We humans have really screwed up the planet. And now we’re all dead. Who rises to take our place? What about a creature so industrious they have a saying–”busy as a”? What about a creature that loves damming? What about a big, wet, hairy beaver? Who doesn’t love a huge beaver? Particularly one that works long, hard hours, a beaver that never stops until everything is wet and sloppy from all the moisture it gets everywhere?
Friends, welcome to Timberborn.
There’s a lot of city builder games out there (and I won’t stop playing them because I hate myself). The gimmick with this one is that it’s a city builder/colony management game but with a twist: humanity has fallen. The beavers have taken our place. Call it “beaverpunk.” Currently, there are two factions: The Folktails are nice farmer beavers that love nothing more than sticking their plow deep into the moist, wet earth, driving deep, and planting seeds. The Ironteeth are more industrial beavers, all pounding pistons and metal. Goth-industrial beaverpunk, if you will.
Like most of these games, you need to manage everyone’s needs and taking care of a big, furry beaver is more complicated than it looks. Keeping your beaver happy is surprisingly complicated. They can’t just walk over and bury their faces in the gushing water, for example. What are they, animals? You’d just have a big, wet beaver if they did that. No, they need water pumps to get that refreshing gush across their tongues. Nourishing!
They’re very nice beavers, but you kinda have to tell them to do everything or they literally die. This can be kind of a bummer in the current tutorial build if you can’t figure something out and you single-handedly slaughter a bevy of beavers. You monster. So you have to tell them to go out and gather blueberries to eat. And to invent staircases.
Ah, yes, beavers have discovered science. Beaver science.
Most of these games require some management and herding of your band of idiots. Timberborn takes it a little far. Say you want to cut down some trees. You need to build a Lumberjack Flag to attract big, strapping lumberjacks to cut down thick logs of fresh wood. But they don’t just walk over and do it. Beavers don’t know a damn thing. Once you build the flag, you have to go into a different menu and specifically mark which trees you want them to cut down.
Likewise, some of the UI decisions are kind of finicky. Why, pray tell, is “Cut Trees” its own button? But Wood is a different category? And “Plant Trees” is somewhere else altogether? I am not sure I need an assortment of tree-themed buttons that all do slightly different things. On the other hand, I also play Dwarf Fortress and sometimes even have fun because I am a sicko, so it’s not the worst I’ve seen.
If you like a finicky level of detail and can deal with the kind of finicky interface, there is a ton of fun detail beneath the surface. Right now, the tutorial basically just sort of gets you going and it’s up to you to get beyond a bunch of big, needy beavers that need to be kept wet and stuffed full of carrots. Maybe you get power up and running, getting a big, hard shaft to connect to a water wheel and bring the beavers out of the dork. Or maybe you find the dynamite button and flood everything. It is possible for a beaver to be too wet. Or they all die in the tutorial because you didn’t build a road to the water pump and the idiots didn’t know how to get there without said road. Even those momentary frustrations pale next to building monuments to the beast beavers or giving them a nice ride on a big wooden stallion at the carousel. Well, they have to amuse themselves somehow.
Land management is maybe the biggest gimmick besides the whole beaver thing. It is not a static playfield or environment. Droughts come, drying up the river and making everyone die of thirst. You may keep the land tended and healthy. Or you may blow things up with dynamite like a beaver gone bad.
The core loop is the classic tension between managing resources, investing to unlock new technologies, and dealing with droughts and other environmental disasters, but with cute, hard working beavers. Unlike most of these games, it’s not trying to be hardcore and constantly kill you with raiders or aliens or bad events. It’s a nice time with the ol’ beavs. Except when you kill them all. You monster.
The last word: Keep your beavers in line!
