Bumbling: A Solo RPG
I have so many ttrpgs and journal rpgs in my library right now, I have been trying to find inspiring ways on how I could play more of them. So, I thought it would be fun if I played and reviewed all my bee-themed games from Itch! There are a surprisingly quite a few of them on there! You can see my collection here. The first on my list is Bumbling by Button Kin Games! It is a solo map-making, hexcrawl journal rpg where you play a little bee who just woke up and has to go gather pollen for the hive! It is super cute and cozy! It is great to play for a relaxing and creative afternoon. It is also part memory game as you have to memorize adorable little bee dances as you communicate to the others in the hive about the location of the flowers! I love how the game is very versatile. You can lean into the mapmaking aspect of it as a tabletop game or you can focus more on the journaling aspect and create a sweet little story of your bee! Or you can do both! You can kind of make it what you want, although I do believe the game would really come alive if you make it a story you are telling.
There is still room on my map for future playthroughs! I decided to lean more into the mapmaking part of it and get artsy with my designs! I'm just really into hex mapmaking at the moment, and I love being able to use all my color markers! So, of course, I had a lot fun with this one! Being obsessed with the color pink currently also inspired me to go all in with the pink-themed design of the game itself! My only criticism of the game is that I found the directions, although not complex, to be rather confusing and not intuitive at all in following the game play. I had to keep flipping back and forth between the pages just to figure out how to make each of the different moves, e.g. questing, dancing, learning, finding flowers etc. Finding a way to streamline the directions to follow the flow of the game would go a long way in making this a smoother play through. Otherwise, though, you could play this game endlessly and just have a fun time exploring and making cute stories about your little bee!
I did find it super amusing (and frustrating) that my bee lived up to the solobee name in that no matter how many times I rolled the dice I couldn't get that many bees to watch me dance or to have any animals assist me in finding flowers! 😟 But thankfully my game ended happily as I eventually got the hive's attention and found a big stash of pollen from the flowers! 😄
I also wanted to highlight a new purchase! This gorgeous dice tower! Of course, with the hex, bee hive pattern and shape I just HAD to have it! 😍 Isn't it so pretty? I found it on Etsy from Adventuring Oddities, so definitely check out her shop if you want some unique dice towers and holders! You can also get custom colors too! The shop owner was really nice and helpful in making the dice tower I wanted. 🐝