Get honey, get paid in charming beekeeping sim Apico

About a year ago we spotted Apico, a pretty cool lookin' game about beekeeping and conservation. It's now out, properly released and all that, and looks a delight. There's a demo you can play that takes you through the first few hours of the game.

In Apico you're a beekeeper and conservationist whose job is to collect, breed, and conserve varieties of bees. It's a game of resource gathering, bee biology, little minigames, and the like—it's neat, all about not just taking of the bees but understanding the distribution of flowering plants that bees need to survive. It takes "ideas from a mix of real-life and fantasy apiculture & floriculture" say the developers.

All this takes place across an archipelago of adorable islands. While it's one of those "leave your boring city job behind" games, I'll note it's less Stardew Valley and more free range beekeeping adventure. This one's about the bees, not the buzz around town. (I'm sorry.)

The developers of Apico will put part of the income from sales towards national and international beekeeping charities. You can find Apico on Epic Games, Humble, itch.io, Steam, and Utomik. You can also check out its website, the adorably named apico.buzz.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.