Timberborn

"Removed Sluice, this time for good." This patch note fundamentally shifts the game's direction and alienates players who loved the original design. While deeper automation is a great addition, completely removing the Sluice artificially raises the game's complexity floor. Instead of allowing players to build and relax at their own pace, the game now forces everyone into complex puzzle-solving or resorting to copying online guides just to progress. The Sluice could easily have remained as an optional tech-tree unlock—allowing players seeking a heavy logic challenge to bypass it, while preserving the fun for those who prefer straightforward building. Removing player choice drastically alters who this game is for.

Not sure I understand the glazing for this. This is a crowded field and there are so very powerful heavy hitters. Maybe the cutesy factor is tilting peoples opinion, or maybe the things I don't like are actually what make it appealing to others. No sound effects is extremely odd. No wood sounds, sawing, gnawing, nothin. There are environment sounds like some birds and a little breeze. The beavers say "hi" when you click on them, but they build and gnaw in silence. The soundtrack seems repetitive already. So much of RTS is the ASMR of hearing your village or city churn and grind and operate. There is none of that here and that's just weird for a 1.1 The grid/box map style feels dated and doesn't really serve the gameplay. No weather. Just cyclic drought and magically reappearing water The tutorial is heavy handed while also being kinda useless. The order that it teaches you to do things is not very strategic or smart. Material balance feels off. The wrong moves early on can cripple you. This creates one of those games that you restart for the 15th time to try and get it right... that's... kinda obnoxious after a while. There's this weird stressful mad dash to get stable and then after that there's basically no incentive to do anything else. I dunno.... it's just not very fun watching cycle after cycle of your beavers in hispeed building half a building in a day. There is an absolute ton of different things to build but I honestly don't know what for. Not to mention the beavers take forever and materials feel sparse even on easy maps. You have to feed and hydrate your beavers. You get this stable within the first cycle of drought and then what? I'll keep trying but I'm not hooked at all.