Welcome to Dive into the Hive Mind!

They came from space, and they brought the buzzness.

A swarm of alien bees has descended on Earth, short-circuiting cities, clogging satellites with wax, and causing mass pani-combs. But now, the source has been uncovered—an enormous, writhing brain drifting in low orbit, pulsing with psychic energy and radiating pure bee-vil.

Its name? The Hivemind.

Part neural network, part insectoid nest, all bad news. Every drone, every sting, every hex-tile of chaos—it all leads back to that big floating brain. And now, you’re going up there to end this buzzness once and for all.

Armed with industrial-grade bug spray, a reinforced beekeeper suit, and the sheer will to bee victorious, you’ve launched into orbit to face the swarm head-on. Dodge twitching tendrils, torch hive-laced lobes, and un-bee-lievably aggressive aliens as you push deeper into the squishy stronghold.

Your target? The legendary Boss Bee—queen of the swarm, mistress of mind control, and crowned neuro-nuisance of the galaxy.

Think fast. Spray faster. It’s time to sting before you get stung.

This isn’t just pest control… it’s space-brain bee-siege.

And the fate of Earth? That’s on your shoulders, honey.

About the game

At the heart of this game is a procedural generation algorithm that will generates the levels. No two play throughs will be the same!

We also have 2 different game modes. The story mode which you can access via the Start button and the Endless mode which you can access via the Endless button. The story mode game ends once you complete level 4, Endless mode is… well… Endless you keep on going as levels get harder and harder until finally you lose your final heart of health.

How deep into the depths can you go?

While we do have a web build available, we recommend for best experience to download the version for your OS.

Controls

Keyboard and Mouse

WSAD for movement Mouse to aim Left mouse button to shoot the spray Right mouse button/ F Key to punch

Controller Support!

Yes, we have controller support! Tested on Windows 11 with both a PS4 controller and a wired Xbox controller.

Heads up: If your operating system detects another device (like a joystick, steering wheel, or even certain USB devices) as a controller before your actual gamepad, it can cause some in-game controls to stop working properly.

The fix: Unplug any other device your OS might be misidentifying as a controller, then plug in your game controller. This should restore full functionality.

Left stick - Character movement Right stick - Aiming RT/RB - Shoot LT/LB - Punch

Words from the Dev Team

Bizzybee - Art, Music and SFX

The past few days have been one long manic episode for me, doodling like a madwoman and slapping down musical lines without (mostly) bothering to worry about their simplicity. I think my art even got a little better by the end of the jam. I’m more proud of this LD game than every other one we’ve done- though admittedly, that could be recency bias. I believe this is the most art I’ve made for one LD game.

Honestly, I think finishing this LD has been a much needed mental boost for me- it’s an accomplishment that couldn’t have come at a better time, after a recent chronic fatigue diagnosis. As I said in our “We’re in!” post, constraint is such a wonderful tool to help creativity flourish. It’s so special to be able to make something in such a short time, with the help of talented and hardworking friends.

Fgeva - Programmer

This time we tried to do more up-front design, and it worked. No last minute panic because we didn’t know what the game mechanics were! Pure bliss! (Also I might be Halucinating, I lack sleep) Seriously though, this went well. We had goals and stretch goals, and I think we actually hit all the goals, and maybe even some of the stretch goals!

Balimaar - Programmer

This jam went way smoother than LD56. Back then, we made Paper Cat Farms, which—don’t get me wrong—was probably our best team effort at the time. But we basically went in with the plan: “Let’s make a farming game!” …and that was it. Zero roadmap, full chaos. The final push to the deadline? Manic. Utterly bee-serk.

This time? We actually used our brains before using our keyboards. We took a solid 30–60 minutes up front to figure out what we really wanted, what would be cool, and what would be straight-up dream material. And you know what? We hit all the must-haves, knocked out a bunch of the cool stuff, and even managed to sneak into dream territory here and there. Not too shabby.

As the programmer on the first shift (thanks to time zones, I could code for 12 hours and then hand off to Fgeva for the next 12—smooth baton pass!), I was very nervous about implementing procedural generation. I had a rough understanding, but you know how these things go. The moment it actually worked? Oh. My. God. That wave of relief was divine. I ran into a few bugs by Day 2 or 3, but I even managed to fix most of them without introducing more. Miracles happen, apparently!

Honestly, this was hands-down the best Ludum Dare I’ve had. All it took was that little chunk of planning at the start to keep us from descending into last-minute panic mode. We spent less time screaming at our screens and more time actually enjoying the process.

10/10. Would jam again.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

Biz Tells Us About Her Creative Process

Music: I decide to go for something electric sounding for the image of firing neurons and electrical synapses and whatnot. I started by searching “electric” in my instrument library and chose around 8 from the ones I found based off of pure vibes, noodling around and listening to a few seconds of each. I chose 3/4 for the bouncy bee rhythm, though you might not be able to tell with the syncopation. I decided my scale would center around the note B, of course. Then, I just messed around on my digital keyboard until I found a few notes in a sequence that sounded good. After that, I noodled around on my other instruments to see what I could add on top, and used the tried-and-true add an instrument or two every few bars.

SFX: I used the instruments I had chosen for the game and searched for appropriate noise within them. I focused on the shortest sounds, though for the firing noise I shortened an 8-bit high-hat from my drumkit instrument. Downward or dissonant sounds for negative things, something airy and crunchy for shooting like a spray, satisfying crunch for picking up ammo, happy trill for health, and such.

Art: I googled reference images of other games and of course, brains to get an idea of what I needed to do for the map. I used basic shapes to build the hero and bees to keep things easy on myself. I utilized mesh transform like all hell for many of the animations, that was really the MVP of my process to limit redrawing. Beyond that I made sure to keep the hero body parts on separate layers for easy rearranging and movement. I tried to keep the line thickness consistent where it made sense- making one mistake on the line thickness of the baby bees. I reused as much as possible in every way I could. Oh, when deciding the hero color, I went for the opposite on the color wheel from the dark purple ground- which ended up being green, to make sure the hero stood out. A lot of stuff I just glanced and winged it, though the main menu splash art I spent a bit more time with the brain lines and hand, closely following realistic googled references.