Recent reviews by adivineeternity

...this is the first time in my life I've played a tutorial and found it FUN. I legitimately forgot SO MANY TIMES that I was even playing a tutorial, dragging things out as I experimented with different tactics.

Y'all, this game is good. I love the added complexity vs other games in its genre, namely Civ6, with the leaders who can get drunk, make bad decisions, and eventually die, leaving their empire to their heir. I waited for months to be able to buy this, and I do not regret going for it basically at release. Maybe it won't scratch everyone's itch for a good 4x game, but it sure is scratching mine.

Bonus points: they have a beta fix that makes the game run nearly 100% flawless on M1 Macs.

Just a warning, I'll be talking to Mac folks specifically for some of this. <3

This is honestly so impressive for an early access game. Does it have bugs, glitches, lag, and other issues? OF COURSE. It's early access. Does it need more content? Big time, but again, it's early access. Does any of this stop me from immediately loving it? In this case, not at all.

I'm VERY finicky about early access games and often refuse to buy even those with great reviews and/or games releasing within a few days because of how lacking they can be and the difficulties of being someone who usually games on a Mac. I own a Windows gaming machine, don't get me wrong, I love gaming too much not to, but I'm far more likely to have a Mac on hand.

Which is a huge part of what impresses me so much about Timberborn. I hesitated big time after adding this to my wishlist, unsure about the premise - we all know it'll be cats and red pandas that take over the world in a combined cuteness/evil overload fashion - but with amazing reviews, regular updates, and a couple of YT folks recommending it, I decided to bite the bullet when it hit a decent little sale. I'm SO GLAD I DID.

Not only is it running better than most fully produced games on my super base level M1 Macbook Air, minus a bit of lag when I fiddle with the speed controls, it presents a heck of a challenge as it is when my stupid beavers decided to stop storing up water and then a drought hit. Next time I open the game, it'll likely be to watch my tiny little beaver town die in front of my eyes.

Another point that usually grinds my gears is the tutorial. They're often either lacking depth, leaving me confused on where to find things/what to do after they end, or so long I get bored and quit and don't touch the game for a year. I'm looking at you Crusader Kings 3. Timberborn seems to strike a balance, at least for me. When it ended, I didn't feel lost, confused, or unsure of what to do, although some explanation on building vertically would be helpful, but it also ended before I wanted to hang somebody.

But in all honesty, if you're a Mac gamer as I tend to be, this one is worth grabbing even in Early Access. The mechanics and controls are intuitive (many are identical to Sims 4, which I play too much of), the UI is clean enough and non-intrusive, so I don't feel cramped on my 13" screen, and the game itself performs admirably on the most baseline M1 hardware Apple offers us. I cannot wait to see what the devs do with this game moving forward.

Once you get the hang of this, it's pretty entertaining. Shame mobile has so many issues staying connected, though, as some of my friends I play with play on their phones.

While I was somewhat enjoying myself initially, there's a lot in this game that I feel could be better explained and improved upon, which is expected for a game in alpha. I'm hoping to see some good fixes down the road, though.

I love this game, with one caveat. The camera in it risks giving me motion sickness. I absolutely hate the camera and how difficult it makes jumping on things. I can never tell where I am on a platform because there's no way to orient myself spacially. It's very, very frustrating, as I enjoy going for 100% in my Lego games and it may not be possible in this one.

Can't even complete the tutorial because the pop-up windows block the buttons I need to push. Worthless.

I bought this on a whim during the Steam summer sale because I was intrigued. The simplistic gameplay couldn't possibly appeal to someone who is so easily taken in by massive, engaging worlds in RPG games, right? Wrong. I need to do my homework for grad school, but the random little shapes of Paris obviously need me to provide their transportation to a matching shape!

Sarcasm aside, I actually am greatly enjoying this game. I know it's in Beta, and accepted that when I made the decision to purchase, so I understand glitches and bumpiness and all that. I do think it would be nice to have a full system remap available, *including* interchanges. I can delete all the lines and recall all the bridges and tunnels, carriages, and locomotices, so even just including interchanges in that would work for me.

The game lags a lot when I get far enough in, but this is also understandable because it's in Beta AND I'm running it on a low-spec machine. I'm surprised this thing can run games at all, actually.

Looking forward to getting audio in it!