Posted on: June 2, 2023
Early Access review
p_to_the_a_t
Games: 124 Reviews: 2
Beaver Auschwitz (bought on Steam)
A terribly long drought came in on hard mode (22 days long). A few days in, I could see that we were running out of water and my village was overpopulated. I knew that every single citizen of Beaverton would die of thirst if I didn't do something drastic, quickly. I decided to build a second town center that was surrounded by only a few extra builder huts. The beavers that I sent here had no access to food or water, all that was in this district were builder's huts for the nearby reservoir that needed to be built. That's right, you guessed it. In order to ration our water and survive, I sent half of my population to a literal labor camp/death camp. Every single beaver in that second district died in less than a week, but their sacrifice will not be forgotten. This is one of my all-time favorite gaming memories. Timberborn is absolutely incredible. I have played a lot of colony sims (Frostpunk, Endzone, Banished, Rimworld, etc) and this is by far the best one. The water mechanics really make the game unique and engaging. It's the perfect mix of complexity and simplicity. It's not overly complex like Oxygen Not Included and Factorio, to where the mechanics are so convoluted that you need to look up guides, graphs, and charts in order to figure it all out. But it's not super simple either. In most colony sims, if you need X, then just build Y building, and you're done. Timberborn is different, and it adds a level of complex strategy because everything depends on your access to water, which is a physics-based commodity. You can't just build a water generator (like a well) and then you have all the water you need. No. You have to actively direct the flow of water from the streams and rivers by building dams, reservoirs, canals, and etc in order to make sure that your colony survives the droughts.
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