Apico is a laid-back beekeeping sim game about breeding, collecting and conserving bees. Leave your boring city job behind to return to your family home in Port Apico and get back to your beekeeping roots. Set in a series of lush environments, Apico uniquely combines resource gathering, biology, and beekeeping minigames, taking ideas from a mix of real-life and fantasy apiculture and floriculture. On your journey you'll rediscover lost species, cross-breed new bees, and help repopulate the islands...

The learning curve for Apico is steep

Apico combines resource gathering, biology, and minigames with ideas from both real-life and fantasy beekeeping and gardening, as it teaches players about the ins-and-outs of maintaining a healthy hive and the importance of our irreplaceable pollinating pals. The islands of Apico were once abuzz with different species of bees, and it’s up to players to rediscover lost species, cross-breed new ones, and repopulate each unique bee-ome.

The learning curve for Apico is steep, but there's a handy book that acts as a text-based guide that helps you to quickly master the basics. Every time you read a page and complete its task you'll unlock an item of use. At first the game is a little daunting, unless you're a huge fan of RPG/Sim games. But it's important to not rush ahead. If you complete each task from the guide then everything soon slots into place.

Learn about beekeeping maintaining a healthy hive

Graphically there's nothing much to get excited about and it looks not dissimilar to an updated Gameboy Advance offering from the turn of the century, but the graphics aren't overly important as it's the gameplay that's the most important element and it's surprising how many hours you can sink into this without realising.

The game offers cross-play on all platforms, allowing you to play with up to four co-op online.

If you're craving a new sim game which will challenge you then Apico is definitely worth picking up. It's cheap and it's incredibly entertaining.

9

Nick Smithson