I want to le beave
I think I’m tired of winter.
It’s not the cold.
It’s not even the lack of anything to do.
My first village inTimberborngave me that feeling.
Even though its dry season is the opposite of Winter, the ultimate effect was the same.
I’ve played this before, I thought.
This is the villagers vs winter game again.
I was a fool.
A big, wrong fool.
My initial complaint comes up often in survival-based building games.
The issue I have isn’t when they’re difficult, but when there’s no leeway.
Does nobody in this village want to live?
Its not even about difficulty, but degree of entertainment.
Losing, essentially, is not fun.
It’s an awkward complaint.
What am I asking for, the game to play itself?
For my problems to be magically solved by enterprising peasants?
For games about preparation to cut out preparation?
I guess the main thing is I’m tired of playingBanishedagain.
No disrespect to Banished, but I never got on with it.
Or considerOstriv, where the watching itselfwas a delight.
Build a sawmill, plant crops, plant new trees, etc, etc.
In place of Winter though, your looming threat is drought.
Every 15 days or so, the water coursing through each map dries up.
Land that previously bordered water turns from a precious, plant-bearing green to a cracked and alarming grey.
Plants wither and die, and any beaver town left with no water dies.
Fundamentally, it is wood, not water or food that your future is built on.
And the key to it is water.
For that is the second thing that defines why Timberborn is special.
The fact that your people are beavers is largely immaterial, and yet it’s critical thematically.
What do beavers do?
And so must you.
Water, you see, does not simply disappear come the drought.
Water sources dry up, but those sources are blocks like the ones inDwarf Fortress.
And once it leaves a source, the water flows.
And channel you will, because dead land touched by water becomes more places for trees and crops.
Moving water drives wheels that power your industry.
Timberborn, you see, is not just about surviving the drought.
That’s another design feature I didn’t appreciate at first.
When you spread wide enough things move slowly, and it becomes time to place a new district.
Thenceforth, it becomes a separate town, with its own population and storage.
And it’s water that’s key.
Use it while it’s here, and you’ll even get to keep it.
That third dimension adds so much room for expression as well as function.
I always build around the land in these games, reluctant even to build over natural forests.
