One of my favourite things recently has been spreading my love for indies on social media and interacting with the passionate devs about their games. It’s nice when I have a dev send me a message asking me to take a look at their demo/game, and my rule has always been that if a dev trusts me enough to send me a code, I will 100% check it out and cover it in some way. It’s even more exciting when this happens, and it’s a game that I’m already following, excited about and have wishlisted. This is the case with the game Bottled by Bears by Monoii Studios.
Bottled by Bears is a cozy idle management game (and you know I love those), where you run a honey farm alongside the Pawford bear family. You want to satisfy the customers requests and needs at your honey stand.
As you earn money from your sales, you can purchase and open packs of cards and collect several types of bees for your hives and even some that are rarer than others. Each card can be levelled up, as do your hives, bottling line and sales booth.
The rarer the bee, or the higher value it has, the better the quality of honey it can produce. Spending times releasing and collecting additional bees was a wonderful way to keep you engaged.
I loved seeing my scrapbook fill up as I found the different bees in the game.
Challenges in the game are also a terrific way to earn coins, and I found the progression was consistent and well-paced. Trying to complete the tasks laid out for me was a nice way to keep me coming back to the game.
The flowers bloom, hives produce, and you can set bears to automatically collect honey and take it to the bottling lines. Everything works while you are away, making it a nice little idle game for your desktop. I loved watching the little bears go through their tasks.
The décor of the farm can change as you add different varieties of bees to your hives. The flowers and environment will change to satisfy the needs of the bees you have.
The demo has the option of owning 2 hives, 2 bottling stations and multiple upgrades for both. I played through the demo twice, and I can not wait for the full game. This checks every single box in what I look for in a cozy game. Definitely take some time to check it out.
Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.
**Special Thanks to Monoii Studios for the review code**
Ophelia Payne 
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