The Core Game Loop: Survive and Build
At its core, Timberborn is a story about beavers surviving a post-apocalypse world. And yes, they're highly developed animals that use all the techs they can think of to create their cities and survive.
There's the choice of two factions, a more eco-friendly one called Folktails and industrial Iron Teeth.
It is good that the learning curve is quite smooth. At first, your only job is to get the beavers enough food and water to survive. But in this world, the biggest threats are the brutal dry seasons and the waves of badwater. So naturally, you have to do something that all beavers know how to do well - build dams. The water physics in 3D here are a specially nice.
Things That We Love
Here's what we really love about the game now that the final version of 1.0 is out there:
- Vertical Building: Due to the limited space in this game, you can actually build vertically. It is incredibly fun to stack up multiple layers of lodges, workshops, and even power stations.
- "One More Turn" Effect: Timberborn is extremely addictive. I find myself sitting down for an hour and ending up playing for four.
- Advanced Automation: The late game allows you to build a highly complex automated system and watch how it operates on its own.
- The Charm: Beavers riding the zipline, running in a hamster wheel-like construction to produce energy, etc.
The Problems that May Cause a Splinter in Your Experience
Every game may have some minor issues. Although the feedback is almost unanimously positive, here's what we found out about Timberborn:
- A Lack of End-Game Tension: Once you managed to automate things properly and secured the water source, there's no real survival threat anymore. There is also a lack of objectives at that stage of the game.
- Quick Tutorial: It will teach you the basics, but it will leave you alone pretty quickly. So you need to learn advanced mechanics, such as hydrology on your own, sometimes using trial-and-error method.
- Some Missing QoL Features: We note the absence of some minor features, including, for example, inversion of the Y-axis.
Final Verdict
Timberborn is a refreshing take on the colony sim genre. There is no unnecessary input/output micro management here, and all you have to do is to survive and grow.
In case you are more into the cozy part of city-building, this is the game for you; but if you prefer hardcore challenges, Timberborn will definitely satisfy your hunger for a struggle.