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✨Guide to Getting The Beekeeper's Picnic Running on Mac✨

So the bad news is, all of the "get your game made using the Adventure Game Studio game engine easily ported into Mac!" guides that I've found aren't resulting in something which... actually runs. I think an official Beekeeper's Picnic macOS release is going to require me to outsource to someone who has more of an idea about what they're doing, and that'll take more time :c

But the good news is...

I have found a pretty easy temporary solution in the form of ScummVM, a program designed to let you play many classic graphical point-and-click adventure games. And BKP, apparently.

So, here are some steps on how to use it:

Firstly, you'll want to get the itch.io version of The Beekeeper's Picnic. Download the Windows version, and double click on the Zip file to unzip it.

2. Download ScummVM.

3. When you open ScummVm for the first time, it'll look like this. Click Add game...

4. Select the 'Windows' folder that you unzipped. When Scumm comes back with what it's found in that folder, click 'The Beekeeper's Picnic' and then 'Choose'

5. At this point, Scumm might get very confused. It might panic. It might show you a message that looks something like this:

You must shush it like a skittish horse and click 'Add anyway'.

6. Then a screen will come up with lots of tabs and options. I just kept everything as default and clicked 'Ok'

7. You can now select The Beekeeper's Picnic and click Start! And it should run!

Some stuff to be aware of

I haven't had anyone come back to me reporting this doesn't work yet (woo!) but if you buy the game and it doesn't work give me a shout and I'll be happy to refund!

You won't get automatic updates, so you might watch to check back on Itch.io from time to time to make sure you have the latest version.

You can play other point and click adventures this way! Why not treat yourself to Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo while you're at it? It's my favourite!

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The Time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Had A Pet Sea Snail

I've been reading the diary Doyle kept of his time as a ship's surgeon aboard an Arctic whaling vessel in 1880, and you all deserve to hear the tale of John Thomas, Doyle's pet Clione limacina, which he drew in the above picture.

Doyle, then 21, found John Thomas on June 3rd, 1880:

Brought up a most beautiful Clio or Sea Snail, a couple of inches long, looking like some weird little fairy. I have stuck him in a pickle bottle and christened him "John Thomas." I hope he will live, we have put some butter and pork into his house.

The following day, Doyle attempted to feed John Thomas and wrote a short poem about the snail:

John Thomas is in an awful passion. We left the pickle bottle far from the fire, and as there are 11 degrees of frost it froze up and John has caught cold. He is sitting in a corner with his tail in his mouth, just as a sulky baby sticks its thumb into its potato box. I have drawn John's attention to the butter & pork and he took a hurried breakfast, but seems to have business of importance down at the bottom of the bottle. He's thinking perhaps of Where his rude shell by the Gulf Stream lay, There were his little Sea Snails all at play, There their Amoeboid mother, he their sire Butchered to make a whale's holiday.

On June 5th, Doyle reported that "John is well and hearty," and on the 6th, he wrote:

John was up before me and took a heavy breakfast. He is now gyrating round the top of his bottle surveying his new kingdom apparently and meditating a map. I put him in a bucket every evening where he wanders fancy free for an hour or two.

Unfortunately, on the 10th, Doyle reported that John Thomas had departed the mortal plane.

John Thomas died on the 8th of June, regretted by a large circle of acquaintances

He wrote a touching eulogy for his tiny friend:

He was a right thinking and high minded Clio, distinguished among his brother sea snails for his mental activity as well as for physical perfection. He never looked down upon his smaller associates because they were protozoa while he could fairly lay claim to belong to the high family of the Echinodermata or Annulosa. He never taunted them with their want of a water vascular system, nor did he parade his own double chain of ganglia. He was a modest and unassuming blob of protoplasm, and could get through more fat pork in a day than many an animal of far higher pretensions. His parents were both swallowed by a whale in his infancy, so that what education he had was due entirely to his own industry and observation. He has gone the way of all flesh so peace be to his molecules.

John Thomas' descendants still live in the Arctic Ocean today, and they look pretty cool!

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@contact-guy Look! He really has a sketchbook!

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Your 221B Husbands on a leisurely afternoon reading each other some POEtry.

A beautiful Monday everyone! Today I give you another sketch of our two favourite roommates. This time i’ve planned to digitalise the sketch and make a painting of it. We will see when I finish it.

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the “fawx & stallion” podcast just finished it’s second season few days ago (it’s amazing, everyone go listen to it), so I had no choice but to celebrate by finally drawing the idea that’s been plaguing me for months now. more than anything because it gives me the opportunity to share one of my absolute favourite dance videos (that inspired this whole thing)

a special little something under the cut

so, as a little gift to the fandom of the podcast, I’m also leaving my wonky lineart for this piece here, and ya’ll are welcome to use it as a colouring page, if you like!)) you don’t have to ask for permission to use it, whether to colour it digitally or print and do it traditionally and you can alter it if you want. you can erase my “watermark” if you print it out for colouring, and you can move/make it smaller for digital art (though I’d ask you to leave it, even in some altered way, if you want to post it online). you are more than welcome to post it! and you definitely don’t have to, but I’d love it if you tagged me, if you do!! I’d love to see your art :)

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reverse gatekeeping. I am on my knees begging people to engage with the source material

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I *still* can't get the opening of The Speckled Band out of my head oh my goddddddddddddd they're so sweet im gonna die

Silly extra

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So... I've just listened to the final episode of the further adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Bert Coules...

Holmes and Watson solved the case and are back at Baker Street. Holmes starts to play the violin.

Watson : You played that for me just after a few days when we had first moved in here

Holmes:Did I?

Watson : I didn't have the least idea what to make of you.

Holmes: Do you now?

Watson : well, I think so, yes... Maybe... You know, I love these moments, the case is solved, everything is over and we are back here in the warmth and comfort.

Holmes : Tell the next client that comes along.

Watson : Ah, and then off you go again. I wish it could always be like this.

Holmes suddenly stops playing.

Holmes : Watson... It will.

Watson : How can it? Nothing lasts forever.

Holmes : It will because of you. Because of your stories. Can't you see? It doesn't matter what happens here, in the real world. We're more than reality. You and I. You, my friend, have made us immortal.

Watson : That's quite a thought.

Holmes : It's the truth. As long as there are mysteries and murders-

Watson : and fog and fear-

Holmes: and terror and injustice -

Watson : then Sherlock Holmes, privat consulting detective

Holmes : and John H. Watson, chronicler, comrade and friend-

Watson : be ready -

Holmes : waiting for the dramatic ring of the doorbell.

They both giggle.

The doorbell rings.

Together : The game's afoot!

.

.

Bert Coules, thank you for this. How am I to live with the knowledge of this and the fact that I am now finished with all the audio books.

Oh, what a wonderful scene!

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We are seeing the same playbook as Iraq and a lot of Iraqi diaspora also said the same things when it was ongoing. Regardless of how you feel about the Iranian government, do not fucking do CIA job

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I found this suggestive one… actually nothing can be seen tho it’s super natural

…and I think I scribbled (no it took me a whole afternoon me so impotent) it after reading the weight of air by blistering_typhoons it’s…touching

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Happy belated summer solstice! Which means another glorious round of @holmestice! I got to draw something for the inimitable Coat who requested a @beekeeperspicnic fanwork, which I had very conveniently just finished playing. The text is a quote from an E. M. Forster letter.

There were just so many great offerings this round, as always, so you should have a nosey yourself and maybe... join us in the winter round? I very much enjoyed this other Beekeeper's Picnic piece by... also Coat, you can never get enough of a Lion's Mane remix. Obviously, I am still not over my incredible gift, a beautifully written The Case of the Silk Stocking story by @althusserarien. Other favourites of mine were this neat G&S crossover, a gorgeous Abbey Grange rewrite, a dreamy Rathbone scene, and this amazing post-Hound Granada story with a touch of later Raffles.

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I just love that canon Watson has Holmes’s different moods categorized, memorized, and named. He’s like: Ah yes, Holmes is smoking his wood pipe instead of the usual clay, that means he’s on his period.

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I CANT KEEP BUYING DIFFERENT EDITIONS OF THE SAME BOOK I CANT BUT THIS IS SO CUTE IM OBSSESED

Ilustrator: Pilar Hernandez

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acting choices

this little scene made me lose my mind because like. the fondness with which Holmes looks at Watson. the curiosity in his eyes as he watches how Watson handles the confrontation with Hayes. the smiles that Watson cannot see. the softness in Holmes' features. the pursed lips, the gentle nudge to go. it's just. love and love and love because this is exactly how you look at the person you adore above all else and just. sigh. I love them.

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Elementary ➤ 1.21 - "A Landmark Story"