WaxWire: Program the Hive

See those nodes? That's the plan: fly to the nearest flower and sip, then fly home and drop off the nectar. The bee follows along, wire by wire. It's a cozy programming game about bees. You tell them what to do. The Queen tells you.

Your bee's basket holds three sips. She still flies home after every single one. To be fair, she's only doing what she's told. So add one question: is her basket full? If not, she keeps sipping.

There's more than one way to please the Queen. You try a shorter plan, and your bee stops coming home. Freeze time and read her mind, node by node. Her basket is full. Nobody told her to fly home.

In time she earns two sisters. They run the same plan, so they all pick the same flower. The first gets the nectar. The other two get the exercise. A single node lets each bee call dibs on a flower. Now they spread out.

Keep going and you can give the hive a plan of its own. One day you'll catch it shopping. The moment the bees bring in enough, it buys room for one more bee and wakes her up.

Seasons turn, and the meadow grows ring by ring. Then winter comes for real, and the bees stay home and live off their savings. By year four, eight bees run on your plans. Every one of them makes it to spring.

Now the whole hive follows your wires. Your work here is done. You'll add one more node anyway.