Gameplay

Weekly Buzz 03/23/18

Hello Collectors,

It’s the first week of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Is it getting warmer where you live? It’s not for Hksfarm. Brrr…

Behind the Curtain

The joust is back! Grab your Jousters and mix them together. Which knight will come out the victor and claim the trophy? For this special day, we’re adding Jousters to various place categories, so you should start finding them more frequently. Now that this beloved feature is ready to go, we can begin implementing it with other items as well. -insert maniacal laugh here-

The Invisible Item has become available once again, but through a new recipe. Mix Specky Scarface and the Invisibility Cloak to make more of these invisible beauties. No cloaking collected numbers this time!

More Bensons are hitting the map with #111! See if he’s taken a visit to your area with ItemBee.

The Spring Cleaning Sale is currently running at the online store. Remember, the sale ends March 26th, 15:00 UTC.

Hex is nearing the end of his mission. Only one task left. Will he be successful or be captured in the process? Stay tuned!

Speaking of our newer artist, we’re saddened to announce that John has decided to leave Freeze Tag and is pursuing his art career elsewhere. We wish him the best in his endeavors and hope to work with him again in the future, should the opportunity present itself. However, he’s currently working on one more monstrous set for us, which we hope the community will enjoy.

Recent Item Highlights

Player Unique Spotlight

With more and more Player Uniques coming out, we want to spend a respectable amount of time learning more about them. This week’s Player Unique Spotlight highlighted Elysium. You can read more about this unique here.

Elysium

This Week In WallaBee History | March 19th – 25th

March 24th, 2013: The first item in Back To The 80’s was released: the Cassette Tape. This is the part of the program where the youngsters ask what a cassette is…

March 25th, 2016: Seaside Smash kicked off the first player-commissioned set, Veni Vidi Mixi. Each item in this set pokes fun at how certain items were mixed to death to create the ‘RareBee’ ranking system, found on ItemBrowser.com

March 25th, 2017: Waffle Day! March’s fun holiday was released to celebrate this awesome day.

Room For Growth

We have compiled a list of issues that we are currently working on. If you find something that doesn’t fit into this list, please reach out to us and let us know.

• Battery drains like crazy
  • Under investigation.
• Forum Notifications/Count are missing
  • Coming in a future update.
• General slowness
  • Under investigation. Ram Issue.
• Item View Crash – Go to pouch, Tap / open item, Tap menu, App crashes
  • Fix available in next update.
• Layout Issue (Android Specific) – Entering the app through a push notification, from a landscape-based app, makes the layout freakout.
  • Investigating.
• Performing an action that triggers a pop up sometimes ‘freezes,’ which needs a hard close to fix
  • Currently being sorted out.
• Places List – Bottom of row doesn’t register input.
  • Fix available in next update.
• Random Crashes (especially on older devices)
  • We have discovered that the ram needed for the app fluctuates way more than it should, sometimes peaking over 1gb, which can cause older devices to crash. We are investigating what is causing this, so that we can enhance app performance.
• Sets Page always shows ‘try again’ before loading view
  • Fixed in the next update. For now, you can avoid this by viewing your Pouch before looking at the Sets page.
• Store Item and Icon don’t match
  • Under investigation. At the moment, there is a chance that the previous item image will linger, even though the item has updated to the next one in line (viewable by the honeycomb price and set icon).
• Store purchases hang up for a long time
  • Under investigation. We’re so sorry for those effected by this issue… which should be everyone during a drop. Other times, it runs like a champ.

Should you have any questions, please let us know by emailing Support@WallaBeeGame.com

Weekly Buzz 03/16/18

Hello Collectors,

Background work continues as we move forward. There’s rumors of Jousting returning. That sounds fun, right? Right?! We think so. Let’s get into it.

Behind the Curtain

We continue working on the next app update. We’ve made some progress with a new sorting/moving/favoriting feature for your saved Uniques. More information will be shared as this develops further, but it will allow you to keep three separate tabs of Uniques, highlighting the ones you like the most, and sorting them in various ways. Old-school type moving will be transformed into a ‘move mode’ for faster adjustments. And the cherry to top off this lovely feature? A search bar. Boom.

We have begun groundwork on a working Jousting mechanic. As these rarely show up in RetroBee, there may be a few being added here and there for testing. We hope to get this feature working quickly, as there’s a set coming up that will capitalize on this very nicely.

Adjustments with items have taken a huge leap forward. Today saw many updates with categorizing items to subcategories that you may actually find those items at. This includes finding Alice, Red Riding Hood, and other storybook characters at your local library, Surf’s Up at the beach, and Expedition Everest on Mount Everest! Okay, we lied about the last one… they can be found at a myriad of locations. This update takes a turn closer to the roots of this geolocation game, with more helpful updates on the way. One thing that this update will allow is a greater ability to receive a newer item during a drop. Since most older items won’t be categorized as ‘Green,’ but a specific subcategory, this opens up the chance that you’ll find that new item you’re looking for. A selection of 70 items can turn into around 20, depending on the subcategory. We’ll continue to move things around until they balance out, so if you have suggestions of where certain items should be found, please drop us a line with the support link below.

March WallaPak should be available beginning next week. An announcement will go out the day before release, to give a fair heads up to everyone.

Should you have any questions, please let us know by emailing Support@WallaBeeGame.com

Recent Item Highlights

Player Unique Spotlight

With more and more Player Uniques coming out, we want to spend a respectable amount of time learning more about them. This week’s Player Unique Spotlight highlighted 3.14 and 244. You can read more about this unique here.

3.14 and 244

This Week In WallaBee History | March 12th – 18th

March 14th, 2012: Treasure Map was the first item to release in A Pirate’s Life For Me. Little known fact, the map was reused as the card description background for WallaBee: The Card Game.

March 17th, 2015: The whole St Patrick’s Day set released. Gotta love small one day sets, huh.

March 18th, 2013: Conductors Hat released in The WallaBee Express. There’s nothing too special about this item, but RedcarRobbie did wear one of these while working with a certain mouse.

Room For Growth

We have compiled a list of issues that we are currently working on. If you find something that doesn’t fit into this list, please reach out to us and let us know.

• Battery drains like crazy
  • Under investigation.
• Forum Notifications/Count are missing
  • Coming in a future update.
• General slowness
  • Under investigation.
• Item View Crash – Go to pouch, Tap / open item, Tap menu, App crashes
  • Fix available in next update.
• Performing an action that triggers a pop up sometimes ‘freezes,’ which needs a hard close to fix
  • Currently being sorted out.
• Places List – Bottom of row doesn’t register input.
  • Fix available in next update.
• Random Crashes (especially on older devices)
  • We have discovered that the ram needed for the app fluctuates way more than it should, sometimes peaking over 1gb, which can cause older devices to crash. We are investigating what is causing this, so that we can enhance app performance.
• Sets Page always shows ‘try again’ before loading view
  • Fixed in the next update. For now, you can avoid this by viewing your Pouch before looking at the Sets page.
• Store Item and Icon don’t match
  • Under investigation. At the moment, there is a chance that the previous item image will linger, even though the item has updated to the next one in line (viewable by the honeycomb price and set icon).
• Store purchases hang up for a long time
  • Under investigation. We’re so sorry for those effected by this issue… which should be everyone during a drop. Other times, it runs like a champ.

Weekly Buzz 03/09/18

Hello Collectors,

How is everyone enjoying those apples? Hopefully you bought fresh ones, and not those nasty bruised apples. Gross. By the way, which kind of apples are your favorite?

Behind the Curtain

We have added a new subcategory to Services. You will soon begin seeing Veterinary Clinics popup on the map. These icons look similar to Medical icons, changed slightly for this new type of location. Previously approved vet offices and animal hospitals will take time to update to this new, specified subcategory, but we hope to have a fast and smooth transition. If your local vet’s office hasn’t changed over the weekend, feel free to report it for review. Our BeeKeepers would love to help update these locations.

The Official Updates forum has been removed, as it was causing confusion with where official news from WallaBee Staff should come from. All official updates on the app will be found here at WallaBeeBlog.com.

Adjustments to where items can be found continues to move forward. As we continue to make adjustments to foraging for all players, we’d love to hear from the community about your thoughts on certain items being found at specific subcategories. For example, finding Styling Products at Salon / Barber locations, or finding LP Collection at Music / Video locations. As always, making a fun and enjoyable game is our goal. We look forward to hearing about your thoughts in the WallaBee Chat forum.

Should you have any questions, please let us know by emailing Support@WallaBeeGame.com

Recent Item Highlights

Player Unique Spotlight

With more and more Player Uniques coming out, we want to spend a respectable amount of time learning more about them. This week’s Player Unique Spotlight highlighted Jet Drag. You can read more about this unique here.

Jet Drag

This Week In WallaBee History | March 5th – 11h

March 8th, 2017: The Waztecs set began with releasing Chocolatl as the first item.

March 9th, 2015: Wooden Katana released as the first item in the Ninjas set.

March 10th, 2012: The first Bug was found in WallaBee. Luckily for us, this was a good one.

Room For Growth

We have compiled a list of issues that we are currently working on. If you find something that doesn’t fit into this list, please reach out to us and let us know.

• Battery drains like crazy
  • Under investigation.
• Forum Notifications/Count are missing
  • Coming in a future update.
• General slowness
  • Under investigation.
• Item View Crash – Go to pouch, Tap / open item, Tap menu, App crashes
  • Fix available in next update.
• Performing an action that triggers a pop up sometimes ‘freezes,’ which needs a hard close to fix
  • Currently being sorted out.
• Places List – Bottom of row doesn’t register input.
  • Fix available in next update.
• Random Crashes (especially on older devices)
  • We have discovered that the ram needed for the app fluctuates way more than it should, sometimes peaking over 1gb, which can cause older devices to crash. We are investigating what is causing this, so that we can enhance app performance.
• Sets Page always shows ‘try again’ before loading view
  • Fixed in the next update. For now, you can avoid this by viewing your Pouch before looking at the Sets page.
• Store Item and Icon don’t match
  • Under investigation. At the moment, there is a chance that the previous item image will linger, even though the item has updated to the next one in line (viewable by the honeycomb price and set icon).
• Store purchases hang up for a long time
  • Under investigation. We’re so sorry for those effected by this issue… which should be everyone during a drop. Other times, it runs like a champ.

Weekly Buzz 03/02/18

Hello Collectors,

We have been busy adjusting various aspects of the game, which we hope will improve your overall gameplay. Enjoy!

Behind the Curtain

Balance is sometimes a hard thing to achieve. We took a look at the statistics for the first five Grab Bags, along with player feedback, and have updated the percentages for each Grab Bag. The chance to receive a Wallagraphic item is still rare, but has been increased from 1 in ~33 bags to 1 in ~20. We’ve updated the Grab Bags Overview post with this information, as well as the other levels of rarity.

We have begun a new set, in a new universe, with new characters! Hex ArcHives I is sure to scratch the Sci-Fi itch that WallaBee has had for some time. This universe was dreamed up by John Rogeles (yes, he can do more than wooden toys). Join in as we follow Hex into potentially dangerous enemy territory on one of his many adventures. Who is Hex? You’ll soon find out!

Development continues on our end, slowly but surely. With one backend developer between Munzee and WallaBee, the saying ‘Sharing is caring’ comes to mind. We hope to have the next update out soon, which should have some exciting updates that we just can’t wait to show you… but we will. In the meantime, Mizak has been updating ItemBee and ItemBrowser to better display ‘containers,’ which includes Grab Bags and items like Locker and Candy Bags.

Certain holiday-focused items are temporarily being removed from the store/forage circulation. Don’t worry, there are still thousands of these items floating around at places near you, with more on the way. These items will come back to the store/forage around their specific holiday. We have also made ‘grab bag sets’ only available through Grab Bags, to see if this helps balance how many items are within the store/forage shuffle. These changes should help with current set items showing more often when foraging and stalking the store. We’re continuing to adjust where items are found and how much they cost in the store, for a better experience for everyone. This should hopefully bring the cost to complete a set down, which will bring Grab Bag prices down. A win-win for everyone. As with most things WallaBee, these adjustments can always be adjusted again if it’s not working out. With the number of available items only raising each day, it becomes harder to keep a balance between 2,000+ available set items. We appreciate your patience as we tinker.

There may or may not be a few Bensons hopping around the world today. Might keep your eyes peeled for one near you!

We’ve post-dated some blog entries into the Unique Spotlight series, refreshing everything since the beginning of our Weekly Buzz series. The uniques we’ve highlighted now have their own entry. All of these spotlight posts should allow for comments, as well.

Should you have any questions, please let us know by emailing Support@WallaBeeGame.com

Recent Item Highlights

Player Unique Spotlight

With more and more Player Uniques coming out, we want to spend a respectable amount of time learning more about them. This week’s Player Unique Spotlight highlighted My Jabber Baby Wocky. You can read more about this unique here.

My Jabber Baby Wocky

This Week In WallaBee History | February 26th – March 4th

February 27th, 2012: The Jurassic Parts set began distributing items, with Amber as the first item available to find.

March 2nd, 2014: The founding team surprised certain members of the community with special, one-of-a-kind awards. Read more…

March 4th, 2012: Space Station released as the first item in The Final Frontier set, just about 6 years ago…

Room For Growth

We have compiled a list of issues that we are currently working on. If you find something that doesn’t fit into this list, please reach out to us and let us know.

• Battery drains like crazy
  • Under investigation.
• Forum Notifications/Count are missing
  • Coming in a future update.
• General slowness
  • Under investigation.
• Item View Crash – Go to pouch, Tap / open item, Tap menu, App crashes
  • Fix available in next update.
• Performing an action that triggers a pop up sometimes ‘freezes,’ which needs a hard close to fix
  • Currently being sorted out.
• Places List – Bottom of row doesn’t register input.
  • Fix available in next update.
• Random Crashes (especially on older devices)
  • We have discovered that the ram needed for the app fluctuates way more than it should, sometimes peaking over 1gb, which can cause older devices to crash. We are investigating what is causing this, so that we can enhance app performance.
• Sets Page always shows ‘try again’ before loading view
  • Fixed in the next update. For now, you can avoid this by viewing your Pouch before looking at the Sets page.
• Store Item and Icon don’t match
  • Under investigation. At the moment, there is a chance that the previous item image will linger, even though the item has updated to the next one in line (viewable by the honeycomb price and set icon).
• Store purchases hang up for a long time
  • Under investigation. We’re so sorry for those effected by this issue… which should be everyone during a drop. Other times, it runs like a champ.

Community Content

This is a section of the blog where we will highlight any funny images or videos from the community. These may appear through links in the forums, on Facebook, guides on YouTube, or other sites.

While in London this year, many fun stories were shared between players. One of these stories was how LoneLee started playing WallaBee. Well, after last year’s London event, Wyando and Tamarisk were flying home to Germany and saw their Munzee friend, LoneLee, in Stansted airport. LoneLee had business in London that he was returning from and asked Wyando why he was in London. After giving an explanation about WallaBee and the event they had just been to, LoneLee made an account and started playing. A year later, he’s sitting next to me at the London event, reliving this story. Awesome way to start playing, LoneLee! Thanks for letting us share it.

Jenbee997 has removed every set item from her sets, checked to see if they open, and saved them again with only managing to recycle one of them. Valiant effort, Jen! Here’s the list of her findings, with room to add your own!

If you think someone’s content (or your own) is worthy of being highlighted, you can suggest by emailing support or tagging it with #WallaCommunity.

Any additional questions, comments, concerns? Email: support@wallabeegame.com

Weekly Buzz 02/23/18

Hello Collectors,

We’ve missed you! As you may have noticed last Friday, there was no Weekly Buzz. I (Robbie) was in London for WallaBee’s 6th birthday celebration (which was amazing) and ran out of time. I must admit that I am human every now and again, which is evident after spending 39,000 steps walking around London, followed by a loud dinner with 30 or so awesome WallaBee players… Needless to say, I crashed hard once inside my hotel room, with no blog post written. I apologize for that and hope that this blog will make up for two weeks of information.

Behind the Curtain

Grab Bags are still trending on WallaBee’s unofficial topic boards, which has been helpful in how we navigate future bag releases. We noticed that the response on a grab bag over the 1,000hc threshold was not welcomed, so we have made changes to the prices of various items within the set, to help this price go down further. You may notice that other items will be adjusted from all other sets to help with this balance. If you have questions about how Grab Bags work, you can find a brief overview here.

We released the Piñata item for our 6th birthday, and although the store sat and spun for everyone, the concept was applauded by various members of the community. Changing up various ways of receiving items is something that we feel helps grow the game from becoming stagnant. We wouldn’t expect many sets to all release from one item, but at least it’s now something you know may be coming. 😉

Our goal is to make our players happy. We know how much you enjoy foraging (or at least used to), which is why we’re making an effort to revitalize this aspect of the game for future growth. We want everyone to be able to forage, whether they are in the middle of a city or the middle of a field. How does this change the current aspects of WallaBee’s geolocation gameplay? Only the future can tell.

After two weeks of practice, most of our newly signed off BeeKeepers have become pros at editing locations across the world. Although some of the new team hasn’t earned their wings yet, give them time. You may begin to see some of the new BKs interacting in the forums more, as their roles get assigned. Remember, you can come to BKs with questions or suggestions you have about the app. They are our support staff, but remain players – just like you! If you have a location that needs some extra help with verifying, you can submit a photo of the location via the in-game support option. We’d love to make sure that your requested location gets approved.

Should you have any questions, please let us know by emailing Support@WallaBeeGame.com

Recent Item Highlights

Player Unique Spotlight

With more and more Player Uniques coming out, we want to spend a respectable amount of time learning more about them. Over the past two weeks, our Player Unique Spotlight has highlighted Gaius, the Wonder Corgi and Be Kind To Animals. You can read more about these uniques here.

Gaius, the Wonder Corgi

Be Kind To Animals

This Week In WallaBee History | February 12th – 25th

February 14th, 2013: Be My Valentine released in its entirety, with a completely new gameplay mechanic – Cross Mixes. This required players to look outside of the current set in order to complete it. Eros was originally named Cupid. The first RoM (Result of Mixing) in the set was found around eight hours after Cupid was released, creating panic in the community as everyone scrambled to find the other unlikely dates.

February 14th, 2013: Eau De WallaBee was introduced to WallaBee as, not only the smallest set to date, but also the longest lasting hidden message generator. Perfume and Aftershave mix with many items within the game, and produce some interesting results.

February 15th, 2012: The day before WallaBee launched, the first three items were gifted to members of staff. #1 Bearded Lady went to Ben, #1 Romantic Card went to Alan, and #1 Little Black Dress went to Simon. All of these founding staff members still have their items, with the exception of Ben – whose #1 Bearded Lady went to Simon after he deactivated his account.

February 16th, 2012: The day that WallaBee released to the public, there were 30 items available to find, with 27 of those releasing within that 24 hour period. What a day to be a low number collector! Can you name all 30 items?

February 16th, 2013: On WallaBee’s first birthday, the Mystery Box and Golden Bearded Lady were released to the public. What would we do without Mystery Boxes today?

February 16th, 2014: The entire Our 2nd Birthday set was released, along with the Mega Mix ‘2 Year Celebration.’

February 16th, 2017: The Birthday Baking set finished, with a special ending mix for the Super Birthday Cupcake.

Room For Growth

We have compiled a list of issues that we are currently working on. If you find something that doesn’t fit into this list, please reach out to us and let us know.

• Battery drains like crazy
  • Under investigation.
• Forum Notifications/Count are missing
  • Coming in a future update.
• General slowness
  • Under investigation.
• Item View Crash – Go to pouch, Tap / open item, Tap menu, App crashes
  • Fix available in next update.
• Performing an action that triggers a pop up sometimes ‘freezes,’ which needs a hard close to fix
  • Currently being sorted out.
• Places List – Bottom of row doesn’t register input.
  • Fix available in next update.
• Random Crashes (especially on older devices)
  • We have discovered that the ram needed for the app fluctuates way more than it should, sometimes peaking over 1gb, which can cause older devices to crash. We are investigating what is causing this, so that we can enhance app performance.
• Store Item and Icon don’t match
  • Under investigation. At the moment, there is a chance that the previous item image will linger, even though the item has updated to the next one in line (viewable by the honeycomb price and set icon).
• Store purchases hang up for a long time
  • Under investigation. We’re so sorry for those effected by this issue… which should be everyone during a drop. Other times, it runs like a champ.

Community Content

This is a section of the blog where we will highlight any funny images or videos from the community. These may appear through links in the forums, on Facebook, guides on YouTube, or other sites.

While many pictures were taken over the weekend, here’s a snapshot of the Friday night dinner. More images are sure to be floating around external WallaBee fan groups, but we’ll try to consolidate a list for you soon.

If you think someone’s content (or your own) is worthy of being highlighted, you can suggest by emailing support or tagging it with #WallaCommunity.

Any additional questions, comments, concerns? Email: support@wallabeegame.com