I own an in person copy of Apiary and I play games on BGA pretty much every day, so here are my notes for Apiary's beta. I am hoping this is the right spot to post this.
I love that you kept the art and the setup is pretty good so far. Most of my notes are on things that are manual steps in order to progress, but I wanted to start by saying that I really like the version you've built so far.
Seed Cards:
The option to discard a seed card to convert it to a resource is confusing since both that option, and playing the one time seed plant ability use the word "Play". I would be better to have a button for "Seed card actions" that you can then see discard vs play, or to switch the one that says "Play for a resource" to discard for a resource.
Explore:
Retrieving the exploration tokens should be automatic
Convert:
After selecting an option for converting a resource, it would be better to have all of the steps in one action rather than one after another. Resolving the steps sequentially on the screen takes time and during that time the player cannot take any actions.
When someone does a player's dance, it doesn't feel like it needs to be a manual action to accept the queens favor. That player's next turn should just start with a notification about receiving queen's favor.
Retrieval:
It would be better to have the retrieval actions list each tile rather than each step. I am retrieving two and I have two farms - one gets me a single queens favor and one gets me three queens favor. Both will be activated because I am gaining two drones. My options are four identical buttons for "Gain a queen's favor" which represents two farms.
Advance:
- Pollen Patty: Unnecessary quantity of actions to resolve
Hibernate:
When selecting a hibernation bonus, I selected wax forgetting that I had did not have any open slots for it. There was a confirmation to return the turn to the other player, but I did not notice any messages about having not having space for the wax during the hibernation turn. I got the chance to use it at the end of the turn I had after that - but I didn't realize it was in queue, so I got to the end of my turn before it told me that I had a wax that needed to be discarded. I restarted my turn and used it, but it felt like there was a better way to resolve that.
Carve: There are no messages in carve warning the player that they cannot afford to carve (not enough honey) and the first thing that happens when someone carves is the previous person at rank 4 is bumped, so they hibernate. After that, the turn cannot be reset so it is easy to waste a turn.
I love that you kept the art and the setup is pretty good so far. Most of my notes are on things that are manual steps in order to progress, but I wanted to start by saying that I really like the version you've built so far.
Seed Cards:
The option to discard a seed card to convert it to a resource is confusing since both that option, and playing the one time seed plant ability use the word "Play". I would be better to have a button for "Seed card actions" that you can then see discard vs play, or to switch the one that says "Play for a resource" to discard for a resource.
Explore:
Retrieving the exploration tokens should be automatic
Convert:
After selecting an option for converting a resource, it would be better to have all of the steps in one action rather than one after another. Resolving the steps sequentially on the screen takes time and during that time the player cannot take any actions.
When someone does a player's dance, it doesn't feel like it needs to be a manual action to accept the queens favor. That player's next turn should just start with a notification about receiving queen's favor.
Retrieval:
It would be better to have the retrieval actions list each tile rather than each step. I am retrieving two and I have two farms - one gets me a single queens favor and one gets me three queens favor. Both will be activated because I am gaining two drones. My options are four identical buttons for "Gain a queen's favor" which represents two farms.
Advance:
- Pollen Patty: Unnecessary quantity of actions to resolve
Hibernate:
When selecting a hibernation bonus, I selected wax forgetting that I had did not have any open slots for it. There was a confirmation to return the turn to the other player, but I did not notice any messages about having not having space for the wax during the hibernation turn. I got the chance to use it at the end of the turn I had after that - but I didn't realize it was in queue, so I got to the end of my turn before it told me that I had a wax that needed to be discarded. I restarted my turn and used it, but it felt like there was a better way to resolve that.
Carve: There are no messages in carve warning the player that they cannot afford to carve (not enough honey) and the first thing that happens when someone carves is the previous person at rank 4 is bumped, so they hibernate. After that, the turn cannot be reset so it is easy to waste a turn.
