When The Dam Breaks
The past coupe of years have seen a veritable Renaissance in the indie gaming scene with small dev teams absolutely umping out top-quality content, from the fast-paced action-platformer Axiom Verge 2 to the logistics-based RTS Falling Frontier. Now, the Polish-based team Mechanistry are adding to the hoard of indie releases with a truly unique city builder – Timberborn!
Timberborn’s style is describes as “lumberpunk”, and it’s easy to see why. The game takes place in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event that’s wiped humans from the planet. In a desolate wasteland, one animal species reigns supreme – the beavers! Through irrigation, dam-building and city building, the beavers have reclaimed the world and endure the deadly environments around them. There are two playable beaver factions – The nature-loving Folktails or the industrial Ironteeth.
Whether you choose to use good, old-fashioned lumber or you’re at the forefront of progress with ever more advanced machinery, the beavers of Timberborn have a common purpose – surviving the dry seasons as the wasteland grows harsher and harsher.
Elaborating on the two factions, Timberborn’s lead designer Bartlomiej Dawidow stated “The two beaver factions play completely different but both make good use of Timberborn’s unique take on the city-building genre – here, water engineering with dams and water physics dictates the success. As one would expect from a beaver game, the wood industry is a key player too but it’s not just about sawmills and lodges – Timberborn colonies grow vertically, layer by layer, with platforms and bridges. Finally, there’s the post-apocalyptic aspect with an underlying threat of deadly droughts that hit harder and harder, threatening to reclaim the beaver lands”
Whether you choose to use good, old-fashioned lumber or you’re at the forefront of progress with ever more advanced machinery, the beavers of Timberborn have a common purpose – surviving the dry seasons as the wasteland grows harsher and harsher.
Timberborn is available right now through Early Access on Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store, though a full release date hasn’t been revealed just yet. You can keep up to date with the project right here!