We played the demo and have the scoop on all the magic and wonder that is Hive Quest!
Hive Quest is a puzzle and adventure game developed solely by Rod Tyson (Golden Heart Games). It’s an enchanting game filled with faeries, woodland creatures, and a bug friend named Yuna. Yuna is there to help you make a new home and to tell you how to protect your hive. You can check out our previous article about the game here for the basics. Now there’s an updated demo on Indie DB that we have decided to take a shot at. See below to learn about our experience and view our gameplay video.
Finding a New Hive
You are first greeted by Yuna as he explains that the Power (a mysterious being) has sent him to guide us. Meanwhile, a man in a protective bug outfit comes toward the Hive and sprays a poisonous chemical completely destroying it. Take control of the Queen and fly away with the few survivors to a safer area while following Yuna. Now it is up to you to rebuild and manage your resources for your new Hive. All while surviving the Wild Wood and discovering the secrets of Old Orchard.
Maintaining Your Resources
You have to keep track of the health meter of the Queen so that she doesn’t starve along with your Hive. You can interact with things within a circle surrounding your Hive but to truly explore the lush environment you will need to take control of your little worker bugs’ minds using Hive Mind. You’ll need to find food, such as maggots from rotten fruit, and Gloop. Gloop is gelatinous blue stuff that comes from fungi or plants that you can use as building materials.
Creating New Buildings
Receive your first pulp seed from a visitor and create a workshop that will make more pulp seeds. Theses seeds will be used as blueprints for creating more buildings around your Hive. The next building will be a nursery to grow your tribe in numbers by raising baby drones. At first I thought the hanging bugs were the babies but they might just be mobiles. I have a feeling that that’s why I kept getting a message to “Lay Builder Egg”. As of now, you have to wait a certain amount of time, while giving Gloop, for these buildings to be ready. This process felt a little long but perhaps when there are more things to do around Hive it won’t feel as time-consuming.
Meeting Magical Creatures
This demo has one major task; save a faerie trapped in a bottle by a Witch. Once you have done that, she will reward you with two spells you can use right away. One gives your Hive some more food, the other animates a pile of sticks into your first servant; the Stick Knight. They are made to defend your Hive from enemies.
Afterward, you meet Pog and Bella from the Snail Rider Clan who have set up a trader camp for you. They also gift you with a magical Sprite Charm which lets you create magical pets. You find your first dormant nature spirit in a tree which comes alive. Then, it begins to build itself a home within your tribe. You can follow it around and see what it is thinking with an image, which is quite adorable. My woodland sprite dug a hole in the dirt and recovered some berries. I’m assuming this pet will be quite the helpful little forager.
Controls, Graphics, Sound
I played with a mouse to move my camera around and got a little frustrated as it wouldn’t always line up with my pointer. Therefore, it could be difficult to grab objects or interact with them. Moving with WASD was simple enough while controlling a drone. However, I wish that when I let go of the forward button that my bug would come to a complete and immediate stop.
In spite of that, flying around with a drone felt quite peaceful when reaching heights. You can see all of the beautiful scenery from above and really get the feeling that you are in a forest. It was also amusing to hear the buzzing of your wings, the wind rustling the leaves of trees, and birds singing in the distance. This was definitely quite serene and captivating!
The cycle of night and day is fine but I found the nighttime to be a little too dark. I had trouble seeing things in the background and where I was going. The only things I can see from afar is a tiny and the slight glow from Gloop. It’s understandable as there are no other sources of light but just a little more lighting would go a long way to enhancing my experience. The shining lights for your “next location pointer” could also be a little brighter as they can become obscured from all of the tall grass in the game. Aside from that, I really appreciated the golden text to the right of my screen which occasionally displayed helpful tips.
More Information
We at myPotatoGames are excited to play more of this whimsical game so stay tuned with us for later updates with further development! You can also follow the developer on their official website here and wishlist their game on Steam here. See below for 35 minutes of gameplay for Hive Quest’s demo with the most recent update. Enjoyed watching us play a demo? Check out our review of Melbits World Pocket here. That demo is also free and available for mobile now!
Hive Quest Is Now On Kickstarter
Don’t miss your chance to help support this amazing game become all that it can be! You can do so now by supporting Hive Quest on Kickstarter! You can also go to our article here for more about the campaign.
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