Oh honey, APICO has all the fixins of a good and relaxing farming sim, but with bees! You have an inventory system that allows you to multitask without wasting time or restricting your options. There are little-to-no penalties for playing however you want, whenever you want. The soundtrack is so soothing and laid back that you'll put viewers and bees to sleep. And, there exists an element of surprise within the gameplay loop of beekeeping, breeding bees, and discovering bees that can keep you playing into the wee hours of the morning and can be disabled if you wish to leave less gameplay up to chance. Despite the gigantic tutorial (that could admittedly use some tightening up for new players) and the lack of deep story/community-building that you may expect from other popular farming sims, it is SO easy for one to lose track of time and relax in the bee-pun filled world of APICO. Give APICO some time -- it's an absolute hit, and I'm SO EXCITED to see it grow.
Farming simulations are fun games when done right–especially when the “chore” of maintaining a homestead becomes second-nature to the primary goal of something bigger. In Stardew Valley, all my hours spent on my (several) farms and in the mines were for the purpose of restoring the community center. During my summers off from grad school, I found solace in playing games that relied upon systematic micromanagement and rewarded planning ahead and utilizing resources efficiently, and Stardew hit that sweet spot. In 2022, I find myself craving that routinized micromanagement again, but I want something more laid back. Thankfully, I came across APICO, and I’m thrilled to say that my cravings for stability and routine are being fulfilled. I promised our head honcho Nathan that I wouldn’t be too punny in this beekeeping review, but I shouldn’t bee making promises I am unable to beekeep. Heh.
Without blabb-ee-ing about, APICO is a charming and laidback beekeeping simulator that rewards curiosity, exploration, and goodwill. With cute and simple graphics, pun-filled dialogue, and laid-back gameplay, I can confidently say that APICO stands apart from most other sims I’ve played recently. Starting out in APICO was admittedly the most overwhelming part, especially compared to other farming sims. Upon arriving at my new beekeeping farm, Nana Beelia gave me a journal that functioned as a laundry list of tasks to complete and acclimate myself with APICO’s gameplay. This little taskbook was not linear and seemingly gigantic simply because of the sheer number of tasks that were available and locked until I completed some (but not all) of the earlier quests.
Some of these beekeeping instructions were not the most intuitive at first, as I felt stumped on how some of the mechanisms functioned. Once I built an apiary, I was given a Rehabeelitator without much of an explanation of its use. I discovered later that it was simply there to help me get rid of extra bees that I didn’t need and reintroduce them into the wild. When I successfully bred my first bee mutation, I felt a bit lost on how to create more of these specific mutations without accidentally creating additional hybrids. Should I just put it in a beehive and see what happens? Or should I save it until I made another to ensure that I had exactly two? (I learned later that I could put it in a beehive with any other bee without worry.) Some firmer guidance along a linear path would have made my introduction to the game less confusing.
The saving grace of this learning experience is that you cannot “lose” in APICO. You cannot lose at all. Unlike in Stardew Valley, which restricts your activities based on the time of day and your character’s energy, your beekeeper character can move about at any time of day without concern of running out of energy or losing items. Sure, some events happen in specific times of the day, but you’re not penalized for being out too late, and you can use a bench/bed to help time progress if all of your bees are asleep (yes, most of your bees need their sleep!). The worst thing that can happen during this learning experience is that you’ll maybe waste a few minutes trying to figure out a process, but once you learn it, you’re good to go.
To say that beekeeping is the main goal of APICO would be glossing over the finer gameplay mechanisms within. Sure, you can also build small dwellings. But, the draw of this game is the granular simulation of fostering bee communities and reintroducing “extinct” bees back into our world. It’s wholesome, educational, and soothing all at once.
Beekeeping comes down to two core gameplay loops: Raising and breeding bees and then harvesting their products. Breeding bees is simple when you start APICO: There are several beehives scattered around your world that you interact with to create self-sustaining populations by moving queens into empty beehives. Once you create an apiary, you can then crossbreed these bees into hybrid queens. If you create a predictor, you can preview what kinds of mutated bees can emerge from a hybrid queen in a little Punnett Square. Remember learning about that in middle school?
Having the Punnett Square as a guide is a smart way to educate players into the fundamentals of breeding without being too heavy handed on the education front. If you see a black bee outline when using the predictor, that is a hint that keeping your hybrid queen in the apiary would result in a new mutation! By default, you have a chance of creating a new mutation in your apiary, as each offspring that comes from a hybrid queen has a 50% chance to be a mutation, so long as you meet the requirements that may or may not be obvious.
This mutation gameplay lever is a nice way of introducing random chance and surprise in-game. Back when I played Pokemon Silver in middle school, I would put two non-Ditto pokemon into the day care to see which Pokemon would hatch out of the egg. In APICO, being surprised by successfully mutating a bee is fun at first, especially when the first few mutations lack rigid requirements. Later on, I began to experience some frustration when I couldn’t successfully breed a bee mutation that only appeared at dusk/dawn. Luckily, an accessibility setting exists to force a mutation by checking if the condition (if applicable) is met and removing the 50% chance for a mutation on a per-offspring basis. Despite beeing annoyed when I couldn’t get the mutations I wanted, I was hooked on discovering and raising bees until the wee hour of the morning. Whoops! In this review, I avoided using the forced mutation setting until I spent several in-game days trying (and failing) at making a mutation.
I cannot believe I’m saying this, but APICO’s default inventory management system is top notch. This isn’t to say that inventory management is required of you, but it’s a refreshing experience coming from hours of DEATH STRANDING and Stardew Valley. The items you acquire can be placed…anywhere. The tools and machines you make can be moved…anywhere. If you’re within a reasonable distance, you can have multiple inventory screens open at the same time and interact with them all at once. Some act as simply input-output devices, others allow you to interact with them with little clicking and dragging minigames. No longer are you tasked with walking to a chest to pick an item, and then walking to a tool with the item, and then walking back to your chest. For instance, I had a beehive next to my Apiary (to create hybrid bees!), which happened to be next to a Rehabeelitator, along with a box. By standing near all three of them, I could open up the beehive to retrieve a bee, place it into the apiary, and then move a bee that was already in the apiary into the Rehabeelilitator.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that each inventory window can be accessed anywhere on the map. You have to be standing relativelt nearby. This system is also something that is PC-friendly, as I don’t see how it would be feasible to simultaneously interact with and move around multiple inventory windows on a console. But, once you get used to your preferred beekeeping loop, your activities will feel less like chores and more like streamlined processes with some minigames. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, the accessibility menu has a toggle that automates these minigames.
I would like to say that APICO is not entirely solitary experience, but…it will feel like you’re alone with your bees for the majority of the time. There are some NPCs closeby who can offer you guidance and hints in case you are stumped on how to proceed, like your Nana Beelia and Dr. Beenjamin BhD. Skipper is a merchant who exchanges your bee products into the in-game currency Rubees and Honeycore, like Skipper. I cannot help but feel like I wanted more from these NPCs, as they were written to be relatively unique. Additional sidequests beyond the notice board would have been nice, as another opportunity to interact with these characters beyond rubee-related relations feels entirely transactional and less interpersonal than other sims, like Stardew Valley.
APICO’s original soundtrack by Mothense is very soothing, albeit intermittent. Before starting this review, I came across the soundtrack when one of my Twitter colleagues shared a Spotify playlist, and I couldn’t help but notice how it fit right in with other LoFi songs. Mothense’s original songs blend traditional instruments with synthetic sounds, and they all sound so good as you go about your beekeeping and add an additional layer of tranquility to your world. My only complaint is that these songs do not loop as you play. I was occasionally let down when a song ended and all I could hear were the natural sounds (which, I must say, were soothing, too). When I streamed this game during the review period, one of my viewers messaged me post-stream and told me that he fell asleep while I was going about my bee-siness. I’ve even listening to it while working on other things, too!
I’m happy to say that TNgineers have included multiplayer and mod support in APICO. While I did not test out multiplayer or any mods during the review period, supporting these features so early on in the game’s release is such a good sign. I cannot wait to see what kinds of mods and new features come from community involvement through modding APICO, as the game is quite fun as it is.
Oh honey, APICO has all the fixins of a good and relaxing farming sim, but with bees! You have an inventory system that allows you to multitask without wasting time or restricting your options. There are little-to-no penalties for playing however you want, whenever you want. The soundtrack is so soothing and laid back that you’ll put viewers and bees to sleep. And, there exists an element of surprise within the gameplay loop of beekeeping, breeding bees, and discovering bees that can keep you playing into the wee hours of the morning and can be disabled if you wish to leave less gameplay up to chance. Despite the gigantic tutorial (that could admittedly use some tightening up for new players) and the lack of deep story/community-building that you may expect from other popular farming sims, it is SO easy for one to lose track of time and relax in the bee-pun filled world of APICO. Give APICO some time — it’s an absolute hit, and I’m SO EXCITED to see it grow.
