The origin of Apis

Earlier this year, I had an idea for a game play mechanic for a programming game. The concept was to let the game be controlled via an API (Application Programming Interface), rather than using a customized programming language internal to the game itself. This allows me to make a programming game with out inventing a programming language. A game, with the game-in-the-API, that lets you playing using the programming language of your choice. My initial game concept involved a spacecraft controlled by multiple, interconnected API. But the spacecraft is non-functional and you need to fix it via programming, using the API. On planning the game, I realized it was getting very complex. Maybe too much so for my first attempt at this kind of game. Around this time, I was also interested in clicker games. Playing them yes, but also I am kind of fascinated at the game-play of clicker games as a genre. And then the community around clicker games, reading strategies, and then as I became bored with clicker games, I began reading about clicker game cheats. This line of thinking brought me to the realization that the programmers who made these cheats/hacks were probably doing so to entertain themselves. I briefly considered writing my own hack to a JavaScript clicker-game, to implement my own strategy ideas. That is what brought me to Apis. I decided to make a clicker game with no clicking. The UI is your programming language. It's sort of a secret clicker game. This summer, my partner and I were exploring gardens and nature paths and finding many flowers along the way. I've been taken with photographing flowers and the bees that accompany them. And that led me to considering a beehive as "system". And the game concept was born. Apis is, like I said, a secret clicker game, but at this point it's still alpha. It doesn't have the exponential escalation that is a clicker games concept. But I'm not sure how important that concept is to Apis. It started as "I'll do this little game before I bite into the sprawling concept spaceship game". Right now, I'm torn between exploring the ideas in Apis, and wanting to get over with it so I can move on to the bigger concept. I plan to add a few more features before I consider it beta (Apis is still alpha). I'm working on documentation, as suggested by a redditer. In my last update I added random events (wasps attack, etc). I'll add some more random events. I also want to add achievements now. I didn't really consider achievements to be that important, but I've changed my mind. I feel like achievements will help players understand what goals they might want to work towards.