Welcome to...
Take the role of a hard working bee in this educational exploration game! Venture off into the town to collect enough pollen before night falls. As each day goes by, new events in the town begin to occur. Trees are cut, ponds are polluted, and construction begins. Being a bee gets more and more difficult as the days go by...
Our Mission
Honey Buzz was created as a part of Sheridan’s Work-Integrated Learning program in the Summer of 2023. The nine of us were tasked to develop a game over the course of 2 months that aligned with the needs of our clients. Focusing on the United Nations sustainability goal #15, Life on Land, we sought to create a product for our targeted clients of local beekeeping organizations in Ontario that can educate, entertain, and encourage players to take action.
Sheridan WIL Nomination
Honey Buzz and the team were nominated for the 2023 Sheridan Co-op & WIL Student of the Year Award for exceptional achievement in co-op or WIL in the Summer term. The team was able to achieve this through our excellent team work and consistent communication.
Level Design/Art
For Honey Buzz, I took multiple roles and stayed flexible. These roles included level design, level art, environment design, lighting, systems design, documentation, and animation.
In our game there are 7 days that the player goes through. Each day is set in the same town, but each day more development, construction, and pollution occur. This makes finding the flowers to pollinate more difficult.
Comparison of the town on day 1 to day 6
Comparison of the town on day 6 to day 7
Working with our art team, I was in charge of our level art design. I used props, modular assets, lighting, and VFX to convey our narrative and our world to the player. With an emphasis on environmental storytelling, the world was constructed with specific goals and direction to communicate our message.
Graph of players targeted emotional state per day
We wanted to leave the players with a positive outlook. On day 7, the final day, some of the houses have bee boxes and flowers. This makes it easier to find flowers. This positive change is accentuated by lighting and shader changes brightening the environment.
I was also in charge of the lighting and day/night cycle for the game. We wanted to communicate to players the passing of time without showing them a timer on screen. We also wanted to let players play at their own pace, so this system was tied to the collection of pollen. The day would only progress as fast as you would.
Documentation and Pitching
Each week we had to update our project manager on the state of our project. We also had to continuously pitch our project to different industry members at various stages of development. This helped develop skills in pitching, presenting, and communication.
See our pitch deck!