Bees are extremely important for our lives, without them, we would simply be lost. Learning the importance of these little creatures and learning to love instead of to fear them is a lesson we have to learn our younger children. They shouldn’t grow up killing each and every bee they see, no, they should grow up as responsible adults who completely understand the importance of the little honeybee. Bee Simulator offers the first interactive step in this learning progress.
Not a typical game
First things first, Bee Simulator isn’t your typical game and we won’t judge it like one. Here on Gaming Boulevard, we always try to score a product based on what it has to offer and always keeping the targeted audience in our minds. If this was to be scored as a hardcore video game like Call of Duty, God of War or Zelda, it would score poorly but that’s not the purpose of Bee Simulator. This game doesn’t want to be the most impressive story-driven experience, it wants to deliver a message, a message of love for the honeybee and hope for the future of our planet. Right from the start, it’s clear that this game has a high educational value and although the gameplay is pretty solid, it’s the lesson that will leave its mark in the end.
It’s clear from the start that the team didn’t want to deliver the most thrilling story-driven game. The story is kept short, you’re a honeybee who’s tasked by the queen herself to collect as much pollen as possible to create as much honey as possible. It’s an easy task but soon you’ll learn that the life of a honeybee isn’t always that easy.
Understand the potential danger
What Bee Simulator does best is demonstrating how hard the life of a honeybee can get. Right from the introduction, you’ll learn that we as a species are ruining the chances of survival for the bees. Our industrialization, lack of true nature, and pesticides make it harder and harder for the bees to survive. They’ve been pushed out of their natural habitats and are forced to live among us, in small parks all over the world. This is also where you’ll control your own little honeybee, in a park that’s inspired by the grand Central Park of Manhattan. While flying around you’ll have to gather pollen from a wide diversity of flowers. Quickly you’ll learn some pollen offer better quality and will eventually result in better honey. Using the special first-person Bee perspective, you can easily recognize the different types of flowers since they are color-coded. It’s easy to collect the pollen but then again, it’s the knowledge behind the flowers that’s of more importance. Every new flower will be added to your own encyclopedia where you can discover everything there is to know about that certain flower. Bee Simulator really is a treasure chest filled with knowledge and the descriptions of all flowers just prove this even more.
While collecting the pollen, you’ll eventually run into some of your natural enemies too. Defeating these other insects offers some variation on the exploration gameplay and transforms the game into a mini-game inspired fighter. By pushing the right buttons at the right time, you’ll attack and defend, if you manage to time things correctly, you’ll come out victorious. Again, it’s not the best gameplay there is but it does the trick. Besides fighting, you’ll also be challenged in other mini-games where you have to mimic the movements of the other bees or where you’ll have to race them. The mini-games in combination with the exploration really result in a fun learning experience for the younger children. They’ll have a blast playing this short game while constantly learning new crucial information about the honeybee.
Made on a smaller budget
Although I really like the educational value of Bee Simulator, it’s clear that the game is created on a smaller budget. Compared to other modern releases, this one simply isn’t on par visually speaking. The world is a bit empty and the character models look like they belong on an older generation of consoles. It’s a bit of a shame really since it does take away some of the magic. If this was made on a bigger budget and with some better visual effects, I’m pretty sure it would have been an even better experience. It’s nothing you can’t get over but be advised this isn’t going to be pretty at first. The more you play, the more you get used to the visuals and in the end, you won’t really notice them. What you will notice, however, is the way you control your little bee. The controls are kept simple to keep the game accessible for all ages but this comes at a cost of inaccuracy. It’s not always easy to maneuver the little bee in the direction you want it to go and the Bee booster only makes it worse. It’s a shame because this makes the game a lot harder to play, especially for younger gamers. That being said, there still is a lot to learn here and it still offers great educational value, it’s just a struggle sometimes to get there.
Conclusion:
Bee Simulator is a very valuable and important game for the younger audience as it offers a crucial lesson in life. Learning more about the life of the honeybee offers a fun interactive learning experience and thanks to the variation in gameplay, it’s fun to play until the end. It’s a bit of a shame the game suffers from technical issues because those are really holding it back from being incredible.
