Timberborn

Timberborn is an enjoyable city-building game with some interesting concepts, mainly the vertical building and drought mechanics. The beavers make for cute protagonists, even if the universe they exist in is underdeveloped. The game’s presentation is decent as long as players spend most of their time zoomed out, focused on the city management elements. I think the science point-driven building unlocking is too slow and that the game needs a higher speed setting. Timberborn should have done more with its beaver world but it delivers solid mechanics and challenges which should appeal to genre lovers looking for a new world to experience.

A dynamic game that hits adorable at the same time as it does engaging management gameplay, Timberborn is just a great game to invest your time with. While you can have massive amounts of fun fighting against the environment and optimize as much as you can, it also allows you just build for building’s sake as well. And building vertically offers a dynamic challenge to take advantage of the terrain—work in some decorations, and you can build intricate lumberpunk colonies worthy of any city-builder /reddit post. If you’ve been waiting to pick this game up, well, entering with Update 4 is the perfect choice.

The overall concept of fertility, energy, vertical architecture and water physics holds much potential. Redirecting water for the artificial irrigation of distant areas or the formation of huge lakes is already remarkably satisfying.