Beesource: Week 1

I don't remember exactly how I formatted these logs the last time I made one so I am just going to make it up.

- Game Jam Start! -

At this point in time it has been a little over one week since the start of the UMD:GDC Fall 2023 game jam and I have made a absolute ton of progress on my game. The themes were chosen to be a very "interesting" choice of Beekeeping  and Taxes the vote for the themes lasted for only a week but the entire time those two were at the top. My theory is that one group had a really good idea for a beekeeping game and a separate group had a really good idea for a taxes game so they ended up getting pushed to the top. I digress, as always I am trying to meet both themes which lead me to start thinking about bees and taxes. "Bees and the Government are quite similar" - me, 2023 but in all seriousness bees have a hierarchy that is very similar to a government bureaucracy, we even refer to bees as if they exist in a monarchy serving a queen. This makes it a good bit easier to lean into the bee side of the theme over the taxes side since anything with bees can easily include taxes. A one of the initial ideas I had for this game was some sort of government hive-mind where you control taxes collectors as a large entity. However, this got scrapped in favor of my current idea which I have given the tag line "City skylines but bees".

- The Game -

Department of Bee-source Management is a city builder type game but instead of a city its a hive, and instead of a real time strategy I have made it turn based. The idea is that you grow your city by zoning different hexagons in your hive for certain uses, in this case there are 3 zones: production, housing, and transport. Each zone can have a particular type of building inside of it, production being able to produce honey, housing being able to supply bees to work in production zones and transport giving bonuses to nearby buildings and moving honey/bees around. Every turn you will be able to purchase any buildings proposed to be placed in your zones by spending honey, next you will be able to zone more tiles with by spending honey. At the end of turn any honey producing buildings connected either directly to the queen or through tunnels have the potential to produce honey. A factory will only produce honey if it is worked by a certain number of bees equal to its requirement. The strategy is to plan your city as far into the future as possible while still ensuring short term profit.

- The Twist -

Since that game alone focuses nearly entirely on the beekeeping part of the theme there is a twist to the game that brings taxes to an equal standing. At the start of the game you are guided by a government agency called the department of bee-source management which has a brand new initiative to support the growth of brand new bee farms. Through the first part of the game you will be guided by the department through a series of program goals which when completed will reward you with honey and money. However after a certain number of completed goals (SPOILER WARNING) the government will have a change of leadership that causes the department to start heavily taxing bee farms instead of supporting them. From then on the game will consist of an ever changing list of taxable offenses which will increase your hive's tax burden.  Every seven days you will be required to pay money equivalent to you tax burden. Money can only be used to pay off your taxes and must be strategically handled. At the end of every turn you have the opportunity to either keep the honey made that day or to sell it in exchange for money.  The conversion rate for honey to money will change each day so there is no guarantee that you will be able to be able to make up the money for taxes at the last second.

- Current Progress -

Currently over the past week I have been able to make a fully functional hexagonal grid that can have zones placed on top of it that will be filled with buildings at the end of every turn. I have created UI for most of the functional elements like the honey counter, money counter, population tracker, building demand, day count, and tax burden, as well as some useful interface for selecting which zones you want to place and to end the turn.

- Plans For Week 2 -

My main goal for week 2 is to finalize all of the major game features I was planning to add. Particularly I am aiming to finish making the tax task system that will provide requirements to avoid to keep your tax burden low. The last thing that I want to implement would be the building discovery system, where you can discover upgraded types of buildings or new buildings by zoning the correct area surrounded by the correct buildings.

Some stretch goals that I have would be some sort of limited honey storage to make the decision to keep or sell more important, I also would want to add a wider variety of buildings possibly even some that are zoned for multiple types.

- Conclusion -

Games coming along great see you next week!