Incline Timberborn - a beaver colony city builder with water physics and verticality - now on Early Access

[odrzut]

https://mechanistry.com




https://af.gog.com/game/timberborn?as=1649904300

It recently released on Early Access. I've played on last weekend and it seems very promising - landscape matters a lot and you can edit it, water flow is everything because plants can only grow near water and there are droughts every few days so you have to build bigger and bigger dams to survive.

The building part is quite involved (you can build stairs and ramps and stack buildings on top of each other, add decorations, build waterwheels and axles to power buildings). Everything's 3d and verticality matters. It's reminds me of the best parts of dwarf fortress (but with reasonable ui).

But there's no micromanagement and no combat or artifact creation, just city building and surviving the droughts or building megaprojects.

 

[odrzut]

Fuck wrong subforum, should be simulation.

 

[Hobo Elf]

It looked quite fun, but since it's early access I'll be happy to wait for a full release.

 

[odrzut]

So I played some more and noticed some limitations. It seems the engine can't handle 2 independent bodies of water 1 above another, so they restricted buildings to make it impossible to happen. So you cannot have a levy build on top of a platform for example. Kinda sucks (you cannot make aqueduct intersect a river for example) and it's unlikely to be fixed if I'm right about the reason for this restriction.

Still a fun game, i played around 80 hours at this point and I think I'm done till they introduce new content.

 

[Hellraiser]

So I played some more and noticed some limitations. It seems the engine can't handle 2 independent bodies of water 1 above another,

The latest update that just hit the experimental branch today apparently removed this limitation of the engine:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1062090/view/6233625359675151561

One of Timberborn’s hallmark features is water physics. Yet, until now, we’ve used a cleverly designed 2.5-dimensional system. Our water had variable depths and formed waterfalls, but it was like a sheet thrown over the map’s topography. Today, we’re implementing the results of our months-long work on true, three-dimensional water physics.

The possibilities this opens are endless. Without the constraints of old physics, we can add more complex interactions with fluids. We’re starting by enabling water canals to be built one atop another, and by adding sluices. Who knows where this will take us in the long term?

• Fluids on the map now use
  three-dimensional physics
  . This, among other things, means it is possible to have horizontal layers of water or badwater atop one another, with buildings in between. And how do you even assemble a casserole like this? Read on!
• Reworked the way water is rendered. Fluids now spill over more
  fluidly
  , and no longer look like their edges could cut through one’s tail. Falling water now looks better. We also removed these visible but not real “leaks” in the corners of dams and terrain.
• Water Wheels no longer slow the water flow. We originally introduced this mechanic to prevent players from building a perpetuum mobile, but the side effect - water wheels that would sometimes just stop working - was causing way too much confusion.
• Updated the way water layers are displayed when using the layer hiding tool.

Major I'm gonna build aqueducts.

I'm still hoping they add a cold season where water freezes, would be fun. Also folktails should be able to iceskate

 

[Hoodoo]

Hmm

 

[cvv]

Wasn't interested up until now but I feel like trying a new builder for a change and Steam recommended this to me.

Key question - isn't it leaning too much into the automation direction? Initially I was ready to pull the trigger on The Crust but then I noticed it looks like Factorio in space and I don't like Factorio, these kind of games are autism-locked and I lack the necessary level.

Btw almost bought it just for this review on Steam:

For once this game means that my GF doesn't get angry when i'm staring at a load of hairy beaver on the screen.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

What?! I LOVE eatin beaver!

 

[Hellraiser]

Key question - isn't it leaning too much into the automation direction? Initially I was ready to pull the trigger on The Crust but then I noticed it looks like Factorio in space and I don't like Factorio, these kind of games are autism-locked and I lack the necessary level.

It's not, there's zero automation in the Factorio sense (although I would love it if there were powered elevators, conveyor belts, stream barges, mine carts or some other mass cargo transit, also as another reason to tame rivers/build cannals etc. for power) your beavers (or beaver bots, which are just beavers that don't sleep and can work all the time) do everything settlers style or whatever, taking goods out of stockpiles to buildings that need them without much input from your side (you can change some priorities, but you don''t need to optimize it autisticly). You have some powered buildings that need to be connected with power shafts to windmills, waterwheels etc. but this is only to provide power.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

There' supply chains for goods too if I remember right but it doesn't match the autism of anno let alone factorio, it's also mostly about beaver happiness which wasn't that impactful a stat.

 

[Hellraiser]

There' supply chains for goods too if I remember right but it doesn't match the autism of anno let alone factorio.

Yes, as far as builders go it's not a very complex game when it comes to the mechanical side, apart from the water physics (especially now when they are truly 3D).

 

[cvv]

There' supply chains for goods too if I remember right but it doesn't match the autism of anno let alone factorio

Well Anno isn't a very autistic game, I should know, it's been my favourite building IP for over 15 years now, thousands of hours across all the games, and I'm a very mild autist.

Yes, as far as builders go it's not a very complex game when it comes to the mechanical side

So what's the hook here, what's the attraction.

 

[Hellraiser]

Yes, as far as builders go it's not a very complex game when it comes to the mechanical side

So what's the hook here, what's the attraction.

The part you didn't quote, the water physics covering flooding/overflow in the voxel-based terrain, current and evaporation. That leads you to building damns, diverting rivers, blowing up new canals with dynamite, building large water wheel power plants, building artificial reservoirs for droughts, pump setups to make fertile farmland where there was barren lands, and making all around pretty towns. The primary challenge comes from managing water to survive dry seasons or seasons when polluted water flows from the sources.

Also the verticality is nice, you can stack some buildings on top of one another and build complex stairways, overpasses, suspended bridges and nowadays also aqueducts.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Despite all the discussion over the usage of the term "NASApunk" regarding Starfield, no-one ever noticed that Timberborn has defined itself as "lumberpunk" since at least 2021.

 

[cvv]

Despite all the discussion over the usage of the term "NASApunk" regarding Starfield, no-one ever noticed that Timberborn has defined itself as "lumberpunk" since at least 2021.

Beaverpunk seems much more apt.