence Bee", clearly losing the plot in his old age bless
  

• Added api_create_lightweight() - lightweights are efficiently drawn instances that you can use for batch draw calls. They're also Skipper's least favourite type of person
  
• Added api_measure_text() which returns the height + width of a given sentance when drawn (including when a max-width is set)
  
• Added some new api_multiplayer_* methods which should let you handle being able to store mod data for joining players when they join a hosted game
  
• Fixed modded menu change scripts not being triggered with right-click changes
  
• Fixed modded NPCs having a third invisible row of sell slots
  

HF1: Fixed an issue with menu drawing that affected mods (specifically BEI)

Hey Beekeepers!

Just some more bug fixes for ya, happy weekend!

~ Ell

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue with the bottler duplicating canisters/bottles when working in Multiplayer
  
• Fixed an issue with items sometimes not being picked up in Multiplayer
  
• Fixed being able to duplicate canisters by rapidly clicking in a few different liquid machines (bottler, barrel)
  
• Fixed seeds not showing when placed in flower pots (no they don't grow its just to look cute)
  
• Fixed buying Honeycore from The Merchant showing a tooltip error
  

• Added a new hook tdraw() which is called above tiles but below objects and draw()
  
• Fixed api_define_flower() not respecting shop_buy / shop_key
  
• Fixed api_define_flower() using the variants sprite for the item sprite
  
• Fixed api_set_ground() not updating the last set tile properly
  
• Removed modded bees from Beenjamin's hints getting him all confused bless him
  

Hey Beekeepers!

So were coming up on nearly a month since the game has been released!
Wed had thousands of people playing APICO and all round its been a wild time - thanks so much for everyone thats been playing and leaving us the most wonderful reviews <3

In the last 4-6 weeks I think Ive maybe had 3 whole days where I havent been in GameMaker for some reason and now that things are mostly stable its definitely time to take a break. I was already burning out from console porting earlier this year so the last month or so hasnt helped!
This will be the last update for a while now barring any urgent bug fixes / crashes - theres a few changes, a bunch of stuff to keep the mod creators quiet (for a few days at least), and also I updated GameMakers Steamworks Extension!

They have promised me that this update will fix the issues some people were having with some MacOS users crashing, and some users just not able to unlock achievements - but I wont get my hopes up.
At the very least lets hope it still works normally even if it doesnt fix those issues! If you do still have issues with Steam please let me know ASAP.

Once I finally have a proper break Ill be starting on the first proper content update for APICO, I Can't Beelieve It's Not Butter(flies). This will bring in butterflies, solitary bees that dont work in hives, and all sorts of pollination/flower madness. If you want to read more about the content updates you can check the roadmap here:
https://ko-fi.com/post/APICO-Roadmap-S6S0ADGAZ

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Visually show the "Respawn in 5s" countdown when holding R / L+R
  
• You now need to equip mead before being able to drink it - meaning you can now right-click to split a stack of infused mead
  
• Notice bubbles are now hidden while in Photo Mode
  
• Mods are now listed alphabetically and show the total number of downloads globally
  
• Mods now each have a banner in the description when clicked on
  
• Highlighting tabs/recipes on gamepad now automatically selects them
  
• On gamepad when holding triggers and highlighting a beehive you can now see the range radius
  
• On gamepad you can now hold the dpad on slot and book chapter selection
  
• Hammering a crate / menu object will now drop that as an item first before the contents of the menu
  
• Added the Mod Workbench, which will store all crafting recipes for all installed mods, per mod
  

• Fixed "Cannot delete buffer, it's in use by 1 others at gml_Object_co_mods_Other_72" with mods that use api_get_data()
  

• Fixed boats being deleted in multiplayer when clicked rapidly
  
• Fixed bottler liquid type not reset when draining the tank
  
• Fixed the "instance queen end" glitch with slot clicking/dragging
  
• Fixed bottler giving 2 bottles per 50ml in multiplayer
  
• Fixed closing noticeboard quests on gamepad meaning you had to close the whole menu before being able to select a quest button
  
• Fixed uncapping bench / uncapper having incorrect help labels
  
• Fixed Swarmwort seeds not saying they should be placed on water
  
• Fixed Beenjamin asking for a "behaviour behaviour" (what a rascal)
  
• Fixed Raintank menu highlight sprite not having the right outline
  
• Fixed not being able to drink Apicola on gamepad (you poor thirsty bees)
  
• Fixed ";" not being usable for a mapped key
  
• Fixed menus staying open when Save+Quitting, which could sometimes cause issues with the home screen buttons
  

• Added the Mod Workbench, which will store all crafting recipes for all installed mods. Recipes define with api_define_recipe() will be put here instead of the vanilla workbench - you can use this as your hub crafting station as there is section for each mod. This means you can define 100 recipes for your mod (5 tabs, 20 recipes per tab)
  
• Added api_define_workbench(), which lets you set your mod's name and tab names in the Mod Workbench
  
• Added a description "banner" to in-game mod descriptions
  
• Added a few missing item sprites for larger scenery items
  
• Added api_define_item_stats() which lets you define a "default" set of stats to apply to a given item when it's created (i.e. having a canister start with 9001 max)
  
• api_define_gui() has now been modified to correctly cache sprites rather than register a new one for every machine - this means you will need to ensure your gui_key's are unique per menu object define (i.e. you can't use "progress_bar" for 2 different defines if they're different progress bar sprites)
  
• Added "has_lighting" to the flower_definition in api_define_flower()
  
• Added api_define_window() which lets you define a custom "window" (essentially just an item that has a special frame drawn on a wall)
  
• Added a create() hook, called whenever a generic object, tree, flower, menu object, or item is created
  
• Added api_define_liquid() which lets you define a custom liquid - these can be used in canisters, barrels, and your own custom tanks (not the bottler)
  
• Fixed game load hanging when leaving a mod in settings but there being no actual mod folder
  
• Fixed game load hanging when having an empty mod folder for a mod that is being loaded
  
• Fixed obj_definition with variants specified being limited to 4 frames
  
• Fixed ready() being called early during new world creation (and being called twice)
  
• Fixed modded quests being required to complete to get Grandpa's Axe
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Recently Steam has marked APICO as being able to release it's own Steam Trading Cards, and today I'm happy to announce these are now live and you should start getting cards now!



There are 8 trading cards in total! Along with the APICO badge you can get from getting all cards, you can also get 5 different profile backgrounds and 6 lil APICO emotes, hope you enjoy <3

~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a couple quick fixes on MP games, and a tweak for modders!

~ Ell

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed "new" hives found or placed by clients not activating until the host walked nearby
  
• Fixed clients not visibly seeing the progress bar of a host started machine even tho input+output of the machine was fine
  
• Fixed being able to use pickaxes on trees and have them be just as effective (lol)
  

• Mod console is now toggled through "CTRL"+"." instead if just "."
  
• Mod logs are now added to the "mod-logs.txt" file in real-time so you can view logs outside of the mod console in-game
  

As some of you may know, we've partnered with Makeship to make our very own APICO plushie!!



If at least 200 of you beeautiful bees pledge then this foot-long Beeatrice brick can finally be brought to life (and into your loving arms)! Like Kickstarter if the goal isn't reached then your pledge is refunded (and we'd be very sad to not have an army of beeatrices brought into the world).

If you're interested in owning one of these beeauties, you can check out the campaign over on Makeship here!
https://www.makeship.com/products/beeatrice-plush

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a few little bits in this one, some tiny QoL tweaks (including a pencil that lets you relabel things!), some balancing and a couple fixes for multiplayer.



Theres also a bunch of new stuff and some API fixes for modding!
Theres been some really cool mods in progress, including an APICO version of Minecrafts NEI, so hoping these new modding APIs help encourage more people to get stuck in!

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• You can now craft a Pencil (on PC) that lets you relabel menu objects! i.e. you could relabel your trash can to say "Wasp Storage" >:)
  
• Smokers now have their own icon bubble, that also matches the one shown by Empress bees
  
• Targeted menus now have the extra label highlight like when you drag them
  
• Beeboxes/Beebanks no longer show traits until you've microscoped the species
  
• Standard honeycore crystals now sell for $2 rather than $3, and Crystal Bee honeycore shards sell for $5 instead of $1 - there's a bigger piece around honeycore processing planned!
  
• The good news is Barnabee is looking to buy a house of his own! The bad news is the deposit was huge and they have to put their prices up soz
  
• Rocky Bees now spawn in a hive when mined, and there's now a 50% chance of a hive vs 100% always getting a bee (after your first hive)
  
• Sorting menus now orders bees by their bee book order - same for magazines
  

• Fixed machines giving duplicate items when the progress bar finished in multiplayer when host should have "won" (sawmill, beehive, centrifuge etc)
  
• Fixed being able to pause while in multiplayer as pausing your time meant time desynced
  
• Fixed newly placed items not being interactable until the player moves (in multiplayer + while modding)
  
• Fixed right-clicking to split stacks and dropping items on an existing stack not syncing in multiplayer
  
• Fixed being able to get infinite cargo boats in multiplayer, putting Skipper out of business (and making him sad)
  
• Fixed game crashing on gamepad when highlighting a non-menu object and pressing Y / Triangle
  
• Fixed The Merchant not showing their post-credits dialogue (im so sorry over how not worth it this is now you can finally read it lmao)
  
• Fixed Sacred Idol showing as the wrong sprite in the Altar overworld sprite
  
• Fixed Beehive Lamps not having an item sprite in your inventory
  
• Fixed acorns planted in hallows not showing as the correct sapling sprite (at least SOMEONE has been replanting)
  
• Fixed NPCs not remembering that they already told you something and eagerly telling you again next time you booted up the game
  
• Fixed Beebank tabs not showing the species name on hover
  
• Fixed being able to hammer beds/benches while in them (why did you even try this)
  
• Fixed music layering when sleeping through several nights
  
• Fixed birbs not flapping when flying away (high quality stuff gang)
  
• Fixed species with "Any" climate not showing in the beebook or stat cards
  

• Added a new set of methods, api_describe_*, which get various game metadata (both base game and modded)
  
• Added a new set of methods, api_all_*, which gets all instance IDs in the map of trees/flowers/objs/menu objects (super dangerous, dont make me regret it :D)
  
• Added api_refresh_tooltip() to refresh to tooltip cache (i.e. when updating tanks / gui)
  
• Added api_get_language() to return the players chosen language (i.e. "en", "jp", etc)
  
• Added a new destroy() hook, called when objects/trees/flowers/machines are destroyed
  
• Added a new scroll() hook, called when the mouse wheel is scrolled up/down
  
• Added "hp" as a new property to obj_definition's so you can make objs with "health" (like trees, shrubs, rocks etc)
  
• Added a "claim_script" parameter to api_define_quest(), called when the quest is claimed
  
• Changed ready() to call when the player is directly in the game (after intro cutscene)
  
• Changed worldgen() to call both before all objects are created (post-tiles) and after all objects are created
  
• Fixed api_get_definition() returning some properties as ds_ GM ids rather than values
  
• Fixed loading a different file than the preloaded save not calling ready() properly (and not having a splashscreen)
  
• Fixed api_define_flower_recipe() not working
  
• Fixed api_blacklist_oid() not affected player movement keys
  
• Fixed api_define_bee_recipe() not returning the menu object inst. in the mutation script
  
• Fixed "durability" on obj_definition showing as "health" in tooltips
  

Slight tweak for SteamDeck to stop the initial run crash people were seeing! <3

Hey Beekeepers!

Think we are starting to iron out most the major bugs now! Nothing like having 1000s of people play your game to find the most niche little issues eh? :)

Ive also added a few different QoL stuff in this update, notably a new item (Queen Cells) that acts as an automatic Quick Queen button, a way to get new grass tiles with Abbees Compost Bin, the ability to pin menus, as well as a way to dye backpacks in the new Dye Station!
I think Queen Cells is p. useful but let me know what you all think! (too expensive, not expensive enough etc)



Then theres also a bunch of bug fixes including preventing the corrupted pink bee being able to be made in MP which then caused a bunch of issues, as well as the cargo boat just not following you after reloading the game.
Of all the things in the game I think the Cargo Boat was probably the last thing I expected to give me so much grief lol

Theres also a bunch of various modding related changes in this one (for mod creators - docs will be updated very shortly with some of the new stuff not yet put there!)
Please enjoy! Im going to go to sleep now lmao

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added a new craftable item, Queen Cells! These can be put in the middle of beehives/apiaries to trigger an automatic quick queen when the queen lifecycle ends. Give it a whirl and see what ya think!
  
• Upgraded the microscope to show the HD species image, the dom+res species letters (like in beeboxes), and show grumpiness/beeatrice traits
  
• Abbee now sells the Compost Bin, which turns seeds+flowers into grass tiles
  
• Jukebox can now store all 14 tracks, and will automatically pick a new track to play from it's storage when the current track ends
  
• Added a new "pin" button to menus when playing with MKB that when active will save the menus position on re-open rather than reset it!
  
• Backpacks now have an extra row and column of storage (dont say i dont ever give ya nuffin)
  
• Added the "Dye Station" which you can craft - currently used to dye backpacks different colors!
  
• Now indicate a "grumpy" icon on the bee book page to save having to hove the book's trait info section to check if a species is grumpy
  
• Now indicate a special icon on the bee book pages for empress/arctic/blazing to represent their special effects
  
• Gates now have an extra marker to get you back to THAT place if you've been there before
  
• You can now retrigger the credits by clicking on the door (when already opened)
  
• Changed the visual of capped frames to be a different pattern to uncapped for visual clarity
  
• Removed the larger honeycore crystals from having collision
  
• Added a seperate "inverse hotbar scroll" option now please stop asking lmao
  
• Added a "More Mods!" button to modding menu to link to the master mod list on the wiki!
  

• Fixed ERROR in action number 1 of StepEvent0 for object ob_menu:animcurvechannel_evaluate() first parameter is not valid
  
• Fixed ERROR in action number 1 of StepEvent0 for object co_gamepad:Variable unknown_object>.open(100464,-2147483648) cannot be resolved
  
• Fixed ERROR in action number 1 of DrawEvent for object co_renderer:Variable unknown_object>.honeycore not set before reading it
  

• Fixed being able to make corrupted bees with the beebox/beebank in multiplayer which then caused a bunch of issues by it existing
  
• On a similar note, any pink corrupted bees will be deleted or turned into safe cubes when loading a save now
  
• Fixed not being able to load mods when joining someones game
  
• Fixed the host's midnight weather report not syncing to joining players making weather go out of sync
  
• Fixed Cargo Boats just refusing to come with you and loading in without them
  
• Fixed not being able to use Cargo Boats on gamepad
  
• Fixed the Muggy beehives not being able to be placed back on water
  
• Fixed fences being able to be sold when you can craft them for nothing
  
• Fixed being able to steal things from shops with middle click (you rascals)
  
• Fixed using middle mouse button on a stack when there are 2 full stacks available deletes half of the merging content
  
• Fixed bee lanterns not being able to be picked up
  
• Fixed hitbox of 3rd recipe middle bee icons being offset
  
• Fixed beehives losing their notification popup icons when painted
  
• Fixed book not showing all behavior icons lit up for cathermarl bees
  
• Fixed using exactly 50ml of fluid giving you a messed up bottle
  
• Fixed a heater-related error when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to shift-click the Glitched bee (lowkey hilarious)
  
• Fixed Abbee's Staff spawning Honeydrop and Frosteria in the Swamp instead of Hivesbane
  
• Fixed clicking Glitched bees in the dream triggering the "discovery" for glitched bees again
  
• Fixed requirement info for Stubborn bee's stat card hover showing the wrong recipe
  
• Fixed photo mode not turning off when you press ESC or open settings
  
• Fixed being able to place nature items on ice (rip ice trees)
  
• Fixed not being able to press "Join" after hosting then saving+quiting
  
• Fixed beebanks in multiplayer not showing all the dropped bees for the other player when hammered
  
• Fixed not being able to use the honeycore shovel with a gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to place grass tiles with a gamepad
  
• Fixed book overview notifications not going away until clicked even when you claimed the reward (go away omg!!!)
  
• Fixed backpack in the shop not showing the level required to buy when expanding the tooltip
  
• Fixed clicking on the Door with a gamepad crashing the game
  

• Changed how CTRL+SHIFT+R works, now mod files will get reloaded without a game restart - this can cause some jank but at least you can hotload minor changes quicker! Sprites will reset but placed items will need to be picked up to get the updated sprite (same for your menu define logic!). Textures don't get reset so eventually you'll get mem leaks if you have lots of sprites in a mod.
  
• Added "api_define_wall" which lets you define your own walls (see Sample Mod for an example)
  
• Added a "bench" property for "api_define_object" that will allow the object to function like a bench when clicked
  
• Added a "bed" property for "api_define_object" that will allow the object to function like a bed when clicked (requires a 5th sprite frame, see Sample Mod)
  
• Added a "has_lighting" property for "api_define_object" that will make the object act as a light source
  
• Added a "bee_lore" property for "api_define_item" that will show in the bee book if it's the special produce for that bee
  
• Added the pressed button instance ID as a second parameter to button click scripts in "api_define_button" buttons
  
• Added "api_http_request" which lets you send a standard HTTP req that will callback to the new "http()" hook
  
• Fixed the obj draw script in "api_define_menu_object" not being called for custom obj draw overrides
  
• Fixed "api_get_sprite" not returning standard oid items or items during "init()"
  
• Fixed "flowerX", "seedX", "dyeX", and "trackX" not being usable in menu definitions
  
• Added the ability to set a custom input restriction with "customX:{oid}", i.e. "customX:axe" would only allow items with an oid containing "axe"
  
• Added "api_define_validation_icon()" which lets you set the custom icon shown for custom input restrictions
  
• Fixed mod items loading twice (maybe?)
  
• Fixed modded quest/bee/flower progress not being kept (claimed, discovery, etc)
  
• You can now bin modded items that no longer have their mod loaded (blank pink cubes)
  

• Updated "Sample Mod" with an example bench, bed, and lighting item
  
• Added a new sample mod, "Sample Workbench Mod" to show how you could approach a workbench-style menu
  
• Made it clear that shop_key is optional on definitions
  
• Made it clear that api_define_tank does need you to save the 3 tank props to menu._fields
  
• Added buttons to instance props
  
• Added image_xscale + image_yscale to instance props
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a quick one for today to cover some changes that went alongside the server changes made last night when the server was restarted!
Currently working on a much large update to clean up some of the last remaining bugs but wanted to get this out first.

~ Ell

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Made some changes to BeeNet to help prevent desync
  
• Updated some client-side socket stuff to help prevent desync
  
• Added Steam Cloud links for mapping between Windows > Linux, Mac > Linux etc so that saves on PC should now be visible on SteamDeck
  

Hot fix for tapped trees being INVICIBLE smh

Hot fix to fix benches/beds/standard boats not being able to be picked up with a hammer

Apis 1.2.0

Hey Beekeepers!

Thanks so much for everyone reports - Ive been trying to keep on top of all the reports across Steam / Guilded / Discord / Forms / Random DMs (Im sure youve seen me zooming around on all of them these last few days!)

I wanted to prioritise getting this update out as its specifically to address the 4 horsemen of the launch apocalypse that Im sure were all familiar with already (multiplayer sync Sadness, mod loading Malaise, cargo boat Betrayal + demo file Despair)
Theres also a few little tweaks and some crash fixes too - hopefully this helps settle some of the more annoying issues, and then we can start looking more into QoL stuff!

If you think something was missed here fret not!
Theres a few things raised that were either pretty minimal, QoL suggestions or I couldnt replicate yet but rest assured its on my list.

(For people reading this who have Humble / Itch / GJ / Epic, Ill be deploying 1.2.0 today ASAP!)

~ Ell

[h2]Hot Fixes[/h2]

• HF1: Fixed benches/beds/boats not being hammerable
  

• Added a clear warning on demo saves to not be used in the full version of the game (Im so sorry)
  
• Holding R to respawn while in a boat will bring your boat with you
  
• Holding R to respawn with a boat nearby will also bring your boat with you
  
• Honeycore + Mysterious frames now have a durability of 10 instead of 5 (this will only affect new frames)
  
• Reduced Eternal Lifespan trait from 1200s to 720s (what was I thinking with this)
  
• Canisters with liquid can no longer be sold to prevent you losing money
  
• Updated Mothenses Twitter handle in-game (sorry moth <3)
  
• Adjusted the hitbox of the LHS buttons on menus so theres no gap between to highlight things behind
  
• Changed the Spanish language icon
  

• Fixed gml_Script_sc_util_draw_item - variable .d_traits not set before
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_crate1_change - variable .d_traits not set before
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_item_step - .species cannot be resolved
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_util_struct_clone - variable_struct_get_names incorrect type
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_util_draw_item - variable .d_traits not set before
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_slot_draw - unable to find instance
  

• Fixed a major issue in Multiplayer where desyncing could be caused by picking up too many items
  
• Fixed a major issue in Multiplayer where desyncing could be caused by placing/removing too many walls/tiles
  
• Fixed a major issue in Multiplayer where hosting a newly created world would cause a desynch with friend actions
  
• Fixed an issue where if you joined your friends game, save+quit, then loaded your own world it would be your friends world still (which could then lead to losing your save if you saved the game after loading that world)
  
• Fixed an issue where certain Steam Achievements would not get unlocked if Steam API hadnt been called correctly
  
• Fixed an issue where no Steam Achievements could be unlocked (for people who originally saw the Steam Not Connected issue in 1.0.0)
  
• Fixed an issue where corrupted MP saves of joining friends would remain corrupted
  
• Fixed the game crashing when hammering a gate while another gate menu was open
  
• Fixed the hotbar getting sorted when sorting the inventory (oops)
  
• Fixed the weird mouse off to the left of the actual mouse position thing (you know the one)
  
• Fixed the water bottle sprite having some junk on it
  
• Fixed being able to put a backpack inside itself and then closing itself and having your backpack disappear into itself for eternity
  
• Fixed some longer languages overlapping with the Postcard Set Sail button
  
• Fixed Hivemother Gate items showing as pink cubes
  
• Fixed the tooltip button icons of the map + bee book being the wrong way round
  
• Fixed the Bottler tank not resetting the liquid type if you used exactly 50bl to empty the tank
  
• Fixed the Smoker scent not resetting when the scent timer hit zero
  
• Fixed some menu objects being able to become immortal and permanently messing up your perfect lil base layouts
  
• Fixed being able to drag a menu with a hammer and cause the menu object to get picked up
  
• Fixed Magazines not having their high contrast variants for high contrast text mode
  
• Fixed being able to get infinite grass on tiles that have stuff on them (maybe?)
  
• Fixed Barnabee somehow managing to give you an impossible bee quest
  
• Fixed noticeboard visuals going wrong after > 5 quests completed
  

• You can now use Control + Shift + R to hard restart the game, allowing you to quick reload for LUA text changes (LUA files are only read when you actually select a save)
  
• Added a new method, api_is_game_paused() - you can guess what it does
  
• Fixed an issue where modded items would not appear after saving + restarting
  
• Fixed the Hopper mod from not working correctly with closed menus
  
• Fixed the Uranium Bee mod where the mod would not load
  
• Fixed being able to reduce money to negative
  
• Fixed api_define_flower() not working correctly
  

• Fixed sc_define_button not showing that the button click handler has the menu_id as a property
  

Small tweak on Windows to the GameMaker Steamworks Ext. for that "Steam Not Connected" issue!

However achievements won't unlock because GameMaker still thinks your Steam client isn't initialised (but at least you can play the game)

Hey Beekeepers!

Wow what a release, thanks so much for everyone who's been playing, leaving us the most wonderful reviews, and helping us clean up some of the less friendly bugs!

This update is pretty much just various fixes that seemed urgent, including a fix for rejoining your friends MP game crashing / clearing your progress. NOTE: if it's still not loading (from somehow getting corrupted during a crash) you'll need to clear your "players.json" file in %localappdata%

Also I've tried a slight change to GameMaker's SteamWorks extension that I'm hoping helps the few of you seeing that weird "Steam Not Connected" screen when you're literally in Steam - let me know if it helps! HOWEVER, achievements won't unlock for you - I've had to raise a support request with GameMaker directly. But it's the lesser of 2 evils, either your steam won't initialise and you can't play the game, or no achievements but you can play the game :')

I'm still looking into the "desync" issue that can sometimes occur for a few of you, usually it would be from bad/busy internet connection but I think there might be something in-game thats triggering a big flow of packets that is overwhelming the other player's socket. If you think you've been able to replicate this desync by doing something specific please come ping me in Discord!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Removed wasps (or did I? dun dun dun....)
  
• Increased chance of rain each day in the forest from 30% - 35%
  

• Fixed gml_Script_sc_slot_set (CENTRIFUGE_ALARM1)
  instance_exists argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32)
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_slot_draw (MENU_DRAW)
  Unable to find instance for object index
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_util_discover_item (MENU_CHANGE)
  Variable .shiny(100020, -2147483648) cannot be resolved.
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_util_create_item (BUTTON_CLICK)
  ds_map_find_value argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number (YYGI32)
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_slot_validate (MOD_CLOCK)
  Variable .uncapped(100359, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
  

• Potentially fixed the "No Steam Connected" issue some people were seeing?
  
• Fixed an issue where rejoining a friends hosted game would crash you as your player save wasn't read correctly
  
• Fixed removing SirSengir Statue (how dare you) leaves a "Dev Wall" item you can't remove (Unfortunately for now you'll be stuck with this if you already hammered him!)
  
• Fixed shift-clicking beebox output messing up the counts
  
• Fixed in-game MP menu not having an overlay
  
• Fixed in-game MP menu not pausing the game when opened via the hosting notification
  
• Fixed high-contrast text mode showing invisible noticeboard quest text
  
• Fixed high-contrast text mode showing invisible postcard text
  
• Floored some cropped text on the modding, multiplayer, and controls menus
  

Quick fix on Windows for people playing on MP!

This is to solve the crash you would see when joining your friends world again after playing with them before.

Hey Beekeepers!

Yeah yeah I know, bit late posting but we got there in the end!!
I hope you've all been enjoying your visit to Port APICO :D

If you've got the time, we'd really appreciate if you can leave us a review! It's the best way you can help us out as indies <3

Without further ado, here's the patch notes for 1.0!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• The game is out now (durr)
  
• Added High Contrast Text mode (experimental!)
  
• Increased shiny chance from 5% to 8%
  

• Fixed world lagging for a few minutes when starting a new world until a restart due to every beehive in the world being active (oops)
  
• Fixed gamepad device selection button on PC flickering a lot
  
• Fixed beeboxes not working with a gamepad
  
• Fixed being able to paint NPCs on gamepad (poor Green Skipper)
  
• Fixed in-game settings/controls/access menus having their close button hidden (ESC still closed them)
  
• Fixed crash "gml_Object_ob_slot_Alarm_1 - Unable to find instance for object index"
  
• Fixed crash "gml_Script_sc_button_press - Unable to find instance for object index"
  
• Fixed crash "gml_Script_sc_beebank_draw - ds_map_find_value argument 1 incorrect type (undefined) expecting a Number"
  
• Fixed Backpacks sometimes close themselves with no apparent cause.
  
• Fixed lag between clicking button amount and box update in Workbench
  
• Fixed birbs facing right when flying left (oh god)
  
• Fixed showing an extra chapter in the bee book
  
• Fixed unread quests not showing the "!!!" icon
  
• Fixed beehive preview not showing on hover, same for crates
  
• Fixed holding hammer in slot 0 and using backpack can give player a HP bar (you couldn't kill the player tho boooo)
  
• Fixed hive noises play when hive is sleeping
  
• Fixed focus mode not selectable on PC
  
• Fixed beebox preview is pink cube when no species
  
• Fixed bin text button off by 1px (it was annoying me)
  
• Fixed boat wake sprite slightly offset
  
• Fixed magazine tooltip not showing right-click to open
  
• Fixed backpacks not being able to be selected the first time they're opened (maybe they're just shy)
  
• Fixed that if you try and hammer the hallowed gate/altar you cant then remove them once you unlock the axe
  
• Fixed dropped gate item is pink for a sec
  
• Fixed opening a menu object near the top of the window on PC opens the inventory twice
  
• Fixed Lost+Found giving you loads of noticeboard (why do you need that many)
  
• Fixed bottler always says "bottling Apicola"
  
• Fixed eebank scrolling buttons not active
  
• Fixed buzzing sound on errored hive
  
• Fixed hives with errors still charging honeycore machines
  
• Fixed backpacks not opening after saving
  
• Fixed Flower1 seed tooltip having the wrong name
  

• Fixed mods not loading if you save+quit and reload the same world with the same mods on
  
• Fixed mod icons not showing properly
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a quick post to let you all know that SteamDeck will be supported from release!
I was lucky enough to be able to get hold of one so I was able to test the Linux build we have on deck and iron out any tweaks!



It's worth noting that right now the only thing missing is the "Mods" menu button, mainly because the "handheld" version of the game that both the SteamDeck and Switch uses hasn't had that menu adapted yet. You can still load mods off deck and then play them on deck though, as Steam Cloud should be syncing your /mods/ folder.

Outside of that you should be all good, but do let me know if you're coming across any major issues with it and I'll investigate further <3

~ Ell

Hey friends!

Yes, it is finally time for what we've all been waiting for!
We're excited to announce that APICO will finally bee releasing on May 20th for World Bee Day!!! <3
This will be on Windows, MacOS, and Linux!

Consoles will still bee a little bit delayed unfortunately, but this is Steam so who cares!!! :D

The game will be releasing with modding (via mods.io) and multiplayer!
If you're interested in modding the game you can read more about it over on the wiki here:
https://wiki.apico.buzz/wiki/Modding_Guide

I've also tested a bunch with the SteamDeck and happy to report that it all seems to be working smoothly there too!

We've got a lot of exciting stuff planned over the next few months which you can read about here:
https://ko-fi.com/post/Release-The-Bees-J3J1CLD7Y

If you wanna come get hype, you can catch us over in Discord or over on Twitter!
https://apico.buzz/discord


We can't wait for you all to finally bee able to get your hands on the game <3
If you have any questions about release let us know below!

Hey Beekeepers!

So I've been busy making a bunch of changes for the nightmare that is consoles, and while doing so I made quite a lot of mess in the process.

For the most part I think I've mostly found the bigger issues I caused in my code tantrums, however I thought it'd be good to do a demo update for two reasons
1. you can tell me if I broke anything major by being a dumb dumb and
2. to finally update you all to be in-line with the current release version.

There's nothing too major in terms of content here so this isn't an update where you'll get a lot out of starting a new game or anything, but if you want to help do us a solid and hunt some bugs this is the update for you!!

Also I added a beehive hat so... yea...

(For beeta testers / key holders, there's a matching update for the release branch (Apis 0.22) - nothing really changed (all of the changes below you already had for the most part), but again if you want to help hunt some bugs please do so!)

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added loads of bugs, probably lmao
  
• Added the Lost&Found box on Skipper's pier, which will hold any key items you somehow manage to lose! (new world only)
  
• Added some additional Linux libs to the game to prevent issues for some Linux users who didn't have these libs installed
  
• Added all language localisations for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portugese, and Japanese
  
• Added a couple of "hat" hairstyles to try out!!! (can use the Dresser at Nan's house)
  
• Worldgen screen now has a fun bee icon that changes while u wait (what a treat)
  
• You can now specify which species you want a hint for from Beenjamin rather than him always telling you the hint for "next" bee you haven't discovered
  
• Updated controls image for when using a different brand controllers
  
• Remapping keys will now show in icons in the book, i.e. changing WSAD to ZQSD for AZERTY will show those controls in the guide instead of still showing WSAD
  
• Added an option in controls to quickly default to QWERTY or AZERTY controls (you can still customise keys after picking one)
  
• You can now view the bee book panel tooltips using LT/L2 and RT/R2 on gamepad
  
• Carpentry 101 GIF updated to show planks being sawn into sticks as well as logs > planks
  
• Player and NPCs now always have a white outline (like in Multiplayer
  
• You can now use B/O on gamepad to get out of the boat you are in to make it easier to escape your nautical nightmare
  
• Added visual buttons to show the above change when a boat is highlighted on gamepad
  
• You can now press R stick to quick queen on gamepad
  
• You can now use the right analogue stick to lock placement of tiles/walls in that direction on gamepad
  
• On PC you can now shift-click hotbar items into your inventory and vice-versa when only the inventory menu is open
  
• On Console/Gamepad you can now quick-move hotbar items into your inventory and vice-versa when only the inventory menu is open
  
• Increased text contrast on locked/complete chapters
  
• Increased book height to help with longer languages
  
• Magazine Rack no longer has fixed slot requirements to keep magazines ordered, do what you want you rascals
  
• Added a "high contrast slot" accessibility option
  
• Capped name input at 20 chars
  
• You can now place menu objects / machines on ice without needing pier tiles (technically it's solid so makes sense to add!)
  
• Made the sentence in the first quest that tells you ESC closes menus in blue to hopefully make it stand out and people remember, even though it's also shown in the corner when any menu is open :')
  
• Made a few other paragraphs in the quests highlighted to cover commonly missed things
  
• Blessed bees now have a coloured aura to make them easier to tell apart
  
• Gave the trait letters more contrast in the microscope menu + tooltips
  
• Wall placement is move forgiving with menu objects, i.e. you can now place walls on tiles next to Gates (before it was blocked)
  
• You can now hold Backspace in Signs, wow such quality updates right
  
• You can now hold mouse / gamepad A to buy multiple items from shops
  
• You can now place down stone on the ground back as rocks, what a treat
  
• Wax Canisters now explicitly state they are produced by Worker Bees
  
• Removed the "drowning" teleport because too many people report it as a bug - You can now hold "R" (or L2+R2 together on gamepads) for 5s to respawn back to your spawn point (either the pier or the last bed you slept on), as the deep water auto-teleportation has been removed
  
• The bed item tooltip + relevant quest ("Waiting Around") have been updated with this info too
  
• BroduxBlue is now Mothense in-game! (still the same cute fox!) <3
  

• Fixed Tapped tree health bar not reducing when chopped (still chopped down but HP just stayed the same)
  
• Fixed canisters not showing up in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed mead canisters showing as pink cubes in in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed Rehab released bees not showing with their cute lil heart
  
• Fixed book overview chapter text being 1px off
  
• Fixed Name screen showing characters pressed while on the home page, if any
  
• Fixed "New Discovery" text sometimes getting cut off
  
• Fixed not being able to use dpad for moving around slots + menus on gamepad
  
• Fixed the extremely important mead "shine" missing from infused meads
  
• Fixed not being able to see bee trait cards on gamepad
  
• Fixed target/move buttons being yeeted into the sun when starting the game in gamepad mode and switching to MKB
  
• Fixed missing space between NPC names and their pronouns
  
• Fixed crashing issue when clicking on quest notifications
  
• Fixed Infuser not starting infusing when you have input items added, empty tank, then add a canister to fill
  
• Fixed Magazine Rack not accepted any items
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a quick little patch here so I could add in some error handling stuff for my own sanity - also a fix for modding where timers would just crash the game (nice!)

Oh also a couple of hats because why not! You can try them out in the Dresser :D

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added a couple of "hat" hairstyles to try out
  
• Added a better error handler that sends crash reports to us
  

• Fixed an issue with mod timers crashing when time is up
  
• Added back the crash handler
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just some little bits that have come out of the Xbox Demo feedback + console cert testing! This also has a few locale tweaks to match the quest/dictionary changes mentioned in the last update.

As always I'm refusing to change the version to 1.0 until the game is released because I know if I do then one of you bastards will report a bug as soon at it hits 1.0 :'D

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added locale for all the text changes in the last update
  
• Removed d-pad use on gamepad for mechanisms so it doesn't conflict with slot movement
  
• You can now use the right analogue stick to lock placement of tiles/walls in that direction on gamepad
  
• On PC you can now shift-click hotbar items into your inventory and vice-versa when only the inventory menu is open
  
• On Console/Gamepad you can now quick-move hotbar items into your inventory and vice-versa when only the inventory menu is open
  

• Fixed freezing post-credits if you click the mouse to continue instead of a key press
  
• Fixed crash post-credits when pressing any key on gamepad/console
  
• Fixed the 5th gate marker not being able to be clicked the first time you open a gate menu (would work when opened a second time)
  

Hey beekeepers!

As some of you old hats may remember once upon a time we used to have a Discord server for APICO but then we moved things over to Guilded when FTBS started so we could have one core "community" hub for all things TNgineers.

This isn't going to change, especially for stuff like forums and beta testing, however we get a lot (a LOT) of feedback all the time from APICO players saying they wish we had a Discord (not any feedback about the actual game LUL) because they don't want to make another account just to chat with us, but they do want to chat to us (understandable, and cute)

Because of this I've decided to give in and make a Discord clone for this server - it has some basic chat channels and then a bunch of webhook channels so things like Announcements or Patch Notes get automatically cross-posted from Guilded to Discord.

Going forward Guilded will remain the community hub as the Events, forums like our Feedback and Bug Report channels, and the public facing blogs like the APICO Devlog are just too good to pass up, however this should then serve as a middle-ground for people who want to chat but don't have/don't use Guilded.

I'll mostly still be over here (where it's nice and quiet) so bee good!!!

https://apico.buzz/discord <3

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a couple extra changes based on some feedback and console testing!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Player and NPCs now always have a white outline (like in Multiplayer)
  
• Updated "Waiting Around" quest to explain beds setting spawn point and how to respawn (English only, locale pending)
  
• Updated "Bed" tooltips to show how to respawn (English only, locale pending)
  
• Increased text contrast on locked/complete chapters
  

• Fixed "Random" seed packets placing pondshine on grass
  
• Fixed holding gamepad buttons to move around UI sometimes "skipping" a slot
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just some last few bits off the backlog as well as a few MP fixes that came out of Sto's stream on Monday!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Increased Ancient Bee mutation chance to offset the fact the lifespan takes so long to get
  

• Fixed Nan's Dream cutscene not playing when entering the first time if you spoke to ellraiser or metakitkat in (Spoiler Area) before
  
• Fixed paint not being removed when removing tiles in MP
  
• Fixed random tiles missing from host world when reloading after tiles were placed by a friend
  
• Fixed random walls not updating their variant based on connected walls properly
  
• Fixed digging up or placing grass causing rendering issues in Multiplayer
  
• Fixed sitting on benches while highlighting the player showing a very fast leg kicking idle that looked like you were about to take off
  
• Fixed avatars of players who have drunk speed mead not moving faster
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a few last fixes off the back of the Playtest, and actually updating the main branch with the last few patches! To clarify for anyone reading this is not an update for the Playtest, as that ended on Sunday!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Updated honeycore world gen to try and avoid honeycore spawning on ice!
  
• The 4th gate no longer needs bees to use, it's unlocked as soon as you get Grandpa's Axe to encourage people to enter the dream earlier
  
• [Spoiler Area] can only be reached after 4 gates are open, not 3
  
• You can now place menu objects / machines on ice without needing pier tiles (technically it's solid so makes sense to add!)
  
• Made the sentence in the first quest that tells you ESC closes menus in blue to hopefully make it stand out and people remember, even though it's also shown in the corner when any menu is open :')
  
• Made a few other paragraphs in the quests highlighted to cover commonly missed things
  
• Blessed bees now have a coloured aura to make them easier to tell apart
  
• Gave the trait letters more contrast in the microscope menu + tooltips
  
• You can now modify the "max friends" limit for MP in your settings file ("max_friends"), capped at 4 server-side
  

• Fixed one of Beenjamin's lines not merging the player's name correctly
  
• Fixed "Variable .notice(102073, -2147483648) not set before reading it" crash
  
• Fixed noticeboard claim button going off menu
  
• Fixed noticeboard claim text not being floored correctly
  
• Fixed noticeboard popup not closing when walking too far away
  
• Fixed noticeboard NPC name not having a space between the name and the pronouns
  
• Fixed bee "Recipe" slots showing wrong name order in some languages, will now match what is listed in the chapters
  
• Fixed shift clicking on [Spoiler Bee] not giving you the bee after [Spoiler]
  
• Fixed (hopefully) seeing avatars appear in-game when getting ready to join a game
  
• Fixed being able to see a "healthbar" above boats you are sailing in or players when trying to hammer them
  
• Fixed some bee species blessed variants having their shine out of sync with others
  
• Added a floor to the boat rendering to try and reduce random juddering when moving sometimes
  
• Prevented middle clicking on beebox/beebank output slots, as this crashes the game and has no effect (bees can't stack outside of these slots)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Thanks so much to everyone who took part in this playtest and helped us weed out the less friendly bugs from the multiplayer!



I'm reasonably confident now with the multiplayer offering, definitely way more than I was before! For the most part a lot of the multiplayer bugs are duping related (things we can't really prevent due to it being a relay server) or a few rendering bugs that were pretty minor (as apposed to getting bugs that crash you or disconnect you randomly!)

The only major bug we had was on Linux but we managed to fix that one (shout out to Vil for his patience on helping me find that one!). I would of loved to have been able to test more concurrent people (400 people played the playtest out of 1500 sign ups, and 75 games were played online this week) but i mean, if we have 1000 people wanting to play APICO online at the exact same time that must be a pretty high quality problem to have as it'd been we must of had like 10,000+ people buy the game haha!

That's the end of the last playtest for APICO ever now! The demo will be up, as always, and I'll be updating it to match some of the fixes found during the playtest in the next week or so - but outside of that our next stop will be release!

Thanks again, and can't wait to let you all have the game properly in the new year! <3

~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

Thanks for everyone who's been helping test the Multiplayer functionality so far!

This update is just some more fixes + some console stuff, but also I added some little emojis so you can just scream hearts at your friend - now you can enjoy abstract communication with symbols instead of weird walking movements, don't say I never give you nuffin <3



[h2]Changes[/h2]

• You can now show a little emote by your head using the buttons in the top-right in Multiplayer :D (have yet to decide gamepad controls for them so hidden for now on gamepad)
  
• You can now use the virtual keyboard on consoles for Multiplayer name/host code input (maybe?)
  
• You should now be able to change your joining name without resetting progress in Multiplayer
  
• Painting tiles will now show the little paint splash PFX on other players in Multiplayer (super important I know)
  
• You can now hold "R" (or L2+R2 together on gamepads) for 5s to respawn back to your spawn point (either the pier or the last bed you slept on), as the deep water auto-teleportation has been removed
  
• Added the writing cursor back to signs
  
• Capped name input at 20 chars
  

• Fixed an issue in Multiplayer on Linux where sending multiple packets in the same frame would crash the game socket
  
• Fixed map not updating in Multiplayer when a friend places tiles
  
• Fixed tiles painting by clients in Multiplayer not saving on the host world when reloaded
  
• Fixed reset player/progress button causing an error when then joining a game immediately after
  
• Fixed being able to open the in-game menu / press save from the homescreen
  
• Fixed seeing the "error" cursor on the homescreen if you had something equipped in-game
  
• Fixed the in-game settings menu opening when selecting a device from the in-game control menu
  
• Fixed the mouse left/right click being usable when using a gamepad
  
• Fixed trees planted by another player not showing onscreen when they "grow" on your screen until you move
  
• Fixed queens being taken out from beeboxes/beebanks by shift-clicking turning into normal bees
  
• Fixed sign writing being funky and also doing double backspacing when typing
  
• Fixed not being able to set/see player name on gamepad on world creates
  
• Fixed breeding arrow showing in wrong place or missing on beehives/apiaries
  
• Fixed not being able to use a paintbrush / scraper with gamepads
  
• Fixed one variant of Honeyrose having it's outline 1px off
  
• Fixed an issue where the Merchant wouldn't be visible onscreen until you move if they happen to spawn on screen
  
• Fixed signs starting with "Hello world!" (this has literally been in for a year lol)
  
• Fixed beeboxes sometimes showing the wrong total in the tooltip
  
• Tried to improve the wall "updating" so that the updates to surrounding walls by clients in Multiplayer
  
• Tried capping slot counts when changed to prevent really crazy numbers being got when clicking the same slots at the same time as your friends in Multiplayer
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just some fixes on a few different bits!

We currently have about 1400 people in the playtest, but only a tiny proportion of that are testing Multiplayer! If you can, please try and get your friends to play with you as we need all the help we can get to test this with a large amount of players before going live when we release next year. We are adding everyone who requests access to the playtest so you can get your friends to come and join you!!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added an "online" tooltip in the corner of the game when playing MP so you can check your internet connection according to the game
  
• Changed the 4th gate to need Bohemian instead of Empress so it can be accessed quicker (arguably an easier bee)
  
• Wax Canisters now explicitly state they are produced by Worker Bees
  
• Changed ellraisers dialogue in-game because no one trusts him
  
• Removed the "drowning" teleport because too many people report it as a bug - if you somehow get stuck on deep water then you're stuck for now soz, better keep a boat/bench/bed on you until I add a "respawn" button!
  

• Fixed an issue where menu objects placed by friends (hives, machines etc) would get teleported to 0,0 when the host saved
  
• Fixed an issue where tiles/carpets placed or removed by friends didn't save correctly when the host saved
  
• Fixed Beenjamin's hint button text being clipped
  
• Fixed accessibility menu text being clipped
  
• Fixed bee book showing the "book complete" notification when you needed 1 more bee if you have discovered the glitched bee
  
• Fixed random seeds not showing the undiscovered state in the bee book
  

Hey Playtesters!!

Just a few bug fixes while I push some MP logging updates so I can debug a few things, don't mind me! If you're a Beta Tester 0.14 will be a bit delayed but you can still get the changes by playing the Playtest if you like!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added some more logs to the MP stuff on the client-side
  
• Tweaked some MP socket parameters
  

• Fixed NPC shop menu UI "moving" from the menu sprite when the player moves
  
• Fixed Multiplayer Host menu having incorrectly aligned text (related to above)
  
• Fixed "unread" bee species' not showing as orange dots
  
• Fixed Nan's Bookshelf progress text being offset from the menu
  
• Fixed Nan's Dresser not working properly (honestly Nan why does your stuff suck)
  
• Fixed Predictor GUI showing English names for species in other languages
  
• Fixed Pondshine recipe being in the wrong place
  
• Fixed discovery popup saying "action44" instead of "Learn more!"
  
• Fixed bee/flower book text label for claim not being middle-aligned
  
• Fixed prioritising highlighting UI on open settings menus over any open menus behind the settings menu
  
• Fixed book notifications beeing super needy and not disappearing
  

Hey Beekeepers!

So - it is time! I have now pressed the big green button to turn on the Playtest, so if you have requested access you should now get access ( i don't know how long it takes to process dont @ me). This playtest will run until this Sunday (28th November)

If you request access today don't worry, I'll release the rest of you into the Playtest tomorrow!



Rather than do it in batches I thought we'd just go for the full stress test and grant all 1000+ people access who are waiting - chances are not all these people will be playing, and definitely not at the same time so should be a good test!

Some things to note before we get started though...

[h2]It's just me![/h2]
In case somehow you missed this, it's just me working on the code development of this game! We haven't got a team of clever network engineers on hand to put out any fires - it's just me, in my pants, staring at Digital Ocean's dashboard and wondering why the fuck I agreed to adding this feature.

When the server inevitably crashes or has to go offline for changes please be patient! I will post any "maintenance" stuff in Guilded as it happens.

[h2]This is the full game![/h2]
Like the last playtest this is the actual full final finished game!! All features and functionality that we want in the finished game are in here.

The only additions since the last playtest if you played that is a shit tonne of fixes/bugs, achievements were added and all the localisation languages were added. For achievements, unfortunately you can't see the full list of achievements cos the game isn't out, and apparently getting an achievement in the Playtest DOESN'T carry over to the full game - so just worth noting. Also modding is deactivated from this version.

As it's the actual full game we're not really looking for any major feature suggestions or feedback on the overall game as that ship has sailed! What we're focusing on here is making super MP is stable and picking up any bugs found on the way.

For bugs, please use either the Guilded Forums or our Bug Report Form:
https://forms.gle/9v1T9q1DnkdLvDJ79

[h2]Disconnection[/h2]
You can get disconnected for two reasons, each showing you a message saying as much before restarting the game.

1. Disconnected From Host - self explanatory, your host either lost connected, closed the game, or "kicked" you from the game.

2. Disconnected From Server - this means that either you connection timed out from the server, i.e. we didn't hear from you for 60s so the server killed your socket, OR you haven't received any callback from the server in 20s.

Every time you click something or move something you are sending a message to the server which relays to your friend, and every 5s you send a "heartbeat" to the server - so if you get disconnected from the server then chances are your internet connection was lost for too long and couldn't be reconnected.

[h2]Hosting[/h2]
To host a game just click the magic "Host" button! You'll be given a code (also shown in-game so you don't need to remember it) and then told to pick a world to host. That's all you have to do! Once your world loads you can give people your code.



Currently you can have 3 different players join your world - for release we're probably capping this at 2 (host + 1 friend) but while we're stress testing might as well open the flood gates eh?

[h2]Joining[/h2]
To join a game enter your friends host code into the join screen and press the magic "Join" button! While we download your world from your friend and pass it on to you you'll have the opportunity to give yourself a name and customise your character.

Your player progress is tied to your friend who is hosting, but is seperate from the actual hosts progress. IF you want to reset your own personal progress you can use the "Reset Progress" button in the MP menu.

I think thats everything for now! If you want to come chat with other players or find people to play with you can join our Guilded @ https://apico.buzz/guilded - we have some voice channels for APICO players too if you need!

We'll be doing our stream on Wednesday but instead of working on Feed The Beasts we'll instead be doing some MP testing / fixing and let people join our game or something fun like that!

Love, Ell <3

Hey Beekeepers!

Nothing too exciting here, some clean up for the console port stuff and a few gameplay tweaks, as well as some locale fixes.

There's also a few new modding API methods added and some fixes, enjoy!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Removed signs from console build
  
• Increased menu button hitbox size
  
• Increased effective range of heaters and coolers from 56px to 100px to match the smoker
  
• Beehives now show a radius when the menu is open (and highlighted) - like arctic/blazing/empress do but without the color
  
• Removed in-game FPS and version counter
  
• Change xbox controls visual to match modern xbox controllers
  
• Updated playstation controller visuals so its not in the 2000s
  
• Add switch controller visual in controls menu for os_switch
  
• Removed Pondshine in a Bottle from the demo build
  

• Fixed JP having wrong order when English chars used within sentances
  
• Fixed some languages using the wrong menu label
  
• Fixed "Claim" text not centered correctly
  
• Fixed Beesknees hint having the wrong latin names
  
• Fixed beehive production arrow not being the right
  
• Various fixes for console builds
  
• Fixed backpacks being trashable and sellable
  

• Added api_draw_slots() which re-runs all slot rendering for a given menu
  
• Added api_slot_redraw() which re-runs the slot rendering for a specific slot
  
• Added api_slot_item_id() which returns the slot item as a special item id, i.e. a common bee would be bee:common, a filled frame would be frame:filled.
  
• Added api_add_slot_to_menu() which lets you try and add the contents of a slot to a given menu (doesn't check validation)
  
• Added api_slot_validate() which lets you check if a given item+stats combination can be added to a given slot, useful for the above method
  
• Added api_inst_exists() which lets you check if an instance exists (nb: returns false if instance is "deactivated" offscreen too)
  
• Added api_get_mouse_inst() which returns the actual mouse instance
  
• Fixed the custom script_draw parameter not working for menu objects
  
• Fixed > 6 tier 5 bees going off the page (also remember you can specify tiers now!)
  

• Added entries for the above methods added
  
• Updated the Instance Properties page to include "rx" and "ry" - new properties on menus, slots, and gui that return the relative position with the camera included (saving you doing x - camera.x etc)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Finally I can do a build without having to triple/quadruple check everything multiple times to make sure I don't ruin the spoiler of us adding multiplayer steamfacepalm

This update has a bunch of fixes for localisation stuff, a few little tweaks, and most importantly Multiplayer turned on!!!



To access Multiplayer simply click the button on the Home screen where you'll be able to either "Host" or "Join". Hosting gives you a code and lets you pick the world you want to host (existing or new). To join your friends game just enter the host code. Player progress is seperate, and when you join a friends world you get made a seperate player. If you need to reset your player progress at anytime you can do it from the Join screen.

Multiplayer pretty much functions as you'd expect, you can interact with things together, use the same menus/machines, throw cute bees you find at each other etc. To pass time only one of you needs to be in bed or on a bench.

There will be a Playtest soon so a bunch more people will be able to join MP (details on that soon) - this will be mainly so I can test server stability at larger scale.

If you come across any bugs, as always let us know, and enjoy!! <3

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Now with Multiplayer! To play with a friend simply click Multiplayer > Host and pick a world. Your friend can then join with your host code (showed in-game in the bottom left)
  
• A notification now shows when a book is completed to take you to the overview chapter reward
  
• Crystal bees can be bred near large honeycore now (before was only small crystals)
  
• Keyboard default setting for QWERTY vs AZERTY adding to the settings menu
  
• Added new error messages to show when you don't have Grandpa's Axe but try and interact with hallowed areas
  
• Added all localisation changes for all languages
  

• Fixed hint text being slightly glitched / overlapping
  
• Fixed claim button on overview pages showing as red even when they're complete
  
• Various text that was still in English updated for other languages
  
• Fixed gifs not moving in the guide book
  
• Fixed bought backpacks crashing the slot rendering of any menu they are put in until a save+reload
  
• Fixed backpacks not opening with right-click (related to above maybe?)
  
• Fixed Overview chapters not being clickable at the top of the page after scrolling and reopening a book
  
• Fixed canisters made by Worker Bees having a count rather than being singular when extracted from frames
  
• Fixed currency symbols in JP not showing correctly
  
• Fixed button text offset in JP
  

• Updated sc_mod_api_set_devmode() to work in Production for modding
  
• Fixed mod descriptions rendering incorrectly
  
• Fixed quests being able to be handed in with items in slots that are inactive or modded
  
• Fixed sc_mod_api_use_total() picking up items in slots that are inactive or modded
  

Oh hey beekeepers!
If you're reading this it means either Ell accidentally left multiplayer in a build and spoiled the surprise OR we managed to successfully keep everything a secret until the MIX NEXT event in November! Either way, surprise!! We have multiplayer now :D

Check the trailer for more:
[previewyoutube=rsMmO4zZxE0;full][/previewyoutube]

So.... yeah :D
You probably have some questions, so I'll try and answer them here!


[h2]WTF when did you build this?[/h2]
A long long time ago when we first signed with Whitethorn and finished off one of the major updates the whole WT team played a bunch and all gave some really positive feedback for it! At the time Matt (WT CEO) mentioned that adding multiplayer with your friends would definitely be a bonus and they'd support me in any way they could if I wanted to give it a go. As you can imagine like 70% of our feedback has always been the ability to play with a friend so we've always had it there in the back of our minds but never really considered it (because hot damn it's a lot of work and stress).

Speed forward to around August time we had actually finished off the game apart from Localisation (being done by Whitethorn) and the Modding which was still being tested - but in terms of the actual game itself everything was complete! So we had a lot of time left...

There were some content updates I wanted to do for APICO but that was more post-release, so after twiddling my thumbs for a few days I decided what the heck lets give it a try.



After the initial test seemed to be promising I started working on it in more depth, and spent most of August and September tweaking and perfecting both the server and the in-game client stuff whilst updating the modding stuff and doing the LQA fixes.


[h2]What is the actual Multiplayer functionality?[/h2]
APICO Multiplayer is an online multiplayer system where you can "host" your world and have your friend come and join you, using your "host code". Currently this is limited to 2 people per world.

Everything in the normal game you can do with your friend! The person who hosts uses one of their worlds (or can make a new one!), and the person who joins has a seperate player progress tied to that host. Your progress is seperate so you can work away at quests/bees separately, and share the results of any fancy new bees you find.

If consoles approve it, it will also be cross-platform as all builds use the exact same relay server and connection system - so fingers crossed!

We thought about local co-op but realistically our menus do not work to have 2 players on the same screen at the same time.
In future I'll probably add a local LAN connection alternative, and I'm also thinking about releasing the actual relay server we use as OSS - this way people can host their own servers and maybe tinker with it to do some weird stuff, but overall I'm really happy with it and it's super cute!!


[h2]Will it cost anything?[/h2]
Yes you'll need to pay me 999 jars of honey every month to be able to use it >:D

Jokes aside, no, it won't cost you anything! If you own the game you'll be able to host your world or join someone else's world. The only exception to this may be on consoles, as I believe that under the Switch guidelines they may require players to have a switch online membership to access online functionality (even though it's our own server, thanks Nintendo)

Server costs will obviously get offset by sales (hopefully), and we'll probably run it for a good while before then letting people just host their own by making the relay server open source (as mentioned above).


[h2]Can I play it now / will there be a playtest?[/h2]
Yes we will be doing another playtest!! This to help iron out some of the quirks that we might of missed in multiplayer, but is mainly to allow me to test the server infrastructure at a high amount of connections.

I did some stress testing early on but it's not the same as being able to have lots of actual real busy bees playing!

I'll post an update when we know how we'll be doing this playtest but it'll be the same thing, apply on Steam and you'll get added randomly as we add more people.


[h2]How does it work?[/h2]
As some of you might know I'm a full-time software dev and have worked on a lot of boring SaaS stuff, so I've built some pretty gnarly shit before but I've never had to touch multiplayer so this was an absolute trek (will be posting devlogs for Multiplayer over the next few weeks!).

The main thing was that I wanted to check ways we could get it working before even potentially mentioning it - the last thing I want to do is promise something that turns out to not be possible/practical (and even now announcing this keeps me up at night), but after a lot of messing around I managed to make a system using a relay server that turned out to work pretty well.

Using a node relay (suitably dubbed "BeeNet") and the built-in GMS socket connection stuff I built out a sync system that let two people play together and keep track of each others movements and actions!



For the nerds; I didn't want to do UDP hole punching as it isn't 100% reliable, I didn't want to do direct IP connection (a la Minecraft) as having to open ports is a nightmare to explain to people (especially console!), and I didn't want a fully fledged server where worlds are hosted cos ya boys broke - so relay seemed the best option and the most reliable!

As mentioned, I'll be doing some deep-dives in the devlogs soon so keep an eye out for that if thats your sort of thing!

I think that covers most things but if you have any other questions let me know!
I'm super excited (and terrified) for you all to give it a try and just be able to be vibin' with your friends and the bees <3
~ Ell

Hey Beekeepers!

It's been a hot minute! We've been working on a bunch of stuff behind the scenes, along with working with the localisation team to fix any language problems. Languages are in this build but there's still a bunch of LQA to be added, so please don't send us any locale related bugs just yet!

This update has a lot of the backlog stuff also, QoL stuff I didn't want to prioritise for 1.0 but would chuck it in if we had time during the cert process - stuff like Beenjamin now letting you pick what species you want a hint for (rather than always using the next undiscovered bee) or a quick keybind for AZERTY keyboards.

There's also a bunch of modding updates as I've been working on my own mod that adds Hoppers - nothing like dogfooding to help find missing stuff!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added all language localisations for French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portugese, and Japanese (still being worked on pls dont submit locale based bugs!)
  
• You can now specify which species you want a hint for from Beenjamin rather than him always telling you the hint for "next" bee you haven't discovered
  
• Updated controls image for when using a Playstation brand controller
  
• Remapping keys will now show in icons in the book, i.e. changing WSAD to ZQSD for AZERTY will show those controls in the guide instead of still showing WSAD
  
• Added an option in controls to quickly default to QWERTY or AZERTY controls (you can still customise keys after picking one)
  
• You can now view the bee book panel tooltips using LT/L2 and RT/R2 on gamepad
  
• Carpentry 101 GIF updated to show planks being sawn into sticks as well as logs > planks
  
• You can now use B/O on gamepad to get out of the boat you are in to make it easier to escape your nautical nightmare
  
• Added visual buttons to show the above change when a boat is highlighted on gamepad
  
• Quick queen button is no longer visible on gamepad mode, as you can just press R stick to quick queen
  
• 
  

• Fixed not being able to use dpad for moving around slots + menus on gamepad
  
• Fixed the extremely important mead "shine" missing from infused meads
  
• Fixed not being able to see bee trait cards on gamepad
  
• Fixed target/move buttons being yeeted into the sun when starting the game in gamepad mode and switching to MKB
  
• Fixed mod descriptions not showing correctly when clicking a mod button
  
• Fixed mod download failing on Linux
  
• Fixed missing space between NPC names and their pronouns
  
• Fixed crashing issue when clicking on quest notifications (sorry sto <3)
  
• Fixed Infuser not starting infusing when you have input items added, empty tank, then add a canister to fill
  
• Fixed Magazine Rack not accepted any items (sorry sto again lol)
  
• Fixed player showing underneath gates when the gate is still locked on gamepad mode
  
• Fixed some issues with the in-game console "machine"
  

• Added api_library_add_book() which lets you add a book to the bottom library bar with custom click action (book implementation sold seperately, see Sample Mod for example book)
  
• Gamepad mode now correctly ignores "inactive" slots from selection
  
• Using api_define_gui() should now correctly add that GUI to the gamepad selection list so it's highlightable on gamepad
  
• Fixed issues with the save/load methods
  
• Fixed issue with api_get_menu_objects() not returning a menu_id value for the menu object instances
  
• Updated Sample Mod to include an example of using save/load to decide if it's the first time the mod has been loaded for the player or not
  
• Added api_remove_gui() which lets you remove a GUI you created with api_define_gui()
  
• Added api_get_mouse_inst() which returns the mouse instance (which is basically like a slot)
  
• Added api_add_slot_to_menu() which lets you move the contents of a slot to a given menu (any leftover that doesn't fit remains in the original slot)
  
• Added api_slot_validate() which lets you check if a given slot can accept a given item based on its definition (note this just checks if it's valid for an input slot, you have to check amounts yourself)
  
• Fixed api_slot_set() not using the stats you pass to it for frames / canisters
  

• Updated api_save_data() example to show ev parameter will be "SAVE" on save triggered async events
  
• Added the wiki docs page as a Github repo (https://github.com/APICO-Modders/APICO-API-Docs)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Oh wow no Beeta no more?? That's right I changed a small string in the project file which magically means we are no longer in the Beeta!

I actually didn't want to do a patch yet, but unfortunately I needed to make a few changes for the Steam build so it could get approved, so that Steam will let us release the OST which isn't allowed to be made available until the related game build has been reviewed and past (why u need this I don't know)

Anyway this build is midway through the locale being added so you'll notice a few slight changes like the books are bigger as it's in prep for the LQA testing from the locale team! Overall shouldn't be much different from the last version you had :D

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added the Lost&Found box on Skipper's pier, which will hold any key items you somehow manage to lose! (new world only)
  
• Increased book height to help with longer languages
  
• Magazine Rack no longer has fixed slot requirements to keep magazines ordered, do what you want you rascals
  
• Added a "high contrast slot" accessibility option
  

• Fixed Honeycore machine tooltip showing wrong tank values for charge on squeezer+centrifuge
  
• Fixed gml_Script_sc_mod_check "open file limit" crash on multiple save+quits
  
• Fixed Noticeboard constantly notifying you a quest is ready to hand in when menus get opened
  
• Fixed being able to interact with the Noticeboard underneath the quest popup
  

Hey Beekeepers!

One last update for the Beeta I think before we move you over to the release build! This is a few balance things brought in from QA as well as a few QoL stuff we added in based on various feedback and more QA.

There's a lot of bug fixes too, with a bunch of stuff I picked up in the NextFest streams, and then some little tweaks for modders.

I'm actually moving house this weekend and won't have internet until 12th, so if there's anything absolutely breaking please let me know before Friday otherwise it'll have to wait!

Enjoy <3

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Changed Swamp Gate to need the Worker Bee instead of Stubborn
  
• Changed Hallowed Gate to need the Crystal Bee instead of Chaotic
  
• Changed Climate quest to be after Smoker quest to match the order you can unlock/buy those related machines
  
• Added some additional Linux libs to the game to prevent issues for some Linux users who didn't have these libs installed
  
• Wall placement is move forgiving with menu objects, i.e. you can now place walls on tiles next to Gates (before it was blocked)
  
• You can now hold Backspace in Signs, wow such quality updates right
  
• You can now correctly shift-click bees out of Beeboxes/Beebanks
  
• Jurassic beehive now spawns on ice to make it easier to find
  
• You can now hold mouse / gamepad A to buy multiple items from shops
  
• You can now place down stone on the ground back as rocks, what a treat
  
• BroduxBlue is now Mothense! <3
  

• Fixed Debugger2 not having input blacklisted while typing
  
• Fixed Honeycore Shovel selling for $50 instead of $10
  
• Fixed incorrect dye recipes
  
• Fixed Smoker extra storage not working (again)
  
• Fixed QQ button not working in Advanced Apiaries
  
• Fixed Tapped tree health bar not reducing when chopped (still chopped down but HP just stayed the same)
  
• Fixed canisters not showing up in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed mead canisters showing as pink cubes in in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed Rehab released bees now showing with their cute lil heart
  
• Fixed Combristle not applying -1 lifespan buff
  
• Fixed Honeydrop not applying +1 stability buff
  
• Fixed book overview chapter text being 1px off
  
• Fixed bee book overview saying /34 instead of /35
  
• Clamped player light while skidding on ice to prevent juddering
  
• Fixed Name screen showing characters pressed while on the home page, if any
  
• Fixed QQ button not working on natural beehives
  
• Fixed "New Discovery" text sometimes getting cut off
  

• You can now pass an optional "draw_script" argument to the menu define function that acts like the object define one
  
• Fixed not being able to specify "singular" for menu objects
  
• Fixed the draw_script runtime error for defining menu objects
  
• Fixed menu objects always setting as key items regardless of what you set in the definition
  
• Fixed modded objects in crates showing as pink cubes until picked up (apparently, I don't remember fixing this lol)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

Just a little hotfix because I broke the Quick Queen button for natural hives and I can't in good conscious let you all suffer without that button haha :D

[h2]Hot Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed QQ button not working on natural beehives
  
• Fixed discovery crash on gamepad when pressing A
  

Hey Beekeepers!
A little update to fix some gamepad related stuff, and a few other little fixes, pls enjoy <3

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added some additional Linux libs to the game to prevent issues for some Linux users who didn't have these libs installed
  
• Gamepad mode is no longer automatically set when connecting a gamepad
  
• You can now pick which device to use when turning on gamepad mode
  
• Wall placement is move forgiving with menu objects, i.e. you can now place walls on tiles next to Gates (before it was blocked)
  
• You can now hold Backspace in Signs, wow such quality updates right
  
• You can now correctly shift-click bees out of Beeboxes
  
• You can now hold mouse / gamepad A to buy multiple items from shops
  

• Fixed QQ button not working in Advanced Apiaries
  
• Fixed Tapped tree health bar not reducing when chopped (still chopped down but HP just stayed the same)
  
• Fixed canisters not showing up in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed mead canisters showing as pink cubes in in crate preview tooltips
  
• Fixed Rehab released bees now showing with their cute lil heart
  
• Fixed Combristle not applying -1 lifespan buff
  
• Fixed Honeydrop not applying +1 stability buff
  
• Fixed book overview chapter text being 1px off
  
• Fixed bee book overview saying /34 instead of /35
  
• Fixed Name screen showing characters pressed while on the home page, if any
  

Hey Beekeepers (again)!

Damn APICO blowing up ya notifications! We're so excited to be a part of NextFest this year, we actually gunna do 2 devstreams!! As well as today at 7pm BST, we'll be streaming tomorrow on 2nd October at 7pm BST.



Hope to see ya there!

Love,
Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Wow 2 updates in the same week don't say we don't ever give you nuffin

This is all the gamepad goodness that we pushed to the Beeta yesterday, seems stable enough so GLHF :D

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Gamepad mode automatically activates if you have a gamepad connected
  
• In gamepad mode you can now hold R stick + dpad for moving through stuff i.e. chapters, menu buttons, slots etc
  
• In gamepad mode you can now hold triggers to cycle through inventory slots rather than press 1 by 1 (I know, I really do treat you guys)
  
• Pressing R stick on finished hives will press the Quick Queen button for you
  
• Added all missing gamepad specific guide book GIFs and the last gate GIF
  
• You can now use L stick click to toggle Photo Mode on gamepad
  
• You can now quick-move bees out of beeboxes correctly on gamepad
  

• Fixed being able to place a wall on yourself in gamepad mode by walking one way and snap placing the other way
  
• Moving through beeboxes now scrolls correctly on gamepad mode (wow almost like thats what we EXPECT to happen eh)
  
• Beeboxes no longer reset their highlight when adding bees on gamepad
  
• Fixed being able to close menus by clicking on the object through the menu (for the last time hopefully lol)
  

Hey Beekeepers!

So as you've seen there were a few updates for the demo, this update is to catch you up on everything you've missed plus a LOT of gamepad related stuff!

I basically finally sat down on a nice comfy sofa and played gamepad mode for a while, so there's a few QoL stuff I added because I wanted it, and then a bunch of fixes for a lot of the stuff that has been flakey for quite a while.

This is probably one of the last few Beeta updates now... because we'll be moving it over to the final release build! Nothing much will change, it'll just sound more official and I'll feel like I've achieved something :'D

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added a Now Playing notification so you know the name of your favourite track!
  
• Added a special "braid" hairstyle for Sto!
  
• Added a "High Contrast Slots" option in the Accessibility menu
  
• You can now hold shift while middle-clicking to not only gather up as many of the same item (middle click) but move it to another menu also
  
• Menu Objects now need two hammer hits to be picked up, giving you a chance to avoid the dreaded stuff explosion with your crates
  
• Gamepad mode automatically activates if you have a gamepad connected
  
• In gamepad mode you can now hold R stick + dpad for moving through stuff i.e. chapters, menu buttons, slots etc
  
• In gamepad mode you can now hold triggers to cycle through inventory slots rather than press 1 by 1 (I know, I really do treat you guys)
  
• Pressing R stick on finished hives will press the Quick Queen button for you
  
• Dpad on gamepad can now be used on main menus as well as L stick
  
• B on gamepad now goes back in main menus
  
• Added ability to R stick click to sort on crates on gamepad mode
  
• You can now use the dpad for chapter selection on gamepad as well as R stick
  
• You can now use the dpad for mechanisms on gamepad as well as R stick
  
• Merchant gates now cost 3 times more, and require at least 22 bees discovered
  
• Added all missing gamepad specific guide book GIFs and the last gate GIF
  
• You can now use L stick click to toggle Photo Mode on gamepad
  
• You can now quick-move bees out of beeboxes and beebanks correctly on gamepad "but why not on MKB?" hush now my sweet child
  

• Fixed Advanced Apiaries not showing the Quick Queen button correctly
  
• Fixed not being able to select SirSengir on gamepad mode
  
• Fixed not being able to select lights or light flowers on gamepad mode
  
• Fixed backpacks not working on gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to claim overview chapter rewards
  
• Fixed introduction quest notification not showing after speaking to Nana
  
• Fixed "Tapping Trees" quest having duplicate text
  
• Fixed Industrial Bee needing the wrong reqs
  
• Fixed being able to close menus by clicking on the object through the menu (for the last time hopefully lol)
  
• Fixed Merchant sold honeycore requiring honeycore to buy
  
• Fixed Beenjamin + Barnabee noticeboard quests not being able to be handed in from player slots only other menu slots
  
• Fixed Beenjamin + Barnabee quests not taking the requirement bee off you when you claim your bee (they were being too nice)
  
• Fixed being able to place a wall on yourself in gamepad mode by walking one way and snap placing the other way
  
• Moving through beeboxes/beebanks now scrolls correctly on gamepad mode (wow almost like thats what we EXPECT to happen eh)
  
• Beeboxes no longer reset their highlight when adding bees on gamepad
  

• Clicking on a mod in the Modding menu now shows the mod description from mod.io
  
• Workbenches in-game now reset correctly when the game loads if you've defined custom recipes
  

Hey Beekeepers!

We're excited to be a part of NextFest this year. As part of it, we'll be doing a devstream to play through some of the Beeta and show off a few things not in the demo! We'll be streaming on 1st and 2nd October at 7pm BST for a good few hours and talk about all things APICO :D



Hope to see ya there!

Love,
Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

So since the Playtest has ended there's been a bunch of tweaks and bug fixes, so we wanted to update the demo to keep it in-line with the final game - especially with Steam NextFest looming on the horizon (Saturday!)

This update has a bunch of gamepad stuff, balance stuff, and then a butt-tonne of bug fixes. Enjoy!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added a Now Playing notification so you know the name of your favourite track!
  
• Added a "High Contrast Slots" option in the Accessibility menu
  
• You can now hold shift while middle-clicking to not only gather up as many of the same item (middle click) but move it to another menu also
  
• Menu Objects now need two hammer hits to be picked up, giving you a chance to avoid the dreaded stuff explosion with your crates
  
• Dpad on gamepad can now be used on main menus as well as L stick
  
• B on gamepad now goes back in main menus
  
• Added ability to R stick click to sort on crates on gamepad mode
  
• You can now use the dpad for chapter selection on gamepad as well as R stick
  
• You can now use the dpad for mechanisms on gamepad as well as R stick
  
• You can now use the dpad for general slot movement in-game as well as R stick
  
• Saving the game now takes a little bit longer (1 whole second!!) but now it won't freeze the game so you can just keep on truckin', don't say I never treat you all
  
• Added tooltips to make it clear that pressing escape on a highlighted menu closes ONLY that menu and pressing escape when not highlighting a menu closes ALL open menus
  
• Updated "Microscope It Out" quest to explain the recessive + buff symbols (, +, -)
  
• Added the ! bubble above the player when drowning to make it clear you are drowning and will be teleported if you remain "stuck"
  
• Updated scaling for 4K monitors, it was scaling at 4x when it should of been at 5x (3200+) and 6x (3840+) respectively (I can't afford fancy monitors so I didn't know this soz)
  
• Doubled the amount of honey made per frame extraction (5 frames = minimum 1 bottle worth, higher productivity trait = more honey obvs)
  
• Rebalanced some of the bee special products to encourage selling honey/mead for better profits (honey bottle sells for $15, mead for $20)
  
• Bottles now only cost $1 each
  
• Tweaked world gen for the demo to try and avoid awkward lake cut-offs
  
• Weather, recipe, altar, and noticeboard notifications now auto-dismiss after a short period on PC like they already do on console
  
• Clock in the corner now explicitly says day/dawn/dusk/night
  
• Added a special "braid" hairstyle for Sto!
  

• Fixed gamepad mode not turning off in the settings when using a gamepad until you restart
  
• Fixed Canisters not having their base sell price added to the canister amount price
  
• Fixed books still showing a notification when all chapters are read
  
• Fixed flowers placed in pots not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_menu_check_input' crash error
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_mouse_action' crash error
  
• Fixed tank not filling in Extractor / Centrifuges when there is a full canister in the tank output
  
• Fixed gate items showing as pink cubes when picked up
  
• Fixed tile highlight showing when we had no hammer equipped
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending dialogue
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending effects in the 5th biome
  
• Fixed Advanced Apiaries not showing the Quick Queen button correctly
  
• Fixed not being able to select SirSengir on gamepad mode
  
• Fixed not being able to select lights or light flowers on gamepad mode
  
• Fixed backpacks not working on gamepad
  
• Fixed not being able to claim overview chapter rewards
  
• Fixed introduction quest notification not showing after speaking to Nana
  
• Fixed "Tapping Trees" quest having duplicate text
  
• Fixed dropped items not deactivating off-screen
  
• Fixed not being able to place tiles underneath potted plants
  
• Fixed lights deactivating offscreen too quickly
  
• Fixed being able to stack flowers by shift placing them
  
• Fixed some book elements in window mode being cut off
  
• Fixed repeating paragraph on quest "Get Building"
  
• Fixed mead buffs counting down while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Beeboxes not updating the output when a bee matching the current selected bee stats is added
  
• Fixed blessed queens counting as 2 bees in Beeboxes
  
• Fixed not being able to right-click drop infused mead onto more of the same mead as the right-click drinks the mead instead
  
• Fixed being able to interact with the world with the mouse while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Shrub Saplings being liars and saying you can use them in Squeezers
  
• Fixed being able to highlight beebox gui elements outside the menu
  
• Fixed tree health showing -0.0 for a split second when punched to death
  
• Fixed drained treetap still showing a "next produce in 10s" gui tooltip in the menu
  
• Fixed tiles being able to be duplicated by hammering extremely fast and on a specific frame - or at least I've made it harder to do anyway haha
  
• Fixed Bottler not resetting tank to be empty after using up all the liquid when bottling something
  
• Fixed using red close buttons or "Bye" in NPC dialogue menus not closing all menus in Focus Mode
  
• Fixed Extractors putting output items in the frame output slots
  
• Fixed being able to close crates while the noticeboard is open and have the quest still able to be handed in
  
• Fixed flower mutation not creating a pool, so it was bias to higher tier mutation recipes
  
• Fixed normal mead in quest icons not having a full tooltip
  
• Fixed mouse held item not resetting on new world creation
  
• Fixed some types of mead not having effect info in quest icon tooltips
  
• Fixed Beekeeper's Delight not being discovered by default
  
• Tweaked collision slightly to avoid a rare "one way" deep water layout - if this messes up collision in general then you can blame a123qwertz567 and Dues!
  

Hey Beekeepers!

We're excited to be a part of NextFest this year. As part of it, we'll be doing a devstream to play through some of the Beeta and show off a few things not in the demo! We'll be streaming on 2nd October at 7pm BST for a good few hours!



Hope to see ya there!

Hey Beekeepers!

So the playtest has sadly come to an end, but on the plus side it meant an end to the torrent of bugs I had to fix :')

Whitethorn's QA team were busy testing the game at the same time too, so there's lots of fun little bugs that we managed to catch here.

Thanks so much to everyone that reported bugs or gave us feedback in these last few weeks! <3

This patch is a lot of bug fixes but also a few balance tweaks and little changes, including the save slowdown bug! I also added in the achievements to Steam, however you can only unlock the achievement for getting the Dream Bee and the Jurassic Bee at this point, just so that we can test the achievement unlock with Steam overlay. Once it's all working I'll add in the unlock triggers for all of the other achievements.

For Mod Creator's there are also a few new API additions and some long needed fixes to custom NPCs.
Enjoy!

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Honeycore Crystals now sell for 3 honeycore each, Honeycore Shards are still 1 honeycore each
  
• Bottles now only cost $1 each
  
• Mainlander Money now sells for $25 each
  
• Added the ending sequence SFX
  
• Tweaked world gen for the demo to try and avoid awkward lake cut-offs
  
• Weather, recipe, altar, and noticeboard notifications now auto-dismiss after a short period on PC like they already do on console
  
• Heaters + Coolers need higher levels of bees discovered before being unlocked to encourage using the biomes before getting spoilt by machines!
  
• Town Noticeboard now only needs you to have discovered 6 bees to start handing in quests
  
• Beenjamin quests in the Town Noticeboard have higher bee produce added to the reward pool
  
• Skipper quests in the Town Noticeboard now give a proportional amount of mainlander money (i.e. requirement is 3 bottles, you get 3 moneys)
  
• Bobbee quests in the Town Noticeboard have honey frames added to the reward pool
  
• Merchant quests in the Town Noticeboard now correctly pick from ALL tracks in the game, not use the first 6
  
• Clock in the corner now explicitly says day/dawn/dusk/night
  
• Added in the ability to unlock the achievement for Dream Bee + Jurassic Bee so I can test some achievement things!
  
• Re-ordered Beenjamins shop stock to be in order of level unlock
  

• Fixed dropped items not deactivating off-screen
  
• Fixed auto-save not clearing the discovery list each save, meaning save files grew exponentially until the save was impossible to complete
  
• Added a fix to automatically clean up your save if you have one of the saves from 1.6 that had this exponential issue
  
• Fixed not being able to place tiles underneath potted plants
  
• Fixed lights deactivating offscreen too quickly
  
• Fixed being able to stack flowers by shift placing them
  
• Fixed noticeboard text in window mode being cut off
  
• Fixed some book elements in window mode being cut off
  
• Fixed repeating paragraph on quest "Get Building"
  
• Fixed mead buffs counting down while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Beeboxes/Beebanks not updating the output when a bee matching the current selected bee stats is added
  
• Fixed blessed queens counting as 2 bees in Beeboxes + Beebanks
  
• Fixed not being able to right-click drop infused mead onto more of the same mead as the right-click drinks the mead instead
  
• Fixed being able to interact with the world with the mouse while the game is paused
  
• Fixed Shrub Saplings being liars and saying you can use them in Squeezers
  
• Fixed being able to highlight beebox/beebank gui elements outside the menu
  
• Fixed tree health showing -0.0 for a split second when punched to death
  
• Fixed being able to sell Honeycore Crystals + Honeycore Shards to NPCs for Rubees
  
• Fixed not being able to sell Honeycore Crystals + Honeycore Shards to Bobbee for Honeycore
  
• Fixed being able to put honeycore in Bobbee's buy slots
  
• Fixed drained treetap still showing a "next produce in 10s" gui tooltip in the menu
  
• Fixed tiles being able to be duplicated by hammering extremely fast and on a specific frame - or at least I've made it harder to do anyway haha
  
• Fixed Bottler not resetting tank to be empty after using up all the liquid when bottling something
  
• Fixed using red close buttons or "Bye" in NPC dialogue menus not closing all menus in Focus Mode
  
• Fixed being able to still hand in noticeboard quests when you haven't got the items on you
  
• Fixed Extractors putting output items in the frame output slots
  
• Fixed being able to close crates while the noticeboard is open and have the quest still able to be handed in
  
• Fixed not having enough honeycore in shops showing the wrong tooltip
  
• Fixed flower mutation not creating a pool, so it was bias to higher tier mutation recipes
  
• Fixed normal mead in quest icons not having a full tooltip
  
• Fixed mouse held item not resetting on new world creation
  
• Fixed some types of mead not having effect info in quest icon tooltips
  
• Fixed both Barnabee and Abbee crashing when opening their shop and < 10 bees/flowers are discovered
  
• Fixed Beekeeper's Delight not being discovered by default
  
• Tweaked collision slightly to avoid a rare "one way" deep water layout - if this messes up collision in general then you can blame a123qwertz567 and Dues!
  

• You can now specify an "item_sprite" property in obj_definition and menu_obj_definition to use an alternate 16x16 image for items + slots
  
• You can now specify a "tier" property in the bee_definition and the game will try and put the bee in that tier. If there is no room it will try the next tier up, defaulting to 5 if no room anywhere
  
• Added api_define_gif() - similar to api_define_sprite() but will append your given name with "gif_" instead allowing it to be used in quest definitions
  
• Added api_blacklist_input() which allows you to prevent standard input on a specific menu object oid when open, like how writing in signs doesn't open the book when pressing G as you type
  
• Fixed api_get_inst_in_circle() and api_get_inst_in_rectangle() crashing when used
  
• Fixed api_define_item() and api_define_object() setting the "shop_key" value to true regardless of what you give it (meaning all items became key items)
  
• Fixed dialogue not working for custom NPCs
  
• Fixed custom NPCs throwing an error when trying to buy custom items from them
  

• Updated docs with new properties for the definitions
  
• Updated Sample Mod to include an example gif sprite to use with a quest definition
  
• Updated the api_define_quest() example to add a gif
  
• Added api_unlock_quest() to the docs as it was in the API but missing from the docs
  
• Added api_define_gif() definition
  
• Added api_blacklist_input() definition
  

Hey Beekeepers!

All good things must come to an end, and for the APICO Playtest sadly this is the end!

Thanks so much for everyone who took part in this and helped squash out nasty bugs and give us great feedback! We really do appreciate it <3

If you haven't already, we'd love to hear your feedback on the Beeta!
The Beeta feedback form is completely optional and you don't have to answer all the questions - they're there just to give you some things to think about around different parts of the game.
If you have the time we'd love to hear from you!

https://forms.gle/ckphRtAJC26GrHVJ9

For us now there's a long slog ahead of fixing everything, finishing off QA, finishing off localisation - and then starting the long and dreaded console certification process!

It won't bee long beefore we'll be looking at the full release and be able to announce some dates, but until then if you want to come chat with us you can catch us over on our Guilded community!

https://guilded.gg/tngineers

Thanks again, and bee good!
Love Ell & Jamie

Hey Beekeepers!

Coming into the final few days of the playtest now, thanks so much for everyone that has been playing and giving us feedback and reporting all the weird and wonderful bugs - the game is now starting to get towards some sort of stability (dare I say it)

I did change the save system slightly so.... maybe make a back-up just in case?
I did test it hella loads though ;(
(Game files are named like gamesave-json and found in your %localappdata%)

This update is mostly bug fixes, although I did tweak the saving to remove the delay, update 4K screens to have the right scale level, and rebalanced a bunch of products that will probably make me public enemy no. 1 in your greedy capitalist honey baron eyes.

Also there's 3 new tracks in the game and they are so freaking good - BroduxBlue is coming close to finishing off the last track now and I think we'll have an OST ready to release soon on Bandcamp/Steam/Spotify :o

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Saving the game now takes a little bit longer (1 whole second!!) but now it won't freeze the game so you can just keep on truckin', don't say I never treat you all
  
• Added tooltips to make it clear that pressing escape on a highlighted menu closes ONLY that menu and pressing escape when not highlighting a menu closes ALL open menus
  
• Updated "Microscope It Out" quest to explain the recessive + buff symbols (, +, -)
  
• Added the ! bubble above the player when drowning to make it clear you are drowning and will be teleported if you remain "stuck"
  
• Added 3 new night-time tracks that can also be bought from BroduxBlue - Pascuorum, Rubicundus, and Cineraria (they are sick check them out)
  
• Updated scaling for 4K monitors, it was scaling at 4x when it should of been at 5x (3200+) and 6x (3840+) respectively (I can't afford fancy monitors so I didn't know this soz)
  
• Doubled the amount of honey made per frame extraction (5 frames = minimum 1 bottle worth, higher productivity trait = more honey obvs)
  
• Rebalanced some of the bee special products to encourage selling honey/mead for better profits (honey bottle sells for $15, mead for $20)
  

• Fixed Bobbee letting you sell anything as honeycore even when it's not honeycore (they are just so generous)
  
• Fixed gamepad mode not turning off in the settings when using a gamepad until you restart
  
• Fixed Worker bees requiring the wrong thing compared to what is stated in the book
  
• Fixed Canisters not having their base sell price added to the canister amount price
  
• Fixed being able to claim the Overview chapter reward for the Guide/Bee Book/Flower Book multiple times
  
• Fixed a notification not showing for Overview chapters when the reward is ready to collect
  
• Fixed books still showing a notification when all chapters are read
  
• Fixed not being able to interact with boats in hallowed water
  
• Fixed flowers placed in pots not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed honeycore crystal seeds not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed Abbee's Staff created nature items not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed smoker storage slots not allowing any items
  
• Fixed GUI hover tooltip not working for Cooler, Heater, and Smoker
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_menu_check_input' crash error
  
• Fixed some issues with a 'sc_mouse_action' crash error
  
• Fixed tank not filling in Extractor / Centrifuges when there is a full canister in the tank output
  
• Fixed crash with Beenjamin hints after discovering all bees
  
• Fixed crash with BroduxBlue dialogue after discovering all bees
  
• Fixed an issue with the ending sequence needing 1 less bee than it should have
  
• Fixed gate items showing as pink cubes when picked up
  
• Fixed Combustus-infused mead having no effect
  
• Fixed Combustus-infused and Temperus-infused mead not showing effect info in the tooltip
  
• Fixed Temperus-infused mead effect ending too quickly because of it's effect
  
• Fixed land change with the Shovel not updating on the map until reload
  
• Fixed being able to shift-click items into the Propolis output slot of the Honeycore Centrifuge
  
• Fixed Tropic climate bees not saying say in the beebook hover tooltips
  
• Fixed "Any" climate bees not having their climate trait set when taken out of a beebox
  
• Fixed "Any" climate bees not saying so in the beebook hover tooltips
  
• Fixed beebook overview chapter making you need 1 more bee than you actually needed to claim the reward
  
• Fixed tile highlight showing when we had no hammer equipped
  
• Fixed charging machines sometimes crashing when loaded offscreen
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending dialogue
  
• Fixed some of the post-ending effects in the 5th biome
  

Hey Beekeepers!

This is a small update just to get you all up to speed with the fixes and changes that have been done for the Playtest/Beeta! Main things are fixing the light duplication/save lagging issue, adding an auto-save option that can be modified and turned off, and a few things to help clarify a few features that people seemed to be confused on.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Auto-save is now a setting, by default set to 10 minutes
  
• Auto-save only runs when the player isn't walking to reduce visible lagging for a splitsecond
  
• Tweaked the drowning respawn teleport to only happen when no books are open so its clear why you teleported back to spawn
  
• You can now view the contents of a backpack in the expanded tooltip like you can with crates
  
• Reduced a little bit of lag when saving by caching world tiles but ultimately you're trying to save 5mb of save data in an instant and GM doesn't have async threads for that tasty json stringify so ;'(
  
• Added tooltips to make it clear that pressing escape on a highlighted menu closes ONLY that menu - pressing escape when not highlighting a menu closes ALL open menus
  
• Updated inventory progress bar to only show the 10 demo bee icons
  
• Updated "Microscope It Out" quest to explain the recessive + buff symbols (, +, -)
  

• Fixed the light source duplication on save, any saves with duplicated items will be deduped automatically when the game loads
  
• Fixed backpacks not working after moving through gates or teleporting back to spawn after being stuck in deep water
  
• Fixed a few typos in the quest + bee book
  
• Fixed seedlings made by flower spread not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed saplings that turn into trees not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed tapped trees not being visible until you move
  
• Fixed Centrifuge crashing when input item removed on a specific frame
  
• Fixed "Overview" chapters and the species title/latin being cut off on some screen sizes
  
• Fixed no shadows showing underneath lanterns and lamps
  
• Fixed Workbench not resetting the craft multiplyer when changing recipes
  
• Fixed leaving Royal Jelly in a hive preventing the queen from working
  
• Fixed Noticeboard UI not updating position properly after moving the noticeboard menu then opening a quest notice
  
• Fixed Noticeboard bee icon crashing when clicked twice
  
• Fixed being able to open menu objects through books
  
• Fixed cargo boat being drawn twice when moving left
  
• Fixed items held in the mouse not being saved
  
• Fixed + / - buff markers in traits being drawn in the wrong position for Productivity, Fertility, and Stability
  
• Fixed the missing help button on the inventory
  

Hey Beekeepers!

The playtest rages on, and we've had some great feedback and some super weird bugs - thanks so much to everyone who's been letting us know their thoughts and reporting bugs, we really appreciate it!

Special shout out to Quantum who made a bee-line for finishing the game because we said we didn't think anyone would do it in 2 weeks, and they proved us wrong!

We've added 500 new playtesters from the pool - if you get picked by mighty overlord Valve you'll get an email and be able to download the Playtest from Steam!

Be sure to check the original Playtest event for details on giving feedback / reporting bugs:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1390190/view/2988689784440106294

[h2]The Playtest will end on 12th September![/h2]

Hey Beekeepers!

Thanks so much to everyone who has been playing and letting us know all the fun bugs they've found! This patch is mostly bug fixes, including an important one around lighting objects getting duplicated every time the game saved, eventually slowing down the game to an unplayable FPS :')

It also adds an auto-save option in the setting, so you can turn it off if you wish (on your own head be it! :D)

For Demo players, rest assured the update with the light fix will be coming soon after we guinea pig it on the playtesters! For Mod Creators, this update is also live on the Beeta branch - I've added a few little extra modding methods in this update pls enjoy <3

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Auto-save is now a setting, by default set to 10 minutes!
  
• Auto-save only runs when the player isn't walking to reduce visible lagging for a splitseconds
  
• Tweaked the drowning respawn teleport to only happen when no books are open so its clear why you teleported back to spawn
  
• You can now view the contents of a backpack in the expanded tooltip like you can with crates
  
• Reduced a little bit of lag when saving by caching world tiles but ultimately you're trying to save 5mb of save data in an instant and GM doesn't have async threads for that tasty json stringify so ;'(
  

• Fixed the light source duplication on save, any saves with duplicated items will be deduped automatically when the game loads
  
• Fixed Hermit bee not being able to be formed as it counted itself as a hive (lol i am a professional)
  
• Fixed backpacks not working after moving through gates or teleporting back to spawn after being stuck in deep water
  
• Fixed a few typos in the quest + bee book
  
• Fixed seedlings made by flower spread not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed saplings that turn into trees not appearing until you move
  
• Fixed tapped trees not being visible until you move
  
• Fixed Centrifuge crashing when input item removed on a specific frame
  
• Fixed "Overview" chapters and the species title/latin being cut off on some screen sizes
  
• Fixed Honeycore amount not saving :(((
  
• Fixed no shadows showing underneath lanterns and lamps
  
• Fixed Workbench not resetting the craft multiplyer when changing recipes
  
• Fixed Smokers, Heaters, and Coolers burning down fuel on the main menu
  
• Fixed leaving Royal Jelly in a hive preventing the queen from working
  
• Fixed Noticeboard UI not updating position properly after moving the noticeboard menu then opening a quest notice
  
• Fixed Noticeboard bee icon crashing when clicked twice
  
• Fixed being able to open menu objects through books
  
• Fixed cargo boat being drawn twice when moving left
  
• Fixed gates glitching out when hammering other gates to move them
  
• Fixed Beebank crashing game if invalid bee is added
  
• Fixed bees put into beeboxes / beebanks losing their Beetrice inheritence flag
  
• Fixed items held in the mouse not being saved
  
• Fixed +/- markers in traits being drawn in the wrong position for Productivity, Fertility, and Stability
  
• Modding
  
• Added sc_slot_set_inactive() which makes a slot inactive (can't be highlighted or clicked on)
  
• Added sc_slot_set_modded() which makes a slot 'modded' - modded slots can be highlighted but have no click actions (so you can add your own action through the click hook)
  
• Added a new hook, pdraw(), which is like draw() in that it's a draw cycle, but it's drawn above the player at the correct depth of the player
  
• Added new parameters to api_define_bee() to allow you to define a magazine item and magazine text, check the docs for parameters + Sample Mod for example magazine item sprite
  
• Custom added stats to items + slots will now persist when saved - you can't use nested properties within the stats object though, needs to be flat
  

Hey Beekeepers!

So a big update for the demo this time to finally catch the demo up to all the other stuff thats happened from finishing the game and starting the playtest, quite a few lil changes and QoL stuff that should be good, and a bunch of bug fixes!

[h2]Bees[/h2]

• 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!
  
• Recessive traits for rain + snow now show in microscopes
  
• XP has been removed - "locked" shop items are now based on the amount of bees you've discovered instead
  
• The XP bar has been replaced with a bee discovery "counter" to be able to see all bee progress
  

• 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
  
• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  
• Added little cutscene black bars to the introduction
  
• Bottler now only requires 50bl to fill a bottle instead of 100bl
  
• Rebalanced a few sell prices around water/resin/honey/mead
  
• Added Magazine Rack that can store magazines, got from the "Reehabilitate" quest or can be crafted
  
• Added the Dresser that lets you change your appearance, spawns in Nans house
  
• Added special produce lore on bee items in the tooltips
  
• Increased the size of the bottom library book bar books
  
• Save + Quit now just restarts the game first instead of going back to the menu instantly to avoid so many issues I don't want to deal with
  
• Autosave is now every 5 mins, and we no longer save every single time you claim a quest to reduce lagging
  

• 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
  

• Added the Anvil, which lets you repair your tools with materials for cheaper than crafting new ones (spawns in the carpenters house!)
  
• 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???)
  

• 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)
  

• 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 the black screen delay on initial load between starting the game and the TNgineers logo being shown
  
• 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 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
  
• Fixed the issue where "smoker" slots were visible and clickable which crashed the game
  
• Fixed the issue where clicking flower slots crashed the game
  
• Fixed the conservation label on common/forest/verge having "_alt" at the end
  
• Fixed map height "limit" being too small in the demo
  

Hey Beekeepers!

The playtest has officially begun!

We've released a first batch of 100 people - Steam picks these at random, and if you are picked then you should get an email saying you've been added to the Playtest and will be able to go and download it from your Steam Library! (wahoo!!!) You can still sign up to the Playtest from the Steam page - we'll be adding more people as we go!

If you want to come chat with others as you play come join us over on Guilded!

Some things worth noting:

• In it's current state the game is content/feature complete - we won't be adding any new major features at this point
  
• Localisation is being worked on by translators as we speak but you can't pick other languages in this Beeta!
  
• You'll see a "Mods" section in the homepage, but mods are not available in this Beeta so it'll always be empty
  
• Quite a few people don't realise this but you can use a gamepad! Head to Settings > Controls and turn on gamepad mode and the game will try and detect your controller. The game changes a little bit in gamepad mode as you can't do any multiple menu magic but it's still p. chill!
  

Hey Beekeepers!

This is mostly an update to clean up a bunch of stuff and get everything ready for the Steam Playtest tomorrow - it's also the last update in terms of content and story and has an actual ending so... that's exciting! And sad. But mostly exciting!

With this update you'll now be able to travel to that mysterious 5th Gate location, where you'll find... well you'll see for yourself! I also fixed a LOT of gamepad mode so if you've been waiting for that now is finally the time to be able to test it properly.

If you are a content creator/streamer we'd ask that any streams you do are tagged with spoilers, and that you don't stream anything from the 5th Gate location onwards so we can keep things spoiler free for everyone else <3

(For Mod Creators, I didn't add too much in this version I'm afraid as the Playtest was the priority but there'll be some new stuff soon for the custom slot logic / click / rendering I promise!)

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• The 5th gate marker can now be used when unlocked...
  
• Added an ending to the game (still missing some SFX!)
  
• Added the credits to the game (still missing credits song!)
  
• Updated all NPC dialogues and dialogue triggers (when they have something new to say about how cool u r)
  
• Added Magazine Rack that can store magazines, got from the "Reehabilitate" quest or can be crafted
  
• Added the Dresser that lets you change your appearance, spawns in Nans house
  
• Added the Acclimatiser, a machine sold by Beenjamin that lets you acclimatise a bee to like rain or snowfall
  
• Added special produce lore on bee items in the tooltips
  
• Increased the size of the bottom library book bar books
  
• Save + Quit now just restarts the game first instead of going back to the menu instantly to avoid so many issues I don't want to deal with
  
• Autosave is now every 5 mins, and we no longer save every single time you claim a quest to reduce lagging