Son of Bees or Bees Knees?

January 10, 2005 4:25 PM

Son of Bees or Bees Knees? Looks like the Halo crowd may have uncovered another I Love Bees or maybe just the Bees Knees?
posted by metameme (25 comments total)

Looks like the fine folks over at Unfiction have already started a thread on the game here (some spoilers for the puzzles already, fyi). It seems too amateurish to be an official game of any sort, but maybe I'm just being a pessimist.
posted by mmcg at 4:37 PM on January 10, 2005

I thought so too but then someone pointed out to me that ILB started out as a crappy blogspot page. So, I'm curious.
posted by metameme at 4:44 PM on January 10, 2005

Well crappy blogspot or not, the execution was a bit different, wasn't it? No slick flash opening animation, at any rate...
posted by Tikirific at 4:48 PM on January 10, 2005

Sorry, I should've been more clear with what I meant by 'amateurish'. I meant to refer to the game itself rather than the quality of the site.

It feels like this game is trying very hard to point out that it's a game, what with the first puzzle being so explicit. I Love Bees and the Beast both started with a story and moved on to the puzzles. This is less subtle than the other professionally run games that I've played. Not to knock the amateur games, of course; a lot of them are really well crafted. Metacortechs kept me going for quite a while.
posted by mmcg at 5:08 PM on January 10, 2005

beeez!
posted by specialk420 at 5:12 PM on January 10, 2005

Does anyone care to give a backgrounder on this trend?
posted by cell divide at 5:25 PM on January 10, 2005

Now I know the feeling crack addicts have when they're about to score. And I had work to do tomorrow...
posted by bhance at 5:27 PM on January 10, 2005

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. What did you say?

I love peas?
I love skis?
I love sneeze?
posted by Fourmyle at 5:34 PM on January 10, 2005

cell divide: Does anyone care to give a backgrounder on this trend?

Dude," said Puppetmaster 2, "it's a hurricane. Put the phone down."
posted by metameme at 5:54 PM on January 10, 2005

Cell Divide: A few years back, there was an excellent web-based, interactive story of this type used to promote the movie A.I. It was a massive success in basically every way, far surpassing the actual movie in popularity and critical acclaim. Its unique, elegant style was, of course, quickly mined for money, co-opted by a horrible commercial game called Majestic, and a terrible television show called Push, Nevada, both of whom claimed to have invented the genre.

Both failed miserably, but meanwhile, an independant group known as Karetao created a pair of fantastic and successful stories, Lockjaw and Metacortechs. Their games were non-commercial, but they proved that it was actually a viable genre and not just a cool one-shot idea. Several more independant games popped up, with varying levels of success.

Meanwhile, all this time, the people who created the original game, known as The Hive, had been working on ILoveBees. And it was, by all reports, the best of them all both artistically and business-wise. So I would imagine we can look forward to another surge of commercial attempts at the genre.
posted by Simon! at 6:00 PM on January 10, 2005

Holy cow, I hadn't seen the whole Ilovebees thing. I'm really curious.. does this remind anyone of the Dramatis Personae or the First Distributed Republic from Neal Stephanson's "Diamond Age"?
posted by SpecialK at 6:17 PM on January 10, 2005

Free the Bees.
posted by iamck at 6:18 PM on January 10, 2005

Hey, Majestic wasn't horrible.
posted by majcher at 6:41 PM on January 10, 2005

Hmm. This hasn't hit HBO yet.

:: sends out a message ::
posted by secret about box at 7:24 PM on January 10, 2005

Push, Nevada was.
posted by graventy at 7:32 PM on January 10, 2005

I wonder, would this style of storytelling be a truly post-modern art form?
posted by TwelveTwo at 8:19 PM on January 10, 2005

our halo2 clan on xbox live (from the penny arcade forums) is called "The Bees Knees."

we are very bad.
posted by lotsofno at 8:32 PM on January 10, 2005

Majestic was the Pong to the future's Arkanoid.
posted by NationalKato at 8:45 PM on January 10, 2005

lotsofno: what's your name on the PA forums?
posted by bigtimes at 10:56 PM on January 10, 2005

Simon!: Just a bit of clarification. Majestic was in development before AI even launched, so it would be unfair to say that they ripped off the idea. I don't recall them saying that they invented the genre either. Still, I didn't care for it much.

I Love Bees did begin with a Blogspot page but its 'trailhead' was in two places. Firstly, a number of members of the ARG (alternate reality game) communication received jars of honey through the post with the letters 'i l o v e b e e s' inside them. Secondly, one of the trailers for Halo 2 briefly flashed up 'ilovebees.com' at the end.

Also, personally speaking, I am not convinced that I Love Bees was better than the AI game. This is only my opinion, but I preferred the story and the method of storytelling used in the AI game. As for success, it's undeniable that the AI movie did not make a lot of money whereas Halo 2 did, but whether or not their respective games had anything to do that is very difficult to determine.
posted by adrianhon at 1:55 AM on January 11, 2005

I have absolutely no idea what this is about. I had to retreat after a few seconds.



Do you see the power that shitty Flash has? No go, and use this only for good.
posted by NinjaPirate at 3:23 AM on January 11, 2005

adrian: you perplex me...shouldn't you be working? All this time, I've been waiting for a date...
posted by dash_slot- at 6:38 AM on January 11, 2005

All in good time, Mr. Slot, all in good time... ;)

(OT: Are you still going to that pub quiz? I'm going to be back in Oxford for a couple of weeks, would be nice to meet up).
posted by adrianhon at 6:48 AM on January 11, 2005

Are you still going to that pub quiz? Well, I didn't mean that sort of date...

Actually, I haven't been for a while, maybe next week or the week after...when you are in town, email me or send me a txt?
posted by dash_slot- at 7:24 AM on January 11, 2005

I've found about 4 different forums working on this puzzle. These folks seem to be the farthest along.
posted by metameme at 9:30 AM on January 11, 2005