This 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.

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! 🐝

You can check out my gameplay of Bumbling on my Tumblr, SoloBee Games! https://www.tumblr.com/solobeegames.