Beelines by raysplaceinspace

[raw]
made by raysplaceinspace for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

Collect pollen as fast as possible by drawing beelines. An interactive lesson in combinatorial optimization, taught by bees.

This is an HTML5 game hosted on Easel, please go to this link to play: https://easel.games/@raysplaceinspace/beelines

Screenshot 2025-10-06 at 11.34.49 PM.png

Made using my own game engine Easel. All artwork and music created originally for this game specifically.

Ratings

Overall 126th 3.909⭐ 57🧑‍⚖️
Fun 226th 3.62⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 73th 3.918⭐ 57🧑‍⚖️
Theme 54th 4.296⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 323th 3.824⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Audio 228th 3.566⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Mood 170th 3.917⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Given 43🗳️ 77🗨️

Feedback

birofio
Oct 06th · 10:32 UTC
cute game, it matches the theme, the charachters are cute, and i just like the game. its very fun!
🎤 raysplaceinspace
Oct 06th · 10:38 UTC
Thank you for playing! Good luck with your game-making!
zexurge
Oct 06th · 12:16 UTC
love the collborative artistic vibes
AncientEntity
Oct 07th · 05:20 UTC
impressed by the custom engine, I've done some jams in an engine of my own and it's always nice to see others who do too.
breadstick
Oct 07th · 05:20 UTC
I absolutely love the visuals in this game--the glowing lines are so pleasant to look at!

Fun optimization puzzle, too... traveling salesbee problem. Super interesting and unique take on the theme... nicely done!

1m39 ended up my best run, but I could probably (maybe?) improve if I tooled at it a few more runs
MrBamboo
Oct 07th · 05:21 UTC
Nice job! I love games with high scores!
poboy
Oct 07th · 05:33 UTC
Gorgeous visuals, very pleasing. I'll have to try your game engine sometime!
Nallekari
Oct 07th · 05:40 UTC
It looks nice and I like the theme quite a bit. Sometimes I couldn't choose a new bee to give directions to and just gave previous bee a new path which made things little bit frustrating. Overall left me with a positive feeling! :)
SirRed
Oct 07th · 14:28 UTC
Reminds me of the old airplane control tower mobile games so I liked it a lot. I would have liked it a bit more hectic with faster bees for more multitasking when planning their movement
tiwe_me_ruu
Oct 07th · 20:34 UTC
An interesting game with a cute design, it's really cool that there is a rating system that motivates you to play again.
finnreimann
Oct 07th · 22:52 UTC
Very nice little game. Love the simple design and the randomized gameplay. Couldnt stop playing till i was at least third place :D bzzzzzz
MrV
Oct 07th · 23:45 UTC
just very nicе. I like that you even have a personal website and a leaderboard, and I'm in third place!)
Derek Glennon
Oct 08th · 01:17 UTC
A fun little moody collection game. Really enjoyed it. Love that there is a leaderboard too. Graphics and Audio were nice. Great work!
OrdiNeu
Oct 08th · 01:25 UTC
Whoa, incredibly cool idea. I like how the leaderboard keeps you coming back for another go, to see if you can do better next time.
csuth17
Oct 08th · 01:26 UTC
having a leaderboard makes this so addicting, very well done
red
Oct 08th · 01:29 UTC
Really cool that you made it in your own engine! It was an interesting idea playing around with the efficiency of the paths. I think if anything I'd like to see the bees move a little faster.
ehtd
Oct 08th · 04:24 UTC
Simple but fun
zactyl
Oct 08th · 04:37 UTC
Thanks for uploading! This game was a little addicting! Having a leaderboard really stoked my competitive fire and kept me trying for better and better times, and the game is short and sweet enough to make it feel worth replaying several times over. There's a part of me that wishes the hitboxes were a little more forgiving though - there were a couple times I felt like I drew over a piece of pollen, only to look back and see it all by its lonesome with all my bees flying away. The visuals were simple, but very effective with the soft glowing, and the music was a bop. Looking forward to seeing what else you can make with your custom engine!
Kinnerk
Oct 08th · 04:38 UTC
Excellent Game. Just short enough to warrant playing multiple times to chase that high score and improve your strategy. Sometimes it feels a bit unlucky with the flower spawns, but I guess that's just the nature of random gen. I really enjoy the play pattern of quickly making slap dash patterns for the bees at first with quick surveil of the map and then taking the time to do it more efficiently as they start moving.
VPro
Oct 08th · 06:55 UTC
That's a surprisingly great entry! At first I thought it was a well punt together meditative experience but then you start to want to optimize, change routes mid-plan, try not to make bees paths overlap... I ended up playing a lot more than I had anticipated. Really great job!
zelew
Oct 08th · 10:29 UTC
so cute bees!!!
JuicyBrucey
Oct 08th · 11:34 UTC
With such a short playtime I did find myself having quite a few attempts at a high score, though i'd usually miss 1 pollen and ruin the run's chances 😔
Lovely little game, will be taking a closer look at Easel in future
Lazarus Richardson
Oct 08th · 11:48 UTC
I like how relaxing it is. I also like that there's a certain strategy to getting the most pollen out of the bees' paths.
humnyn
Oct 08th · 11:48 UTC
Lovely little game! Fun interpretation of the theme and cool that you've made it in your own engine as well :robot:
Colouredshoes
Oct 08th · 12:01 UTC
Cute, cozy and slow-paced. Leaderboard was a good idea indeed!
F2_
Oct 08th · 15:25 UTC
Lovely game. Highscore is a great way to increase the replay value.
LDJam user 233347
Oct 08th · 16:46 UTC
Very enjoable game reminding me of our LDJam 56 entry.
JOrbits
Oct 08th · 23:58 UTC
Very nice experience. Simple idea, but well executed and fits the theme well.
Pimeko
Oct 09th · 00:45 UTC
Very nice visuals and animations! Simple yet complex gameplay, and even more with the online competition feature :)
Ciphereo
Oct 09th · 13:07 UTC
A very interesting game, cute designed.
JPGFG
Oct 09th · 15:42 UTC
I love pathfinding mechanics, so this is a really cool simulation. I love the presentation of the data as well, to find an optimized pollen route is I think really cool.

Also the visuals are super appropriate and well placed.

Great entry!
HexStart
Oct 09th · 16:45 UTC
I really like how good the line drawing feels! I think it's the kind of feature that could easily end up janky, but the way it splits into segments and snaps to points really makes a difference. I enjoyed the game in general, although at first I thought it's going to have multiple, puzzle-ish levels instead of a single high-score level. The speed of the game was appropriate for the most part, although it did drag a bit in the final 20% sometimes, if I missed some pollen. Pretty good job overall. Also, it's quite impressive that you have your own engine and language.
Trevor Mäe
Oct 09th · 20:15 UTC
Absolutely loved everything about this game. My favorite so far!
AldenWitt
Oct 09th · 22:34 UTC
Interesting game. Simple yet surprisingly challenging.
I'd have loved some audio feedback on pickups, but I like the soundtrack - nice and vibey, and well-mixed. lovely warm pads and very chill kick! Does a lot to set the tone of the game
well done!
Tesseract
Oct 10th · 20:35 UTC
This was a great game. Dividing attention between the different things (the small scale questions of which order to visit flowers, and the larger questions of which regions of flowers can / should each bee visit) is tricky but fun.


It would be interesting to know what the optimal score for an average map is; I assume it's much better than anyone's achieved.
🎤 raysplaceinspace
Oct 10th · 21:19 UTC
@poboy yes I've been making Easel (my engine) for 3 years now and would love more people to try it!

@trevor-mae your favourite so far! That's high praise, thank you!

@breadstick "travelling salesbee problem" haha yes! I think light and glowing always makes games look really good so it's one of the things I made sure to build into Easel when I was making it.

@red @kinnerk @vpro @lazarus-richardson @pimeko @jpgfg @tesseract yes I love how the optimization of paths is an infinitely deep problem yet looks so simple!

@sirred interesting comparison to the airplane control games!

@mrbamboo @csuth17 @mrv @ordineu @zactyl @derek-glennon @colouredshoes @f2 @tiwe-me-ruu yes I love leaderboards because it means you can asynchronously interact with other humans, and I think that adds another layer of meaning to the game!

@finnreimann haha well done but I think someone else has probably taken your 3rd place by now!

@aldenwitt that's really nice hearing this from someone who understands music. I think music is vitally important to games and sometimes with slow-paced games like this it makes the whole game. I actually only had 12 hours to make this game because I started really late, and the whole time I was worried I would run out of time to do the music, but turns out I had a few hours at the end of the day for it, which I'm glad for.

@hexstart yes I wanted to have just a little bit of snapping but not too much because bees are organic and freeform and can go anywhere and I wanted it to feel that way!

@juicybrucey haha yes it's all about not missing even 1 pollen

@anciententity well done on making your own engine, that's always hard!

@nallekari @birofio @humnyn @zexurge @ehtd @zelew @xparker @jorbits @ciphereo thanks for playing and good luck with your game-making and your entries!
Kalbshack
Oct 10th · 22:11 UTC
Simple gameloop but still very catching. Made it 2nd place yay
LesDremlet
Oct 11th · 10:02 UTC
Such a nice and chill game! I really loved how the path snaps to the points when you're drawing it, and the path's shader is gorgeous. The music is great too and never lets you get bored. Excellent work!
6Knowledge
Oct 12th · 09:00 UTC
Not much to say on the gameplay, very simple and to the point. Graphics and audio fit the game nicely, and the only thing that I noted was the fact there was no highlight on the selected bee. Drew quite a few weird paths because sometimes the selecting just didn't work.
jacobingalls
Oct 12th · 22:32 UTC
Really like the chill vibe. A very unique take on the theme! I like it a lot!
LDJam user 243193
Oct 13th · 07:51 UTC
Nice pollen collection game! It could be expanded with twists but this will do for the jam.
LDJam user 243193
Oct 13th · 07:51 UTC
Nice pollen collection game! It could be expanded with twists but this will do for the jam.
Wallted
Oct 16th · 02:00 UTC
Such a fine game. The looks is extremely simple, yet extremely effective. The leaderboard is the bullseye, it made me realize 'huh, so this mechanic can be optimized that far?' And I tried more :) (failing miserably, I will not be queen bee :smile:)
Yatsu
Oct 16th · 18:35 UTC
It's a very fun game. I like the fact that you made a one-time game, but adding a leaderboard made me play the game three times. This is a very good way to keep players engaged.
Fractal
Oct 18th · 11:18 UTC
Really good game! It’s both simple and challenging, especially seeing the high scores and trying to beat them! And well polished as well, well done!
Luderik
Oct 21st · 12:54 UTC
It's impressive how such a simple game concept can Bee so much fun. Very polished, simple, and brilliant!