City-building game featuring furry beavers

Timberborn is a premium simulation game created by developer Mechanistry. It is a city-building title wherein players will take control of furry and ingenious beavers. In it, they will rebuild a colony and revitalize a world that has been turned into a wasteland because of humans.

Similar to Frostpunk, Timberborn is set in a post-apocalyptic world wherein players will face and have to contend with harsh environments and situations to survive. What makes this early access title stand out is that it has them take charge of an all-beaver cast of characters.

Well, dam

Timberborn takes place in a world where humans are gone, but not before destroying Earth and plundering its natural resources. There are still the beavers left, though, and they need to come up with a way to survive the wasteland they’re currently living in. A sprawling beaver society has been unearthed, and you can choose to be part of the nature-loving Folktails or the industrious Iron Teeth.

There are wet and dry seasons in the game that require different approaches to dealing with them. Stock up on food and supplies and keep your crops healthy during droughts. Meanwhile, put up dams and floodgates when the monsoon season comes. There’s limited land to work with, so employ vertical architecture to build your colony up. Wood is your vital resource, and you’ll also need to research new technologies around it.

Of course, things can’t be all serious work as you’ll also need to maintain high morale. To help with that, you can incorporate various activities, bring in some delicious grub, and put up decorations and monuments to keep everyone healthy and happy. The game does run out of content relatively quickly, though, as the experience in the later stages can feel a bit dull and uninteresting.

What’s new?

The Update 4 patch comes with a ton of changes that will redefine how a player usually plays Timberborn. Aside from new faction inclusions, it also brings bug fixes and other adjustments. One of these changes is the new line of crops given to the Iron Teeth faction, making some of the older crops purely exclusive to the Folktails faction from now on. The crops include:

• Canola
• Cassava
• Coffee Bush
• Corn
• Eggplant
• Kohlrabi
• Mangrove Tree
• Soybean

Besides that, new buildings are given to the Iron Teeth as well. These include the Fermenter, Oil Press, Hydroponic Garden, Food Factory, and Coffee Brewery. Meanwhile, the Folktails are also given faction-specific structures like the Hedge, Efficient Farmhouse, and Lumbermill. Furthermore, the update comes with a new tree, the Oak, whose growing time is a long 30 in-game days, but yields a whopping number of eight logs.

Additionally, new monuments are added to the game, to further emphasize the difference between the two factions. For the gentler Folktails, these are the Farmer Monument, Brazier of Bonding, and Fountain of Joy. On the other hand, the more laborious Iron Teeth get the Laborer Monument, Flame of Unity, and Tribute to Ingenuity.

Reworks have also been done to the game’s district and distribution features. For the former, range limits have been lifted — now, the player can extend a district across the map to their heart’s content. As for the latter, all distribution processes are now fully automated, meaning goods will be imported to districts with specific warehouses by default. Aside from those, a new medium-difficulty map, Craters, has been added to the game.

Moreover, additional changes were done to the game’s sounds and graphics. There are new sound effects, model tweaks, visual bug fixes, and more. Game difficulty is rebalanced, as well. Finally, adjustments to the game’s font, scroll bar, and icons are done too.

Introducing lumberpunk

A city-building game with the humans gone, replaced by beavers — this premise alone is reason enough to give this title a go. You need to dig deeper — pun intended — though. It also has solid gameplay and mechanics to back it up. So, if you’re a fan of these types of games and are looking for something a little different, Timberborn is worth checking out. Recommended.