Whiskerwood has made it undeniable: I have the opposite of a speedrunning problem. Give me a stretch of land, a supply of loyal builders, and a free hand to go nuts building some impressive metropolis, and I will, within mere dozens of hours, produce a small, haphazard hamlet reluctantly beginning to flirt with ironmaking. Rome was not built in a day. If I’d had my way, it still wouldn’t be.
Whiskerwood, to my pleasant surprise, does not hold this against me. It’s most obviously reminiscent of Timberborn, and its premise recalls Colonization, of all things, as your “Whiskers” build a colony for the “Claws”, who are largely absentee (there are no cats in America) but extract a regular toll of goods as taxation. You’d assume they quickly ramp up the pressure and force the issue because games are Like That. The real pressure, though, is a much more interesting model of colonialism, and how even absent of political context, that kind of economic arrangement can constrain and shape a town.
Mice and cats replacing humans separates Whiskerwood from history, but its premise naturally brings to mind the Europeans settling what would become the USA (and of course dozens of other nations like Brazil and Mexico, but the focus on taxation as a grievance, and arguably the snobby paternalism of the fat cats, aren’t subtle). Free from the political context of slavery and genocide and international relations and centuries of rich Americans conning the poor into thinking low taxes are good for them and and and… you can see why they went this way.
Timberborn is an obvious touchstone, and for more than the animals. Its basic operation is similar; cube-based building with a huge emphasis on verticality, and the ability to easily stack buildings in complex piles of walkways and staircases. You allocate the fertile parts to varying crops, you build on stilts over the water, you slow to a crawl after vastly underestimating how many trees to plant. Your people have needs, but meeting them is mostly the carrot of increased speed and efficiency rather than the stick of rebellion or ungratefully starving to death.
But what’s striking is how a few key differences from that formula radically change what Whiskerwood is about. Survivalism is out: Winters are cold, but very easily endured, and after weeks of play I’m not sure if whiskers can die, or if starvation just slows everything down.
It’s also a much more extractive game. Timberborn’s preset maps were all about reading the landscape and managing it sustainably, making the fewest changes necessary to revitalise the world. Excavating a single square was prohibitively expensive to research and apply. Whiskerwood is closer here to a Dwarf Fortress model of immediately delving into the procedurally generated earth for ores and building space, and much later, the factory sim machinations of conveyor belts, trains, and whatever mega-projects whim demands.
But that’s not for the hell of it. It’s because of the built-in tension of developing a colony that’s beholden to an external power. Every few days, the Claws demand a toll. But they accept payment almost exclusively in raw resources. Manufacturing those into goods serves your purposes, but not theirs, because that’s their thing. You’re supposed to stay down and buy their goods so you can sustain the operation that supplies their industries and keeps a few thousand people back home nice and rich.
This is a vastly better model of colonialism than I’d expected (and I nearly added the “neo-” prefix, since that basic imbalance is still a foundation of global politics today, however indirectly it manifests). In the absence of the usual “+1 difficulty per year” colony sim artifice, my naturally slow and semi-organised expansion meant I had no real grievance with the Claws, and didn’t really mind their inflated costs. They also send, see, regular supply ships, offering a choice of three preset (though somewhat randomised) bundles. Bigger bundles offer more advanced goods, at the cost of adding dramatically more to your next tax bill.
But you can turn a supply ship down. Doing that lowers the Claws’ patience by one bar, but shrinks their slice of the pie. Tax ships accept resources in whatever proportions you choose that meets the monetary value of your bill, but also more, if you want. Sending excess wins back the Claws’ approval, and a better range of “gifts” they paternalistically grant (they are clearly dumping their junk on you, but it’s often useful). And since the threshold for what counts as a larger payment is percentage-based, strategically turning down supplies can make up a stable midgame, where you’re self-sufficient in some areas but still not ready to manufacture a few key items. Or, perhaps, you plain don’t want to yet.
Taxes are based largely on measures of population and industry, each fully under your control. The Claws’ demand for raw resources brings natural struggle eventually, as the land can only provide so much (even with research and spreading to other nearby islands, though terraforming can slowly add new land), and even the vast underground only provides so much ore. The logistics of increased output require expansion, which bumps taxes, which demands more output, and thus the likelihood that the Claws will ask too much of you approaches 1. But taken slowly, it’s a relationship that can maintain some equilibrium. You can still build as you like, and even reach vast stockpiles, if you take care to manage what you’re producing.
This is particularly true on my preferred of its three region settings (and more fraught on one that makes most Whiskers monarchists, who are unhappy and thus unproductive manufacturers), which sends more pirates and smugglers, essentially providing three markets instead of one. Even if the only thing the pirates sell is “not blowing up your stuff”. Both accept some manufactured goods, which smugglers convert to gold bullion, the only processed item the Claws accept.
Customisable difficulty can also dial the intensity of the relationship either way, but the dynamic remains the same. In itself, merely changing its parameters is an interesting exercise in both game design and economics – sure, a lot of them are just a different number. But at certain thresholds that tips over into changing your whole ethos and the nature of what you build. Whiskerwood isn’t without its limitations or obvious video game nonsense, but the way its central system is explicitly pegged to grounded, natural demands, and the near absence of money as a cure-all, mark it out as a very intriguing design. Of course I’m still being ripped off, but I don’t really care. I’m having a nice time building this mess, and my people… well, they have clothes. Sometimes.
Its other interesting contrasts with Timberborn are smaller still, but make an outsized difference: most infrastructure, like the stairs and platforms that enable building vertically, appear instantly, and demolish for a full refund. Population management is more involved, too, as each Whisker belongs to a guild, giving them bonuses when working in corresponding professions, and most come with a trait or two. These are minor, but significant enough to matter and make occasional micromanagement worthwhile. Loners are upset if they have to share a house, while snorers upset everyone else. Some move faster or work more slowly, others are accident prone or unbothered by rude comments. Many of these provide or deduct “approval”, an abstract resource that pays for new immigrants (individually, with costs varying thanks to those traits), and various bonuses provided by edicts, which can be activated in limited slots for free, but cost approval each time they take effect.
This is all done through an interface so intuitive and well-hyperlinked that it’s easy to take for granted. It’s never hard to find a properly trained farmer, and it takes very little work to set anything up. I particularly like the animations that flip cargo across the map whenever you move it to or from a ship.
I like, too, that each day draws to a close with a pleasant gong, upon which you must manually end the day rather than have time extending forever. It’s a little unnecessary ritual that gives structure and a curiously homely feeling. You might use night time to plan and just let the day roll on, or if its darkness is an obstacle, find that hint of ritual makes it less annoying somehow; easier to accept because, hey, your day is done, too, might as well leave that until tomorrow. Even if tomorrow is just a few seconds away.
Whiskerwood’s capacity for automation and scale, as well as world-shaping projects, will see players build some ambitious things: some hyper-lean systems, some game-breakingly productive machines. With a year still left in early access, it’s already an endlessly engaging city builder, but even if it gets a little lost amid more dramatic or “optimised” play styles that make taxation irrelevant, I’m most impressed by the unusually savvy implementation of an idea that could easily have been mere set dressing.