Beetle Elf

I am so happy I can play this game! Lovely visuals and cute designs! Please try the game!

i've always been interested in chaoye liu's games, but sadly most are untranslated to english. all his games have a nice vintage and novel graphics, which i absolutely adore and what got me originally interested in his games.


beetle elf is a super cute game, originally from 2013 (i think) and recently brought to steam. it's a little hard to get used to for the first hour or so til you find your footing. i'm still early into it, only level 8. the gameplay loops seems to be so far; plant flowers + daikon, and as they grow fight with your beetle against other bugs! flowers you sell for profit, and daikon (and melon) are for cooking into to food to regain health, stamina, and mana.

speaking of, a few times, i have gotten close to being softlocked by not having any money/items to regain stamina or health, therefor cannot forage or summon my beetle who might be able to fight long enough for me to level up and be completely healed.
that is generally a large complaint i have. you do not seem to regain stamina or health by idling, so you need to keep food on you at all times. thats what i meant earlier that it's hard to get used to the game at first.

even with the current New Years XP boost, leveling is pretty slow, and grinding is constant; but its fun! getting a rare loot such as hair dye or cassette- which carry me more than planting flowers. say, you buy yellow seeds for 10g, the seeds grow for about ten minutes time, and once fully grown they sell for 20. because of this, it can be hard to manage finances until you're lucky enough to get a rare drop.

things are pretty expensive too; to cook, each time you need to buy a new cooking tool as its single use only, so i advise you to hoard daikon and seasoning until you have a nice helping to get the most bang out of your buck. 1 cooking tool can be used to make 30 cooked daikon, so long as you cook it in one go. the same goes for 1 cooking tool is used for one cooked daikon; see what i mean to hoard and do it all at once?

i think that actions use way too much stamina, especially since you don't regen over time. to harvest costs 10 stamina, skills cost about 20(jumping, harvesting, combat, cooking), planting costs about 20, and summioning your beetle costs about 50(?). it's easy to not pay attention to your stamina til suddenly you're all out and have no food to get more; and thats what i mean by getting softlocked- as far as i could tell, the only remedy is is to delete your character and start over :( be careful. at least you can buy food, but it's expensive.

i havent even began progressing yet, i'm just trying to hoard money. i still only have the started equipment, and i'm in the starting zone. sometimes, the translation is strange, and othertimes it's downright wrong. in chat menus, when it says "exit" as the first chat option, it really means shop! to leave the conversation, you press the bottom option which reads something like "goodbye" or "i dont need it".
when reading how to get skills, i don't understand it at all. i have some experience with subpar translations, and usually it's still understandable if you read it with an open mind and nuance, but a lot of the time in this i just don't understand :( which, honestly, i like playing obscure foreign games, i don't expect any different so i can't really complain. i know what i'm getting into when i get these games!

ah, and, the server is completely dead. back when it first released onto steam, i saw a few handful of people, but now after picking the game back up after about a year... it's completely desolate- no one online but me. it can feel lonely


the price is really steep and expensive for what it is (in my opinion; i'm just a poor man so who knows if it really is expensive, i'm just a penny pincher). but despite those issues i have with the game, it's still fun and i'm glad i decided to play it again. i think you should get it, it's simple, but charming. maybe we'll see each other in the server?

also, the dev has a new MMO coming out soon, which i'm super excited for. the english name is Death Infection, it looks to be somewhat like beetle elf, but darker. please check their page to see what other games have made it to steam! on their website, it seems a good portion seem to be lost media by now, at least here in the west. (neadea/2dea(?), that town-sim where you manage a store but can also wander around town, so on and so forth)

dev, thank you for your work for all these years! i hope to keep seeing more of your games make it to steam and become translated.