Beeswing is a semi-broken gameplay-void experience - an experience that wrecked me, over and over and over again.

In between crashes, or moments where the dialogue boxes seemed to disagree with the rest of the game, Beeswing delivers a litany of beautiful moments, both visually, through the gorgeous water-colored art style, (an art-style that occasionally drastically changes,) and musically, through this wonderfully relaxing acoustic soundtrack. The writing too is brutally excellent, switching effortlessly from literal toilet humor to a calm discussion of death, and the plethora of grief that comes with it, eliciting nearly every emotion as you explore rural Scotland. The ending moments especially comprise of the kind of stuff that simply sticks with you, as the credits fittingly come when you're not quite ready for them.

It's hard to fully recommend this game, especially given the fact that it crashed on me ~6 times, and the only way to save is by fully quitting out, but, if you can fight some jankiness, there's some truly life-changing stuff in here. After all, just like a good tree, a good game has victims.

9/10
Game #25 of 2024, April 20th

An impressionistic quilt of people and places past and present, remembered and rediscovered. Figments of our childhood plant seeds, emotions, attitudes and ideas, and when revisited in dreams are spoken through by us, projected onto so that we may nurture those seeds. A watercolor smearing of the individual self and the collective, how much of our memories are really us, but how much can they be anything else. When we move away from home, we begin viewing ourselves as distinct from our roots, having grown totally apart. Most people don’t, of course, we just feel like we do. No matter how far we run, we still remain there, both an NPC in someone’s else’s dreams and a wanderer ourselves. We represent something specific to people, we were, and continue to be, formative in some way to someone. Everyone exploring the same spaces alone, everyone simultaneously forming the composition together. When people I’ve met journey in our shared lives, I hope I’m warm. I hope I’m smiling.

It has many moments of profundity and is held back by being far too roughly cut to have things like goals and stories to follow. The game has a habit of crashing, a poor differentiation between what you can interact with and can't, bad collision with interactable objects. Overall it's too frustrating to try and get through a lot of the meat of the game or even to just kind of relax and see where it takes you. Because you're always fighting with the controls. It's nostalgic, thoughtful, morbid, and has a lot of really interesting things to say, but my tolerance for going back to it after it crashes is low.

I've been wanting to write a review for this game ever since I finished it a few days ago. Actually, I've been thinking about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it.
I could never really come up with the right words, if I'm being honest. Even know, I hold so much love for this game, I can't even express it.

It's a buggy mess. Getting from one place to another can be frustrating. Things are easy to miss, sometimes confusing. But I utterly, horribly adore Beeswing. It made me feel as if I was talking to an old friend, only that I had never met this friend before.

I remember playing it in one sitting, only stopping at some point because I realised I was crying a bit. Not because something particularly sad happened (although there's some heart-breaking stuff in there) but because the story I was experiencing suddenly made me feel very raw and vulnerable.

I've grown up in a town like Beeswing and I only faintly remember all the people I've met there, even though they used to mean the world to me. I wonder where they're now and I kinda wonder what I could ever say to them to make up for all the time I haven't been thinking about them. So many lives that I didn't get to share with them.

I think I'm gonna hug my friends a bit more tightly next time I see them.

Eu amo a filosofia de design de jogo museu que J-King Spooner traz nos seus jogos.
Dessa vez, diferente de Dujanah, tive uma sensação de estar num museu pessoal e íntimo.
Como se navegássemos por memórias, medos e pensamentos de uma pessoa/ personagem.
Claro, por se tratar de uma obra bem autoral, imagino que parte desses pensamentos podem refletir no autor... ou talvez não, nunca vamos saber.
A questão é que a escrita desse jogo é tão íntima que funciona perfeitamente com a proposta e estética do jogo.
É incrível como em cada personagem que aparece, você pode esperar algo completamente novo.
Monólogos que constroem momentos de estranheza, reflexão, medo ou até graça. Sempre construindo personagens passageiros que vão te trazer essa mensagem e pronto, serviram seu propósito e possivelmente não vão voltar.
É incrível como ainda assim, esses personagens são incríveis, curiosos e tão diferentes que parecem ser lembranças, sabe? Como se fossem retratos de personagens que falam sozinhos, mas possuem um carisma nessa introspecção, como se fossem conversas que já tivemos, mas não lembramos exatamente. Como se reconstruíssemos essas pessoas em um sonho, o que faz todo sentido nesse jogo, já que nos sonhos sempre conversamos com nós mesmos.
Enfim, incrível como monólogos criam expressões tão interessantes, ainda de forma autoral e pessoal e como esse jogo te deixa livre para explorar esse museu de uma pessoa só.
Muito interessante!

I think it's important for things to be on time. Do you think so? I don't really know. I know I just said I think that it's important, but in reality, I think that sometimes things are okay being a bit late. When things are late, there's a sense of living to them. As if they have their own schedule and that's why they haven't arrived in time. Lackadaisically beautiful. My cat was late for dinner the other day. Do you think he was busy? Maybe he was. I wonder why.

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Shaving is hard and it hurts your face. But like a lot of things, it just feels right once you get through it. I bet you know that feeling. It's nice to have a clean face, ready for the day ahead of you. So I suppose it's worth getting through the hurt of it. Which isn't to say it doesn't hurt, but it's like the old adage about ripping the band aid off. Though it's not entirely one to one, shaving your face isn't as important to your health as pulling off a band aid, but it does feel good to do. Feeling clean is nice.

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I went to my mother's house again for the first time in quite some time for a gathering recently. It's interesting how little she's changed in spite of how much I have. It's like looking at a time capsule. People are weird when they don't grow much. It makes me feel strange. Since I graduated high school, I have done so much, but I meet some of my former classmates and they're still the same as before. Or, the ways that they've changed just don't surface. It could really be either, you know? Maybe others think it's weird how similar I am to how I used to be, how I haven't changed. I like to think that. I like to think that others think of me and care.

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I have a piano in my room that I haven't played in years, but I would like to try playing again. There's just not enough time. I focus more on my writing than anything else. Sometimes I wonder what I would do with more time. I don't even think I'd play the piano more, as much as I would like to. I think I would just write more. Isn't that strange? I say I'd do something with more time, but I don't actually end up doing that. I wonder how many things I've thought like that.

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A snapshot of life
Still as the gentle water
A beating heart lives

there should be more games like this. handcrafted watercolor collage landscapes and interiors which feel like someone rifled through old paintings kept in a drawer somewhere, reliving moments from their life with emotions potent, amplified through soft tones of bleeding pigment. mistakes and rough edges aren't flaws - they make the images alive. music emanates from the heart veiled just behind this gentle canvas, connecting with yours. revealing yours, pushing the mess of daily life aside to bring all the pain and joy you've known into relief. the most comforting ache. if love can be a video game...

I’m going to level with you: I don’t really know what Beeswing is trying to say. There’s a couple of overarching narratives which are thoughtfully executed in their own ways, and a few locations you can explore to encounter a more self-contained story within these other narratives. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these (exploring the retirement home nearly brought me to tears) but I struggle to identify what, if anything, ties together all of the ideas this game throws at you.

It seems to be more of a memoir than anything else, so my best guess is that the lack of cohesion is sort of the point. It’s trying to capture a confusing melancholy its creator felt visiting his hometown, full of others’ stories climaxing with or without his presence. We only get occasional glimpses into the author’s actual memories of the people we meet and the places we go, mostly through what other people reminisce about with him. The town of Beeswing itself, it seems, is growing as distant from him as he is from it.

Accordingly, most of the game is composed of the perspectives of its current residents instead. There’s tons of cleanly-written vignettes hidden away about whatever happens to be on any given character’s mind, and the ones that stuck with me have stuck with me crystal-clear for the 3 months that have passed since I played this game. Many of these start to delve into more surreal territory than you might anticipate (hence why I would hesitate to call it “just” a memoir), and this sort of flexibility in its tone and style feels natural when paired with the variety in its artstyles and the eclectic range of genres spanned by its OST.

If only that stylistic diversity extended to its gameplay, too! It doesn’t ruin the game for me or anything, since the content of the game is extraordinarily well-executed for what it is, but there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to the limited ways you can interact with the game which prevent me from getting immersed beyond a certain point. It makes me feel more like I’m watching the game happen in front of me more than I’m present for it, and I get the sense that alienating feeling isn’t entirely what King-Spooner was going for. I don’t really know how to solve this kinda crippling issue in any way, but then again I’m the idiot who doesn’t get what it’s saying in the first place.

A game that plays like you're reliving old memories, like a kind of nostalgia. Not as sweet as it is potent, but calming and pastoral in a way that I desperately needed.
Essentially, you explore the town where the dev (Jack King-Spooner) grew up, or at least that's what it seems to be, framed as a dream he's having. In the dream, he goes back home to Beeswing (the name of the town, not some bizarre swing for bees), says hi to his old neighbors, and talks to the people living there now. You've got a todo list of people to see and places to visit, and once you're done with that you're done with the game.
It's not a very long game (~3 hours) and it's more like a visual novel in a lot of ways, though it's more explorey than those tend to be.
Whatever it is, I liked it. A lot. The visuals are fantastic, the writing is impeccable, and the soundtrack is low-key and tactile in a way that transcends mood for straight emotion, though its not an emotion I can place.
If you like any of Jack King-Spooner's other games you'll like this one, and if you don't like them this one isn't liable to change your mind. Anyways, if you wanna give a really artsy, rather grounded game a try, this is a good one to start with

Almost a year later Thaw was looking through a drawer when he found a letter in his mother’s handwriting. It was written very faintly in pencil and was a rough draft of a letter she probably never got round to sending. It was superscribed to the correspondence page of a cheap woman’s magazine.

I have enjoyed very much the letters from your readers telling about the funny mistakes some children make. I wonder if you would like to print an experience of mine. When my wee son was six or seven, we left the house one night quite late and were looking up at the stars. Suddenly Duncan said, “Where’s the tractor?” His father had been teaching him the names of the stars, and he had got mixed up with the plough. I have not been very well recently and have had to spend most of the time in bed. I find my main pleasure nowadays in memories like these.

Thaw stood awhile with the letter in his hand. He remembered the night she spoke of. It had been at the hostel in Kinlochrua at Christmas. The family had been going to a concert in the main building, and the question had been asked by Ruth. Mrs. Thaw had always preferred him to Ruth and had unconsciously transferred the incident. He put back the letter and shut the drawer. Grief pulled at an almost unconscious corner of his mind like a puppy trying to attract its master’s attention by tugging the hem of his coat.

Jack King Spooner ha fatto svariati giochi che rientrano in quella comune, seppur ambigua, definizione di "strani". Talvolta, come in Dujanah, purtroppo i dialoghi non sono particolarmente simpatici o interessanti, invece qua ogni conversazione va dal divertente ad una potenziale riflessione personale. Di per sé è un gioco praticamente privo di un gameplay particolare perché tutto consiste nell'interagire con ogni personaggio e leggere quello che hanno da dire. La storia nasce da quello che è un ritorno a casa, si parte dalla propria abitazione in questo paesino scozzese e si finisce per girovagare per tutti gli spazi limitrofi a parlare di teorie complottiste che nascondono disagi interiori ben profondi, navigare in un lago coi cigni, sentire la disperazione di persone a cui nella vita non rimane che ricordare, fino ad esperienze traumatiche. Senza escludere il russo che vuole comprarsi una casa mentre maledice il capo confessando poi di essere un alcolista. Ciò che è realmente incredibile è che così come cambiano le tematiche continuamente anche lo stile cambia, beeswing è un collage stilistico che davvero tiene in considerazione una molteplicità di stili perfettamente eseguiti. Si passa da un fuoco pixellato, a disegni a matita, talvolta con uno stile abbozzato e altre volte con chiari riferimenti all'impressionismo, passando per disegni a pastello e non solo. Va detto che questa varietà può disorientare, ma allo stesso tempo può dare a chiunque lo stile più iconico che difficilmente farà dimenticare questo titolo. Non solo sul disegno però rimane questa varietà, anche sulla musica dove si passa da sound collage al folk e ogni pezzo è perfettamente incastrato con la scena disegnata.
Il pregio principale però ed è ciò che più di tutto mi preme sottolineare è come l'autore rientri in quella corrente di persone che variano di molto la concezione classica di videogioco proponendone una versione come una potenziale nuova pratica per scrivere un diario più interattivo. Questo per me può essere di grossa ispirazione per molti e per questo reputo che un'opera del genere debba essere diffusa il più possibile

What an oddity, that one of the most human games I've ever played is also the most surreal, the most difficult to parse. Yet here we are. Just like Jack intended, I'm sure.
Beeswing is an autobriographical amalgamation of Jack King-Spooner's recollections of his titular hometown, a quiet, rural village in Scotland. It's the sort of place where you know the name of everyone who dies. Where pets are buried in the local cemetery. Where, to this day, you can point out the tree that you used to climb with your childhood friends. And it's all wrapped in an uncanny, beautiful bow. Each person is a silhouette of someone real, a shadow of a few ideas or memories that stuck with the creator after all these years.
The only label that I could possibly think to apply to Beeswing is an almost 'Lynchian' nature. I know readers might laugh and shake their heads at the comparison, but it's the closest thing to it in my mind. The loose, bizarre structure, the entirely unique presentation, and the overarching themes you have to think on.
But, even then, Beeswing sits in a category of its own - and none of the game is easier to swallow for that. I had a pit in my stomach through much of my time with it, for reasons I can't rightly explain. I just felt like I was seeing something that wasn't mine to see. After all, it's a love-letter to a place that likely none of us will ever visit, a series of reminisces that will never be truly, fully understood by anyone but Jack himself. We are merely taking a peek inside his diary, through a kaleidoscopic lense.


SHORT REVIEW
Visuals: 5.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Story: 5.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Worldbuilding: 5.5/5
Overal game score: 5/5 [5.1/5]


IN-DEPTH REVIEW

Visuals:
Beeswing takes life as an arts and craft project, a mixed-media collage of sketches, paintings, clay, and more. Nothing fits together like it should; a lot of the visuals are upsetting because of it, in a visceral sort of way. Fire is strangely pixelated. Jack looks to be simultaneously 10 and 30 in his portrait (most likely intentional, given the context.) Some people are simple pencil drawings, while others are impressionistic digital portraits, and others yet are detailed physical paintings.
There really, truly is nothing like Jack's style within the medium. Even when you think something might look downright bad, it finds a way to add to the charm. A crayon drawing of a boat on water, with ms paint-level clouds and lighting - it's beautiful, in its own way, is it not? This simplicity, this bare bones depiction of a fragment of Jack's past.
The art style won't be for everyone. It's wild, it's messy, it's patched together. But in all that, there emerges a beauty that's beyond the typical crystalline perfection. There's a rawness, a realness that draws you in and drowns you in its nostalgia - a place that's as real as it is fictional.
Overall, 5.5/5.

Sound:
Beeswing's soundtrack is often as disconcertingly pleasing as its art. Both invoke a sense of wonder, their dreamlike qualities accentuating the strange beauty of the village. Within the apparent 'noise' of it all, there are intelligent pieces conveying things difficult to put a finger on. Loneliness, longing, the feeling of being home. The thick piano, the ethereal voices, the plinky acoustic guitar. There is love sewn into every note, as well as deep meaning.
And there is little else to accompany you on your journey. Every step of the way, you are side-by-side with the abstract tunes. They guide you through the village. They set the mood for each individual corner.
Overall, 5/5.

Story:
Identifying a structural "story" within Beeswing is difficult. There is a loose sense of progression, as you cross things off of your to-do list and explore the village to completion, but that isn't really the point. The point is simply to observe a world Jack has left behind.
A large portion of your playtime will be spent talking to various townspeople; each one have something benignly philosophical to say. Many people speak of death, of loss, of missing something that's no longer there - or worrying for when it IS gone. Yet, the tone remains ever-hopeful. Yeah, we're all going to die, but there's so much to appreciate while we're alive. We're going to lose people, but that's why we should cherish every moment with them. Our friends grow apart from us, but there are still good memories to hold dear.
We're going to die, but we're fine.
I really don't know how to aptly put into words Beeswing's writing. It's so poignant in its sharp sense of death, but so loving in its viewing of childhood and existence as a whole. It's not something that can be summed up in a review - or explained by language, really. It's something you just have to experience.
Overall, 5.5/5.

Gameplay:
There is, ostensibly, none to be found. You simply travel the tiny village, you talk to the residents, you witness personal stories and faiths.
And I know that a lot of people harp on "walking simulators", or games with no fail-states, or where the main objective is simply to observe. But I couldn't care less about those criticisms, personally. Yeah, maybe there are times where mechanics could add another layer to those experiences. But sometimes it's okay for games to be basic in that department, for it to pose no challenge, and instead just take you on a journey.
After all, why add them when they aren't needed? No amount of point-and-clicking or puzzles would have done anything for Beeswing. In fact, I think it would have taken away from it. Your short time with the game - where you are focused solely on the writing, aesthetics, and atmosphere - lets the world to stay magical.
So, like... it's fine.
Overall, 4/5.

Worldbuilding:
Beeswing is an abstract viewing of a real place. Beeswing is small. It's quaint. It's quiet, but alive.
It feels like home.
The breathtaking aesthetics, the thought-provoking dialogue, and the obvious personal connection that Jack has to everything within make this game something special.
Every person is dealing with their own crises, an individual slice of existentialism; every conversation is self-contained. There are no secret connections, or even a general sense of cohesion. You are experiencing fragments of a larger picture. Snippets of memories. And that freestanding dialogue makes each interaction feel special. Each take you on their own journey, telling you their own three-minute story. The only continuous threads are the themes of life and death, and the deep emotional blows.
Overall, 5.5/5.

Overall game score: 5/5. Beeswing an overwhelming experience - a beautiful and vaguely nostalgic gut punch wrapped up in two hours. I adore it with all my heart, and I hope that more people give it a chance.

"Some cut off seeing people after a certain time, when the fading is very advanced - they don't want to see that. They don't even go in to look, say, 'cheery oh.' I want to be with her every moment I can."

“The song of the years, the melody of life. Everything else - is not you, all others are strangers. And you yourself, who are you? You don't know. You'll get to know it later, when you string the beads of memory. You'll be what is most endearing, most cruel and most eternal.”

- Sasha Sokolov, School for Fools

Um museu construído através de fragmentos de uma vida. Cada caixinha de texto, uma pedrada. Díficil encontrar mais emoção por metro quadrado do que aqui.

Ainda que extremamente pessoal, seus personagens e galerias representam uma universalidade presente no bizarro gerado a partir do real, quando vistos por imaginativos olhos infantis, criando pontes da Escócia até Minas Gerais, me fazendo sentir que também vivi, em partes, a vida que ele viveu. Sem falar uma palavra, apenas através da forma como se apresenta, também conecta a relação que um tem entre a nebulosa memória da infância e a sobriedade da realidade adulta.


Possui certo atrito um pouco desagradável devido aos bugs/crashes e controles um pouco frustrantes. Só tome o cuidado de salvar constantemente.

I've knocked a half star off for the six times a glitch caused me to have to reopen the game within three hours and for the two story aspects that required having to do things in a particular order with no indication that this was the case, but otherwise this game is absolutely charming!!!

It's such a love letter to the past, soft and nostalgic and overflowing with care. It got straight to my heart. I also couldn't help but smile when one of the characters spoke of where my Scottish ancestors also came from. 💙

Slow, sleepy, full of heart. Some people didn't like it for its themes are quite in your face, but these honest reflections did nothing but make me appreciate how candid the whole game feels! It's definitely worth a play through.

I've never played a game quite like this, something so heartfelt and wholeheartedly philosophical. This make me feel things that no other game ever has. The musings are thoughtful but not pretentious, the pitfall I find many 'deep' games fall into. I felt as though I was reading someones diary, someone who had poured their heart and soul into it after keeping these thoughts and feelings bottled up for years.The visuals and music are prominently handmade in a way that adds to this feeling. This title changed my entire perception on what can make something a masterpiece.

Really pretty game! It's full of very personal experiences that I can't really relate to, but I appreciate regardless. NPCs spouting long winded philosophical discussions tired me out after a while, and the conclusion of the "get help for" quests was kind of disappointing even if I was already expecting you wouldn't really be able to do that in a meaningful way since it's a grounded setting. I really liked the TV and Beatrice events, and the museum in the city had a nice vibe. Only got softlocked in one place.

beeswing works how i think memory would work without all the things we collect in our heads to cloud it up. i would explain it as all the parts of (jack king spooner’s) life all stuffed into one thing/space, a bunch of thought-time-ghosts given form. things and places are representations of physical sensory recollection but also emblems of certain aspects of the world, certain ways of being: so much is communicated through these short monologues, these bits of flavor text, these snatches of first-person anecdote, banging around with all the other communications of everyone you’ve spoken to in the gameworld.

there’s a lot to say formally about the audiovisual part (janky edges like the point where the memory cuts off, soft watercolors and bristly pencil scratch, how naturally it blends from space to space while bridging impossible gaps) but i really like the parts where it does something totally out of left field, like the claymation part: these moments of visual shock remind me of the extraordinary nature of things and places, the power packed in the most quotidian gestures.

i really admire the sort of stoic approach to depicting the act of living from all these different angles, obviously there’s an agenda because it’s art made by a person, explicitly framed from that person’s perspective, but it’s polyphonic in a way very little art is, it often barely feels like an art-object because there’s so much respect for the testimony and autonomy of the people/things/places around you. and the game is a remarkable testimony itself, a conversation with a fascinating stranger: there’s a constant sense of “these things happened” “he was here” “now i have been here”. it’s earnest in a way artists rarely allow themselves to be without turning it into a performance of earnestness. he lays what he’s seen, heard, felt on the table and lets you take what you like.

Beeswing sketches the corners and boundaries of empathy from a string of memories. It's about a lot of things, and it is all of them effortlessly. Its art is warm and welcoming, its wit cold, drab, but real.

Also, when I was unable to find the final bullet-point on Beeswing's short but worthwhile list of people to see and things to do, I hit up the dev and he sent me a in-game screenshot postcard with the location written on it.

Thank you Jack! Also this game is wonderful.

"A good tree has victims".
Stare close enough at the screen and you start to see the human hands appreciatively building every one of Beeswing's vignettes. I was thoroughly not expecting a game to understand, to so deftly and honestly articulate grief, nostalgia and mending. Beeswing is just honest, It’s not trying to impress anyone or manipulate them into feeling something, it simply wishes to exist - just as its inhabitants live quietly near and far from their loved ones, opening up to anyone who'll listen. Beeswing isn’t sad, but it isn’t happy either. It recounts the lives of (I assume) people the developer knew growing up with a plain biographical melancholy that is difficult to properly explain. I’m so used to media recounting horrible events, making me depressed for the sake of a narrative that’s supposed to mean something. But Beeswing never tried to bring me down, in fact it’s so clean in its indifference to how the player feels that it would seem cold if not for how tangible and raw the things it says and the way it shows you them are. A recurring motif in this game in itself is this kind of honesty, not necessarily to "make the most" of our limited time on this earth, but to live true - to yourselves and others, as it's the greatest way to reciprocate love.