Don't want to see articles from a certain category? When logged in, go to your User Settings and adjust your feed in the Content Preferences section where you can block tags!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

It might not be scientifically accurate but Hive Time is a very sweet and relaxing little management sim. Disclosure: Cheese, the developer, is a contributor here on GOL.

Keep busy Bees, grow your hive, make some sweet honey and produce a new Queen before your current one dies of old age. That's mostly the aim of the game in Hive Time, with colourful visuals and a family friendly theme encased in a sublime soundtrack from Peter Silk it's quite lovely overall.

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

More about it:

Manage different bee roles in a totally scientifically inaccurate depiction of hive dynamics. Send Foragers out to find pollen and nectar, have Builders research new cell types, and ensure you have enough Beesitters to raise the next generation of bees.

Make interesting choices that affect the hive. Respond to wasp attacks, deal with outlaw slugs, or help a caterpillar realise a lifelong dream.

There's a nice bit of friendly humour sprinkled throughout it too. As you progress, your workers give you little messages, some of which are truly ridiculous puns on TV shows and Movies but I will admit this one made me laugh a good bit. Naughty bee.

It seems overly simple when you get going, but thankfully it does slowly expand as you research into a management and building sim that keeps you going for hours. At your own pace though, Hive Time doesn't rush you. Even though it's always against the clock to get a new Queen, you're given quite a long time to do so. Hive Time offers a unique take on the ways of Bee life, personally I found it very relaxing.

You can pick Hive Time up now only on itch.io. The suggested price is $10, but they've gone for a pay-what-you-want model so you could try before you buy, plus it means if you're totally broke you can enjoy it too.

As for the soundtrack, you can grab that here and 50% of the soundtrack proceeds go to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust charity.

It's also another game made with Godot Engine, good to see more using it out in the wild.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
13 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
18 comments
Page: 1/2»
  Go to:

Purple Library Guy Dec 12, 2019
Interesting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why. That's actually pretty old as far as I can tell. Not that it matters to us, but it made me curious.
Purple Library Guy Dec 12, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Purple Library GuyInteresting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why. That's actually pretty old as far as I can tell. Not that it matters to us, but it made me curious.

Probably something to do with the fact that 10.15 drops 32 bits support. And 10.14 was released on September 24, 2018 so it's not that old.
I always get mixed up with release numbers after .s not being decimals. I was imagining a sub-release sometime between 10.1 and 10.2, which would have been long ago, but of course that's not it.
BrazilianGamer Dec 12, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuyInteresting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why. That's actually pretty old as far as I can tell. Not that it matters to us, but it made me curious.

Because Apple is more and more making it's platform unviable to game makers. Lots of bureaucracy and bad decisions along the way. The usual. Good for us though lol
DrMcCoy Dec 12, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuyInteresting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why.

Cheese wrote about that here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/regarding-mac-31349008
iiari Dec 12, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Has there been a sim game of sim games? Must.Sim.All.The.Things!
Cheeseness Dec 13, 2019
Quoting: GuestAww cool ! And nice that the soundtrack is on bandcamp. Good showcase for Godot too. And finally Youtube is not acting up anymore. The art is really cute.

I hope the pay what you want model works out. :)

Thanks for the kind words.


Numbers seem positive so far. The average sale price is above $10. Itch doesn't show per-platform sales, but for downloads, Linux is currently at 40% :)
Cyril Dec 13, 2019
OK so I downloaded the game without paying to try it out, I launched a "new hive" directly without tutorial and for now... I played it like 2 hours.
Of course I didn't have enough time to get 600 jelly... the queen died. ^_^
I'll play it more seriously and with the tutorial next time, to be sure to not miss some feature etc.

But yeah very good game, so now I bought it. :)
14 Dec 13, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Purple Library GuyInteresting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why. That's actually pretty old as far as I can tell. Not that it matters to us, but it made me curious.

Probably something to do with the fact that 10.15 drops 32 bits support. And 10.14 was released on September 24, 2018 so it's not that old.
Exactly. Someone just told me about this problem and how they were going to downgrade their MacOS! It seemed absurd, but the person is a gamer and artist and can't go without a few of their most-used applications. Sounds to me like Mac might not be a solution anymore in this case. That would be terribly frustrating.
Cyril Dec 13, 2019
Quoting: DrMcCoy
Quoting: Purple Library GuyInteresting asterisk on the systems supported. It supports MacOS, but only "10.14 or older". I've never seen that before; I wonder why.

Cheese wrote about that here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/regarding-mac-31349008

I read all this post and this is very interesting, the kind of thing that should be pinned everywhere.
Seriously I hate Apple for a long time but this post made it worst, thanks that's truly useful.
For me this company is worst than Microsoft in many aspects.


Last edited by Cyril on 13 December 2019 at 4:12 am UTC
Cheeseness Dec 13, 2019
Quoting: CyrilOK so I downloaded the game without paying to try it out, I launched a "new hive" directly without tutorial and for now... I played it like 2 hours.
Of course I didn't have enough time to get 600 jelly... the queen died. ^_^
I'll play it more seriously and with the tutorial next time, to be sure to not miss some feature etc.

But yeah very good game, so now I bought it. :)
Glad to hear you're having fun! The game lets you continue playing if the queen dies (unless you've enabled "unforgiving game over").

If you haven't spotted it, the "activity" screen from the upgraded Throne Room can point you towards efficiency bottlenecks!

I'm also planning to add a way to review past tutorials without starting a new game down the track if that's helpful.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.