Gamers with a fondness for city builders, communicative developers, and natural aesthetics will want to keep an eye out forTimberborn.The forthcomingindie titleis not a typical civilization creation game, as it stars post-apocalyptic, bipedal beavers, but developer Mechanistry is aiming to create a uniquely satisfying experience for would-be civic engineers, planners, and architects. Hot on the heels of the title’s Future Games Fest trailer and demo release, Mechanistry members Jon Biegalski and Michal Amielanczyk spoke to Game Rant about the importance of collaborating with fans, and the impact the community has had on their game’s development to date.
Amielanczyk and Biegalski are aiming toestablish ‘lumberpunk’ as an entirely new genrewithTimberborn, which is always an ambitious undertaking. But with a legion of beaver-friendly fans behind them, providing feedback, ideas, and requests, they may just pull it off.
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Discord Discourse
Social media platforms are an intrinsic part of daily life, and have becomepromotional lynchpins for games and characters, so it is no surprise that Mechanistry is active on both Twitter and Twitch, showcasing different features of the game. Discord channels have become increasingly popular forums for game discussions between fans and developers however, especially where indie games are concerned. While describing Mechanistry’s rapport with their fans, Amielanczyk explained:
“People definitely prefer interacting with us through Discord. We are a seven-person team, and somebody is always on, so fans can reach out directly to the developer and talk to them live.We even have a special group of people we call Eager Beavers, who are a little more active on our Discord, and act as ambassadors for the game.”
Discord is not only a convenient wayto chat while playingAmong Us.The ability to interact with devs in real time, providing feedback and receiving a response from an actual human, rather than submitting opinions via email or anonymized form fields, is a vital tool for building a game’s community. It also positions Mechanistry as a developer who listens to their audience from the start, asTimberbornwill be the studio’s debut title.
Perhaps even more importantly is the special status afforded to super fans and having an active role in shaping the game’s development fosters a sense of ownership throughout the community. Eager Beavers receive special opportunities and sneak peaks that establish them as genuine insiders. And Mechanistry fans their brand ambassadors' passions with frequent discussions devoted to specific topics (dubbed “Beaver Brainstorms,") as well as contests for fan art and building themost impressive cities.
Biegalski and Amielanczyk are doing their best to satisfy fans' expectations, and that love for the community is already yielding design dividends, as fans helped shape one ofTimberborn’s most distinctive features as a city builder: Vertical Architecture.
Vertical Integrations
Many city-building games feature elements of verticality, such as varying building heights, and underground systems for utilities like water, power, and transit, but relatively few titles allow players to stack structures directly on top of each other. But this distinctive and compelling feature was a product of collaborative development, as Amielanczyk explains:
“What’s interesting is that the vertical architecture we have at the moment is not something we were planning for right from the start, but a byproduct of feedback. People really enjoyed having verticality in the alpha, so we kept expanding on that.”
Now, the team istaking vertical level design to new heights. Biegalski mentioned that the current build supports a near infinite stack of flats, with the only real rate limiters being how long it takes beavers to traverse their wooden metropolis, though it sounds like elevators may be coming in the game’s future, which would enable impressive edifices like lumberpunk skyscrapers. Biegalski also promised that Mechanistry had “a few things up our sleeves to show [verticality] off even more.”
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Timberborn’s vertical architecture has since become a staple of strategy in the game. Players are encouraged to make the most of the map’s limited space, creating dense beaver metropolises with towering super structures, complex, multi-level levees, and dams large enough to stave off the game’s increasingly severe droughts.
Eager Beavers
Given Mechanistry’s lively dialogue with fans, its easy to see whyTimberborn’s community is so hungry for the game. One habit of the Eager Beavers inTimberborn’s Discord channel is acting as a font of information, answering repeated questions so the developers don’t have to. The developers even started a running joke in the form of a counter that keeps track of how long it has been since somebody asked about the game’s release date. According to Amielanczyk, “Usually, it hangs around one day or zero,” and Biegalski added, “I think the maximum we hit was three days.”
Another frequent question and much requested feature is fishing, which seems to bea constant request for indie game developers. While Mechanistry is eager to please fans, they are not bowing to every request, however. Both Amielanczyk and Biegalski emphasized that beavers do not eat fish, so aspiring beaver anglers may find themselves disappointed.
Timberbornis currently in development on Steam, with an Early Access release date projected for 2021.
