Indie Spotlight: King of Bees in Fantasy Land
No graphics, no download, no problem: a browser game that's all story.
Who says you need photorealistic graphics, slick cutscenes and the latest technology to have a great game? King of Bees in Fantasy Land, a newly published independent title by Brendan Patrick Hennessy, sets out to prove that thought wrong, and it does it with straightforward play, an interesting story and a nostalgic sense of humor.
The premise is simple. You are Space Knight, freshly arrived on the faraway planet Garaxas. Earth has become a wasteland and humanity wants a new sphere to live on, so you have been sent to defeat the King of Bees in his grand bee fort. Along the way you make your own choices, deciding how to deal with the characters you meet as you travel through dunes, swamps and even a volcano. The whole thing is oddly comical, reminiscent of old NES games with terrible translations, with poor text mistakes scattered throughout as a running joke (even though the game was written in English). There is real depth to the characters, too, something you would not expect from a game that looks this simple.
It is a text-based game that runs right in your browser with no download, and it is short, finishable in a matter of minutes depending on your reading speed. But there is plenty to explore. Different text options let you treat other characters as a friend or a foe, you face a few moral dilemmas about whether to follow your orders, and the multiple endings change based on the adventure you choose, so it rewards a few replays.
King of Bees in Fantasy Land is a simple game that packs a good punch. It has the one thing missing from even the most technologically advanced titles of today: a great story, stripped down to the bare bones and all the better for it. Play it through the author’s site at bphennessy.com.