Tragedy is a form of drama that portrays the downfall of a character or characters, often due to a tragic flaw or a combination of external circumstances and internal conflict. Tragedies often explore themes such as fate, free will, morality, and the human condition. They can be emotionally intense and thought-provoking, and often leave a lasting impact on the audience. In real life, tragedy refers to any event that causes great suffering, loss, or misfortune, such as natural disasters, accidents, or personal tragedies such as the loss of a loved one. Tragedy can be difficult to cope with, but it can also inspire resilience and compassion.

⏰ In a rush? Don't worry, I gotchu'! ⏰

Pros:
✅ Educational and Fun: Combines realistic bee simulation with entertaining gameplay, providing factual information about bees while keeping it engaging.
✅ Storyline and Setting: Features a story set in a near-identical version of Central Park, with players embodying a newborn bee tasked with collecting pollen for the hive.
✅ Bee Vision: Offers an educational mechanic that lets players identify high-quality pollen and unlocks encyclopaedia entries with detailed information about flowers.
✅ Mini-Games: Includes various mini-games such as races, bee communication dances mimicking Simon Says, and rhythm-based combat, adding variety to the gameplay.
✅ Relaxing Exploration: Exploring the park is a relaxing experience, complemented by a good soundtrack and sound effects that enhance the immersive environment.
✅ Customization: Unlockable hats and new bee skins, each with educational information, add a fun layer of customization.

Cons:
❌ Visual Presentation: Graphics can appear washed-out, and human characters move robotically, detracting from the visual appeal.
❌ Control Sensitivity: Controls can be imprecise, especially during races, making these mini-games frustrating due to the need for precision.
❌ Short Main Story: The main narrative is brief, potentially leaving players wanting more substantial content.

🐝 Simulating Fun: The Buzz Begins

Simulators tend to be experiences that focus on realism. After all, they have "simulator" in the title. However, since the release of Goat Simulator, this trend has diminished, and these titles have started to focus more on fun and less on simulation, often with a more sandbox style. Bee Simulator reveals itself to be the best of both worlds: it both simulates and provides factual information about bees, while also knowing how to be a game and entertain. But is this the ultimate Maya the Bee simulator everyone has been waiting for?

🌳 Central Park Chronicles

Unlike many offerings in the genre, Bee Simulator has a story, and it takes place in a near-identical version of Central Park in Manhattan. Inside a tree, there is a hive, and it is there that the player embodies a newborn bee. Shortly after, we understand what its main function is: collect enough pollen at the queen's command for the good of the entire community. This objective, repeated several times during the narrative, is completed by flying close to various flowers. What is taught during the activity is that some have better quality pollen than others, and through a button, we enter a kind of bee vision that allows us to identify the best alternatives. Due to the educational nature of the game, it is also worth noting that, by passing by an unknown flower, an entry in the encyclopaedia is unlocked with detailed information about it.

🎮 Mini-Game Madness

In addition to the main story, which is short in duration, there are various mini-games scattered throughout the central park. There are races to complete, and these are sometimes the hardest barrier to overcome in Bee Simulator due to the sensitivity and lack of precision of the controls. Another mini-game details how bees communicate with each other, done through a dance that mimics the popular children's game Simon Says. The combat mode is also an activity, performed by entering rhythm commands to attack and defend. Outside of this spectrum, exploring the park is a relaxing moment, accompanied by a good soundtrack and sound effects that bring the world around this little bee to life.

🌺 Visuals and Vibrations

But all of Bee Simulator’s good intentions to educate do not save it from its flaws. Despite its smoothness even in portable mode, its presentation suffers significantly from a washed-out look in many scenarios, and human characters appear almost robotic in movement. Controlling the bee in the park is indeed relaxing, but it also proves to be frustrating when restricted to an activity like the racing mini-game, where the smallest mistake requires starting over. However, none of this prevents enjoying the game overall through good performance during various activities, unlocking adorable hats and new skins from different bee species (with information about them too!).

🏆 Family Fun and Flaws

Thus, Bee Simulator presents itself as a great game for kids, grown-ups, and the whole family. It demonstrates that it is possible to be educational and fun at the same time, despite harbouring flaws that prevent its latent potential from fully blooming. Even so, Maya the Bee would surely be proud.

🌟 M I S C 🌟

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◻️ ⚠️ Review originally written for FNintendo (defunct website) and published on December 25th, 2019.
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◻️ 📜 Review Number 013

✨ F I N ✨

Bee Simulator takes yet a different approach when it comes to "simulator" games. Some take the silly/comical approach (i.e. Goat Simulator), some of them the realistic approach (i.e. Euro Truck Simulator) but Bee Simulator takes a more educational approach on how important are bees and their function in the ecosystem combined with simple controls and animated characters that can talk to each other. This puts the game on a different and strange stance in terms of being a "simulator" game.

Graphics are serviceable for what the game is trying to convey, for the most part is comprised of colorful environments based in the open world (limited) park setting the game takes place. The game features a narrator and some voice acting to move the "story" along and teach the player quick facts about the importance of bees in nature either via audio and/or loading screens. Gameplay revolves in flying in the limited open world area of the game performing fetch quests, fighting sequences (via QTEs), partaking in sequence memorization mini-games, and collecting pollen. These gameplay elements are not very polished and feel very basic in how they were developed and become repetitive rather quickly.

It's hard placing a score for this game...on one hand as a proper game it doesn't offer anything special and gameplay becomes repetitive very quickly so I'd say it's probably below average. However, if we can take into account the educational aspect of the game and the easy-to-pick-up and-play controls along with the vibrant graphics and presentation, this is actually a decent 'learning' game for young ones.

According to all known laws
of aviation,
:
there is no way a bee
should be able to fly.
:
Its wings are too small to get
its fat little body off the ground.
:
The bee, of course, flies anyway
:
because bees don't care
what humans think is impossible.

You're a bee and you can wear hats. Do I need to say more?

For an educational tool, this was silly and fun. I'm surprised I didn't feel any motion sickness from a camera following a flying bee. You could finish the story and some exploration in two hours. I couldn't resist the achievements so that's why my time is longer.

You're a bee and you gather pollen for your hive. There's a glossary that can tell you more about animals, insects, flowers, etc you see in the game. You can earn points to buy skins, hats, and path animations. There are side quests and mini games to explore. The map is surprisingly large and you can fast travel right from your menu.

The negative is the gameplay and bugs (achievements are buggy, not insect bugs). The gameplay will get repetitive if you're trying to collect all feats. It doesn't add anything new. Most of the extra challenges are mini games like racing and fighting. The bugs are bad enough to stop you from collecting certain feats/achievements unless you can start a new game (like I had to) or mess with the game codes to fix it. If you don't care about 100% then it's not a big deal.