v1.0-15 changelog

Here comes a Hive Time update!

Today's update adds a little prompt to get people interacting with bees when in Inspect Mode (to help avoid the assumption that it's just for pausing), which also provides some details on the current bee when using follow cam (handy for spotting when you're following a bee that's outside the hive!).

The default shortcut has been changed to P, since it seems that on some systems, the Print Screen event was being gobbled up at the OS level before the game could capture it.

I've also made some changes to how "big screenshots" (which are taken automatically every time you send a new Queen off to start a new hive and can be triggered manually by holding down the repeat build shortcut when taking an in-game screenshot) work. They now save a 2500x2500 pixel image positioned to show the entire playspace. It nicely captures big sprawling hives, and also highlights the space-efficiency of smaller hives.

Providing there aren't any crazy bugs, this will likely be the last Hive Time patch for the year. Moving into 2020, we'll be giving more attention to larger scope updates. You can read about our plans (subject to change) over here.

Enjoy and have a wonderful end to 2019!

Full changelog:

Added interface setting for disabling inspect prompt/follow cam text
Added prompt for mousing over bees when in inspect mode
Added bee name and activity text when using follow cam
Added logging for failing valid instance checks when processing nursery, construction, and research progress
Added further logging when crashes are detected
Added more logging for font loading
Refactored queen portrait handling
Updated activity string for foraging bees
Updated logging of events to increase logging reliability in the event of a game crash
Updated beesitter decline activity notification
Updated departing Queen to visually leave the hive for old_queen_gone event
Updated big screenshot to be properly centered on the playspace
Updated big screenshot to save a 2500x2500px image
Updated cost panel space allocation indicator to use blue to indicate buildable cells
Updated default screenshot bindings to P
Fixed trailing commas on resource production costs in HUD tooltips
Fixed trailing commas in event text on cost lists that have a cooldown
Fixed bees with LEAVE_AND_DIE activity getting stuck in a paused state when setting activity
Fixed exit_turn_hack not consistently being cleared when bees are returning to the hive via unusual means
Fixed possible crash when starting a new hive if a bee manages to add itself to a cell's list of bees between the new cell being created and the bee being destroyed

1.0-14 changelog

Greetings, fellow bee friends!

Today's update includes a number of miscellaneous fixes/tweaks, the most noteworthy of which is a new tutorial at the very beginning introducing the game's basic controls and prompting players to look at the Controls Settings menu for more constrols/shortcuts. Alongside this, all tutorials should now reflect custom bindings when describing how to do stuff.

Also included in this update is artwork by Mim for the "Friends we didn't know we had" event, which along with the "Random act of kindness" event that was restored in v1.0-3, now means that all of the content we removed from the game in order to make the release date is now back in the game. Neither event is critical, and we were comfortable with the idea of them not being included with the game if we didn't get a chance to add them back in, but it's very nice to see them return!

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added some more supporter names to the credits
Added basic controls tutorial before tutorial_01
Added click and drag manual scrolling to credits screen
Added smooth follow camera option to video settings
Added debug shortcut (Shift+K) for making the current Queen 5 seconds from the end of her life
Added 'Friends we didn't know we had' event and activity images
Updated 'Friends we didn't know we had' event text
Updated controls tutorial to use a list
Updated exit tutorial image to include exit dots
Updated 'A graceful return' event to require available nectar and pollen storage
Updated 'A dancer no more' event to require available jelly storage
Updated 'We know they're in here' event to require available honey storage
Updated tutorial events to use current key bindings
Updated nursery tutorial to use 'population management' instead of 'role management'
Updated credits panning to use ui_select rather than ui_accept
Updated beesitter population decline checks to be less sensitive
Updated default volume level for hive sounds
Updated event image for tutorial_01
Refactored radial menu handling to reduce possible cases where a radial menu could be exited without being closed
Fixed typo on research screen
Fixed defence radial menu shortcut conflicting with destroy option
Fixed population sliders/locks not being correctly restored when creating a new nursery after all nurseries have been destroyed
Fixed follow cam smooth state being flipped
Fixed settings menu sliders and checkboxes not playing hover sound

v1.0.12 changelog

Buzz buzz!

Today's update features a number of minor fixes and tweaks. My favourite is a new event image that Mim and I collaborated on, which appears within the "Moist banditos" event chain.

There are several changes to event conditions that prevent several events with high resource rewards from triggering when there is no available storage space. It's still possible to not get the full benefit (which is fine because most of them are designed to give the impression of filling your stores), but they should all now feel like meaningful rewards when they trigger.

In the interests of making sure that players have access to their old hives, I've added an autosave that triggers immediately before transitioning to a new hive with a new Queen. The game also takes a large screenshot at that point. There've been some slightly awkward cases of interference between in-game screenshots and save thumbnails (which both use the same viewport for grabbing snapshots of the hive). I believe that I've sorted all of that out, but if you have any troubles with save thumbnails or screenshots, definitely reach out and let me know.

Speaking of in-game screenshots, the depth of field effect has been disabled due to an oversight on my part on how that would end up looking when doing large screenshots. I need to rework how depth of field is calculated in general at some point in the future, and when I do, I'll re-enable it for screenshots.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added min_available_storage condition
Added event and effect images for 'We know they're in here' event
Added an aspiration substitution
Added more logging for when font folder can not be found
Added automatic large screenshot when choosing to start a new hive after spawning a new queen
Added automatic save before starting a new hive after spawning a new queen
Removed DOF effect from in-game screenshots (to be added back later)
Updated 'A dancer no more' event effect to give more jelly
Updated 'Slugs always pay their debts' event effect to give more jelly
Updated 'Slugs always pay their debts' event to require available jelly and wax storage
Updated 'Pilgrims return' event to require a honey refinery and available honey storage
Updated 'Random act of kindness' event to require available nectar storage
Updated queen portrait details popup to indicate whether the queen, left the hive, was left behind when starting a new hive, or died during play
Fixed typo in Bear attack event
Fixed cases where negative queen effects could make worker efficiency 0 and prevent them from completing construction
Fixed case where population sliders would not unlock properly after starting a new hive if other role specific cells are constructed before a nursery

v1.0-11 Changelog

Buzz buzz!

Another small update today, which brings in an in-game screenshot option that takes a 1920x1080 screenshot (regardless of the resolution of the game window) of your hive without any HUD.

If you're super excited, there's also an experimental feature where holding down the "repeat build" shortcut (default Shift) will take a screenshot that is a zoomed out overview of your entire hive (this still needs a little work, but I figured it might still be of interest in its current state).

There's also a fix for a sneaky bug where deleting under-construction Nurseries could result in the population limit going down.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added '_quicksave' suffix to saves saved via the quicksave shortcut
Added background to save delete/overwrite confirm popups
Added background to binding and binding conflict popups
Added hover sound to buttons in save delete/overwrite confirm popups
Added screenshot shortcut (default Printscreen)
Added screenshot activity type
Removed some extraneous logging
Fixed population limit being decreased when deleting under-construction nurseries

v1.0-10 Changelog

Greetings, fellow bee friends!

Today's update focuses on fixes for some corner cases. I'd normally leave these sorts of things for a larger patch, but since a couple had caused crashes in the wild, I wanted to get them into people's hands sooner rather than later.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Removed some extraneous logging
Fixed crash when converting special bees of other types into workers if those bees were wearing a hat with an ID greater or equal to 4
Fixed population slider lock button states not being reset properly when starting a new hive
Fixed camera handler giving input errors at startup if a device is spamming input before custom bindings have been loaded
Fixed crash when updating resolution if viewport size is zero (it should never be zero - this is probably indicative of a larger problem)

v1.0-9 Changelog

It's time for another Hive Time update!

A comparatively small update today that adds in some more visual indicators for progress and state - this time, for Nursery and Barracks cells. Internally, I've been calling these "progress rings," but since they don't all show progress, that's probably not the best way to look at them.

The new Nursery ring works similarly to the Workshop ring, showing global progress towards the next bee spawn. If your Beesitter population is large enough, this will eventually become solid, since it would be flickering too fast to communicate anything useful (which shouldn't be a big deal - by that point in the game, players should have enough of an understanding of how spawning works to not need the ring).

The new Barracks ring shows the current defended/undefended state of that specific Barracks cell. A whole blue ring is recently patrolled and safe. A segmented red ring hasn't been visited by a Defender in a while, and is at risk. This should help make it easier to identify Defender shortages and vulnerabilities at a glance.

There are a number of fixes and tweaks in today's update, the most notable of which fixes a conflict between default pan bindings and some radial menu shortcuts. There's also a fix for a bug that was causing Defenders to not prioritise Barracks that were overdue for patrols.

Last, but not least, there are some changes to how customisation of the game's files works. I'll likely better document this in the future when customisation/modding support is a little more finalised, but for now, treat the json folder that ships with the game as a template that you can copy into your user data folder (select "Open User Data" from the settings menu to open a file browser there) and make changes to.

This will resolve the problem of game updates overwriting changes. As in previous builds, changes to credits.json will be ignored.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added "left click to follow" notice to special bee activity details
Added progress rings to barracks
Added setting for workshop progress rings
Added setting for nursery progress rings
Added setting for barracks progress rings
Removed old progress rings setting
Updated activity indicators to allow interaction when in inspect mode
Updated bee follow camera to zoom in on bee if zoomed out
Updated user override behaviour for json folder to check for a json folder in the user data folder rather than for the template folder next to the game executable
Fixed default camera pan bindings interfering with radial menu shortcuts
Fixed exit dots not disabling properly when changing settings while a game is running
Fixed radial menu closing and not playing error sound when using a radial menu shortcut to activate an option that can't be activated
Fixed barracks updating the patrolled status of other barracks within their coverage radius preventing defenders from visiting barracks that should be high priority

2019-12-26 Dev stream

Cheese talks about post-release development, does some playtesting, fixes some bugs, and does his laundry on Twitch.tv.

v1.0-3 Changelog

Buzz buzz!

Today's update includes a couple of minor additions, the most important of which is a small indicator on exit cells to show their usage/capacity and reinforce the "three bees per cell" rule that players have already been introduced to via the tutorial by the time they see an exit. Hive Time asks players to learn and keep track of a lot of stuff early on, and some extra cues can end up being the difference between forgetting and remembering.

There are also a number of miscellaneous fixes and tweaks, some of which may have an impact on performance on lower end machines. Noteworthy changes include a fix for a possible crash when pausing or unpausing a production facility when a production facility of the same type is under construction or being upgraded, fixes for the foraging screen's explore button getting disabled, and clearing a number of states when the game loses focus to prevent things like pan mode, repeat build mode, getting stuck.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added application notification handlers for focus loss/gain, OS level memory warnings, and OS level crash notifications
Added footnotes to save and load screens to clarify what the asterisk means
Added setting for disabling exit dots
Added setting for skipping default music (currently only works for background and interstitial tracks)
Added dot indicator to exits
Added two new vingettes
Added moods to substitions list
Added 'Random act of kindness' event and activity images
Added more detailed logging for font loading
Updated logging of research to be clearer
Updated 'Random act of kindness' event text
Updated logging of research activities
Updated save game UI to give focus to input field with all text selected
Updated population and goal HUDs to be expanded by default (existing settings are respected)
Optimised bee efficiency calculation for beesitters to only be updated when an effect is applied/removed
Refactored beesitter spawn rate contributions to occur over time rather than at the start of their work shift
Refactored beeSlots management
Removed some extraneous logging
Removed disabling of foraging explore button
Fixed right clicking on an in-world vignette indicator preventing future vignettes from occurring
Fixed event scene throwing input errors
Fixed main menu listening for startup keys when returning from gameplay
Fixed music tracks not resuming properly when returning form main menu
Fixed pan sensitivity not updating until after zooming
Fixed HUD cell count icon showing the wrong tooltip
Fixed crash when pausing/resuming production on a cell type that is currently under construction/being upgraded
Fixed environmental sounds getting stuck at -80dB
Fixed repeat build, panning, and radial menu shortcut states getting stuck if the application loses focus before key/button up events are received
Fixed scroll proxy position not being updated when scrolling via gestures
Fixed several possible cases where objects were not being freed properly before exiting the game

v1.0-2 Changelog

Greetings, fellow bee friends!

A small update today with some misc tweaks. The most noteworthy of which is a confirmation prompt when deleting or overwriting saves. Currently it's a bit quick and dirty, but I'll pretty it up in a later build.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added confirmation popup when deleting saves
Added confirmation popup when overwriting saves
Added notice to effect details popup when effect is effectless
Updated behaviour of overwrite button on save screen to not require clicking save button
Updated delete save button to be a little more readable
Updated save button on save screen to check for existing files with the current save name
Updated Queen effect details popup to be big enough to hold three different types of effects
Updated layout of logo screen and restored previously hidden image slots
Updated size of event buttons to better hold longer text
Removed some extraneous logging

v1.0-1 Changelog

Buzz buzz!

A quick post-release patch this afternoon to address a couple of bugs (and slip in a couple of nice-to-haves that slipped off the end of my todo list this morning, like a bar for the new scroll widget).

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added bar indicator for scroll proxies
Added visual pop on scroll proxy mouse over
Added delay before scroll proxy/bar appear
Added J Bush Productions and Two Lof Bees to credits
Removed placeholder image slots from logo screen until new icons are ready
Updated credits speed to make things a bit slower
Fixed hive sound volume being set from the wrong config value when zooming
Fixed settings menu slider values not being rounded correctly

2019-12-12 Dev stream

Cheese crosses a few pre-release items off his todo list, and goes through various release steps on Twitch.tv.

2019-12-12 Devlog

Buzz buzz!

It's time for release! Here's the release candidate build, landing very hot with 18 minutes on the clock. Unless I spot anything super soon, this will be the 1.0 release version.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added ambient hive sounds
Added first field recordings
Added close up view for queen portraits
Added no effects notice to queen portaits for queens with no effects
Added event activity images for 'I'm selling these fine yellow jackets' event
Added event activity images for 'Specialisation is for other insects' event
Added event activity images for 'Wasp attack' event
Added save, load, and delete button images
Added scroll proxy for main menu screens
Updated Patreon support credits
Updated foraging screen exploration cost to remove cooldown
Updated foraging screen pollination cost to increase cooldown
Updated Beeing Together easter egg track
Updated resources tutorial title to highlight that storage must be filled to continue
Updated sizing of menu scroll regions to better match tile bounds
Updated frequency of frequent events to make negative events more frequent
Removed some extraneous logging
Removed 'Random acts of kindness' event
Removed 'Friends we didn't know we had' event
Removed some extraneous logging
Removed development notice from version number
Removed version display from HUD
Fixed memory leak when changing main menu screens
Fixed settings tile not keeping scale when opening submenus
Fixed playtime string not showing singular units when there's only one
Fixed research rounding up to full progress value before research is done
Fixed potential crash when changing the role of a bee that no longer exists

2019-12-11 Devlog

Only one more sleep till Hive Time comes out!

Today's update includes some new Queen portrait art painted by our friend Aubrey Serr from 12 East Games. As release closed in, painting new art for Queen portraits looked like it was going to be a nice-to-have that would become a maybe-next-time (the placeholder art is weird-but-almost-cute in the way that the rest of the game is, so it was something I was content to be content with), but Aubrey offered to contribute, and I'm super happy to have some of his work in the game.

This update includes a bunch of tweaks to the credits as well, with tester/pre-release player credits for everybody that I've heard back from. If you've had access to builds and haven't sent me a name for the credits yet, get that to me ASAP!

Yesterday, I took half a day off development to go and do field recording at a couple of local honey farms (R. Stephens Apiarists and Melita Honey Farm). I haven't had time to process my recordings yet, but I'm very much looking forward to having some local bees star in Hive Time.

I also spent some time putting together cover art for the soundtrack, which will be released tomorrow (a couple of hours earlier than the game) over on Peter's Bandcamp page.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added field recording locations to credits
Added columns to long credits lists
Added click handlers to URLs in credits
Added yam party event and activity images
Added Aubrey to 2D art credits
Added testers and pre-release players credits
Added placeholder 'Drink responsibly' event and effect images
Added new Queen name
Added warning output when generic bee names are used
Updated old bitey effect name
Updated credits to symmetrically balance columns when the number of items doesn't evenly fit
Updated queen portrait image
Updated special thanks credits
Updated ordering of 2D art credits
Fixed activity and effect icons pushing the rest of the HUD offscreen
Fixed throne vignettes on upgraded thrones not using the Queen's name
Fixed typo in 'Something furry this way comes' event
Fixed some effects not referencing correct icons

2019-12-10 Devlog

Buzz buzz!

Among other tings, today's update brings in a whole stack of new event images!

If you're the kind of person who likes to tinker, the game's json files are now exposed as plain files that can be edited (these override the ones that are stored in the game's pck file, so if you break something, just delete them). Since they're distributed as part of the game, any changes will be overwritten with a new update, so it's not really reliable in terms of being usable as modding support (I might make that more friendly in a post-release update).

My main interest here is the opportunity for excited players to poke around with different values for balancing, so if you do have a tinker, let me know your results!

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added event and activity images for 'The patter of tiny feet,' 'A graceful return,' and 'A dancer no more' events
Added event and activity images for 'Comes with a figurative guarantee' event
Added event image and activity icon for 'End of an age' event
Refactored font handling to load fonts at runtime and externalised font files to make licence compliance easier
Refactored json loading to allow user modification of game data (doesn't work for credits ^_^ )
Updated special thanks credits
Updated event activity images for 'End of an age' event
Updated event and activity/effect images for 'Bear attack' event
Updated credits to include third party assets
Updated credits to include special thanks
Updated credits to include Beeing Together ;)
Fixed user folder button not opening Finder on MacOS

2019-12-09 Devlog

Buzz buzz!

An early update today with a number of miscellaneous fixes and additions.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added activity notification for when foraging zones are automatically deselected
Added activity icons for disconnected cells warning and disconnected cell destruction notification
Removed a bunch of extraneous output
Renamed 'Masterpieces' vignette to 'Little treasures'
Optimised vignette instantiation slightly
Updated credits
Updated activity pop-up text bounds to prevent vertical scrollbars
Updated production screen to indicate when full storage is pending workers depositing resources they are carrying
Fixed resource reserves not saving/loading correctly
Fixed production priority not saving/loading correctly
Fixed camera bounds not respecting camera offset
Fixed multicell upgrades not being added to the tile group list properly on load
Fixed typo in Masterpiece vignette
Fixed HUD buttons playing mouse over sounds when in events
Fixed possible issues with queen cooldown not updating properly when royal apprenticeships is researched

2019-12-07 Devlog

It's time once again for another Hive Time update!

I spent the couple of days travelling and used the time I wasn't driving to address some small scope/quality of life issues.

The most immediately obvious one is a new tutorial event that sits between the Wax Assembler tutorial and the Nursery tutorial. This introduces the game's five resource types along with their icons, and touches on where they come from. I've also updated all tutorial events and building info events to show resource icons next to resource names to help make the association easier to latch onto.

I've popped in a number of new activity notifications for various new functionality that is enabled by upgraded cells. I'm hopeful that this will make it harder to overlook reserve sliders, manual production priority control, and pollination. In addition to that, I've added activity notifications for when foraging zone blooms appear/are exhausted.

Last, but not least, gesture input (which is pretty much just Mac touchpads) has had a bit of tweaking to make sensitivities more sensible after recent changes to panning and zooming.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added resources tutorial event
Added some sanity checks to prevent menu actions on invalid bees or cells from causing crashes (shouldn't happen in live builds)
Added click functionality to cell screen icons to zoom on a random cell of the relevant type
Added activity notification when a bloom occurs in an explored foraging zone
Added activity notification when pollination becomes available
Added activity notification when production priority slider becomes available
Added activity notification when resource reserve sliders become available
Added current value indicator to settings menu fields that use sliders
Added max_available_storage condition
Added activity icon for pollination becoming enabled
Added activity icon for reserve slider becoming enabled
Added activity icon for production priority slider becoming enabled
Added icon for foraging zone bloom and bloom depletion
Refactored resource substitution for event text (unused)
Refactored bee sound limit to be accessible before player node is ready
Replaced resource names with icon+name substitions in tutorials and building info events
Updated sensitivity of gesture zooming
Updated sensitivity of gesture panning
Updated zoom tilt to avoid exposing the bottom of exit cells
Updated research/work tutorial activity notification text to mention the three bees per cell rule
Updated cops pose activity icon
Fixed research item positions retaining 'blink' state when switching research categories while dimmed
Fixed in-world vignette balloon not being closed on leave_menu action
Fixed left event button responding to mouse over events when disabled

2019-12-05 Devlog

Buzz buzz!

A quick update today with several new event/effect images.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added new event image for 'Midlife crisis' event
Added new event image for 'A helpful hand' event
Added new event image for 'They're all asking for little badges' event
Updated event image for 'Ticket to ride' event
Fixed missing effect icon for ninja fruit flies, snail monks, flea circus, outlaw slugs, hexo, and vinehopper scientist related effects

2019-12-04 Devlog

Greetings, bee friends!

Today's update has new event images for the "Step right up" event and the "They do look pretty cool" event, with the latter's Defender be being drawn by Mim.

There are also a number of binding changes. With Binder handling input configuration, and Godot's InputMap, I figured that now might be a good time to experiment with having multiple bindings for camera panning. Unfortunately, there's a problem where an event that uses a modifier (say, Ctrl+S for save) will return true when checking for a binding without the modifier (say, S for pan down). If this is a bug in Godot, that's going to be tricky for me to sort out before release. If it's a bug in Binder, then that likely points towards problems (whether that's a bug or just documentation leading me down the wrong path, I'm not sure) with how InputMap actions for keystrokes are stored when generated programmatically at runtime.

I'll be looking more deeply into this after release, but for now, the default binding for quick save has been moved to F5 and the default binding for quick load has been moved to F9.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added event image and activity icon for 'Step right up' event
Updated event image and activity icon for 'They do look pretty cool' event
Added activity icon for 'After all these years' event
Added activity icon for 'The hive has fallen' event
Added several new activity, TV show, and film substitutions
Added button theming to Binder
Added WASD, ,AOE, and ZQSD default bindings for camera panning
Removed a bunch of unused code
Optimised pan scale multiplier to only be calculated when changing zoom
Updated 'After all these years' event image
Updated wording of 'Step right up' event
Updated capitalisation of bee roles in events
Updated bolding in 'First, build and exit' and 'Work, work work' tutorials
Updated keyboard panning to use scale multiplier
Updated quick save to clear existing quick save activity notifications before adding a new one
Updated default quick save binding to F5
Updated default quick load binding to F9
Fixed cases where more than three foraging bees could leave the hive through one exit
Fixed event selector appearing on shortcut (E) press and release

2019-12-02 Devlog

Buzz buzz!

At last, Hive Time finally has a release date. On Beecember the 12th, the full game is going to be out, and I'll be getting some sleep. Win-win!

I've spent the past couple of days focused on the release date announcement trailer and haven't really been able to give the game itself much attention, but today's update includes revisions for all music tracks, a few new event images, and a few bugfixes.

Enjoy!

Full changelog:

Added event image for 'After all these years'
Added event image for 'Twilight years'
Added event image for 'The hive has fallen'
Added open sound to research menu
Added open sound to resource menu
Added open sound to production menu
Added open sound to defence menu
Added open sound to defence menu
Removed unused scancode calculation code
Updated all music tracks to final revisions (woohoo)
Updated credits name
Updated cell-accessible screens to be closable with InputMap actions
Updated in-world vignette indicator to clear when receiving leave_menu action
Updated wording of "A new Queen arises" event
Fixed some warnings
Fixed possible Alt+Enter fullscreen toggling on keystroke echo
Fixed crash when trying to assign a binding to P
Fixed Alt+Enter happening on press and release when in the main menu
Fixed production menu playing multiple select sounds when being opened
Fixed resource menu playing multiple select sounds when being opened