It's funny how making all your citizens cute little beavers makes you more motivated to build a cozy, stable life for them.

Altogether very fun, but, as of me writing this, it's unfortunately possible to fall into the rut of having unlocked everything interesting and upgraded all your resource-gathering as much as you feel you need to. In other words, you can reach the point where you little motivation to keep playing beyond slightly improving your city. I've run into this when it comes to the few other resource-management/city sims I've played before, so I don't know if this is just what is considered the "end-game" of this type of game or there's an issue with the way I play.

In any case, it's kept my attention for 60 hours and counting, so that's gotta count for something. Slightly steep learning curve, but addicting as hell. I very much look forward to what this game will become with more updates.

I tried this out much earlier in its development, saw potential, but wanted to come back to it. I have now come back to it and I had a lot of fun. The limitations the game puts on city building is interesting, with the need to trap water to make it through droughts of ever increasing length. Expanding becomes an interest fight to move beavers to a new district (something that I hope they can streamline a little better as the game progresses) to dam up water before the next drought comes. The research progression is a little wonky. I think the game would benefit greatly from a research tree that visually organizes its building dependencies. I will pick the game up again later after it receives some more updates. I haven't checked out the more mechanically oriented beavers yet, but that will be for my next pass with the game.

A very strong city builder with a unique theme. Creating Dams and directing the flow of water is very fun and there is a lot of flavor between the two playable factions. Building vertical structures was also a genius idea as it makes district layouts feel like it's own puzzle.

There are two main things that hold this back however. It's UI is very messy and can make understanding how certain systems work feel like trial/error. Also there is a severe lack of dynamic events. At the time of writing the game has 2, Badwater Tides and Droughts. Both are great challenges but I think the game needs more to keep long playthroughs interesting.

Thankfully the game is in Early Access, has a strong community behind it and Devs who are open to feedback. Timberborn is a great game now and I see a bright future where it will be truly excellent. I really do look forward to checking in on this game as it updates.