You can sign up to get a daily email of our articles, see the Mailing List page.
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: «2/2
  Go to:

Philadelphus Dec 13, 2019
Any chance of this coming to Steam at all in the near-ish future? :)
Cheeseness Dec 13, 2019
Quoting: PhiladelphusAny chance of this coming to Steam at all in the near-ish future? :)
Unlikely. For this project, I am committed to pay-what-you-want pricing and that is not an option that Steam offers.

For what it's worth, I have verified that it runs and the Steam overlay works when launched through Steam as a non-Steam game.
Cyril Dec 13, 2019
Sorry to be a bit off topic but since the Cheeseness's post, I just noticed that a lot of games are now missing macOS releases on GOG.com. I noticed it when searching in the winter sales and got surprised to see for some games, just the Windows and the Linux icons, while I clearly know for some that a macOS version exist.
Apparently on Steam it's not the case, it just display a warning about it.

But damn... that's a serious issue for the Apple environment! :O
Are they shoot themselves in the foot (I mean not with a revolver, but with a rocket launcher), aren't they?
14 Dec 14, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Huh, I read the blog. I didn't know MacOS was getting that controlled. There's something to be said for being different and sticking to it. And Apple seems like they don't care about gaming or the corporate world. I don't know... seems like their targeted audience is getting smaller and smaller. And their hardware is stale on all fronts to boot. I wouldn't be betting on them right now.
Sir_Diealot Dec 14, 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.

10.15 released a month or so ago and Apple "usually" supports the three most recent releases. Yes, the great Apple everyone seems look up and to aspire to doesn't even have a proper release or support plan. I've been using it for a few months at work now and to me it smells more like a polished turd.
They do make developers life increasingly difficult. OpenGL hasn't been updated in ages and will get dropped in favor of their proprietary API, they dropped 32 bit support and introduce increasingly obnoxious yet useless "notarization".
It's what they've been doing all along, but they are consequent now and pull tight the thumb screws for developers as well. You either buy in or you are out.

I did a bit of testing on Hive Time and it's a cute little management game, fun for a couple hours at least until you have figured out how to succeed. Definitely listen in on the soundtrack, which is actually released under CC BY-NC-SA!
Philadelphus Dec 15, 2019
Quoting: CheesenessUnlikely. For this project, I am committed to pay-what-you-want pricing and that is not an option that Steam offers.

For what it's worth, I have verified that it runs and the Steam overlay works when launched through Steam as a non-Steam game.
Fair enough, I can respect that. Thanks for the info. :)
Cheeseness Dec 15, 2019
Quoting: PhiladelphusFair enough, I can respect that. Thanks for the info. :)
No probs!

The other nice thing (from my perspective) is that Itch allows people to buy, download, and play the game without making an account, so when I distribute on Itch, I'm not asking people to commit to using another platform.


Last edited by Cheeseness on 15 December 2019 at 10:34 am UTC
Philadelphus Dec 17, 2019
Quoting: CheesenessNo probs!

The other nice thing (from my perspective) is that Itch allows people to buy, download, and play the game without making an account, so when I distribute on Itch, I'm not asking people to commit to using another platform.
Ah, that's interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to check it out.
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.