Apidya - Origins in nature
This section is to expand on some of the natural elements that underly Apidya. As I've already said, part of the game's appeal is that it's a bit like a nature trail, at least to begin with. All those creatures in the first two levels are real animals, although most don't spit fireballs in real life.
What's in a name?
Although Apidya sounds like a cool, made-up word, it does have a significant meaning. This is only a guess, but I'm certain it derives from Apidae, the Latin name for the bee family. Which leads nicely onto...
Apis mellifera - the honey bee
The insect you control in the game is a honeybee. I used to think it was a wasp, due to my preconceived notion that all bees were fat, hairy things. (I was actually thinking of bumblebees, which are indeed fat and hairy, but they are only one of several different kinds of bees.)
Although bees and wasps share a certain resemblance, they are not quite the same. The most well-known difference is in their stings; when a bee stings a larger creature, its sting is usually torn out of its body and left embedded in the victim. The wounded bee shortly dies, so the sting is really a last-resort measure. By contrast, a wasp does not relinquish its sting and thus can sting a victim repeatedly.
Wasps also tend to have brighter, sharper yellow markings, and are more shiny and less hairy than bees. Apidya itself provides an illustration of the difference between the honeybee and the common wasp, since the wasp is an enemy that you encounter in the first level.
|
|
|
Honey bee
|
Wasp
|
An interesting fact about the bee in Apidya is that, as far as I can tell, it's female! In the society of the honey bee, there are three distinct classes of bee: drones, workers, and the queen. The bee in the game looks to me like a worker, and it makes some kind of logical sense as well since worker bees genuinely do do all the work. They gather the nectar and pollen, tend to the queen and young, and maintain and defend the hive. Such a dynamic lifestyle fits well with an energy-spitting magical bee, but workers are always female. By contrast, drones are always male and have no function other than to mate with the queen.
(Note: The 'drones' in Apidya should not be confused with real drone bees. Real drones are actually slightly larger than workers. 'Drone' just happens to be a shoot-em-up term for small, mindless entities that accompany the player, but it makes for a great pun. :) )
Not a 'real' drone.
Stingers
All right, bees can't generate and launch an enormous flame-propelled bio-missile in real life. At least, not to my knowledge. But still, their stings do possess a similar amount of autonomy. Even after a bee has left its sting embedded in a victim, the sting can pump poison into the victim's body by itself for up to a minute.
The stinger - only slightly far-fetched.
Back