Hooded Horse and Minakata Dynamics (developers of Railgrade) have announced Whiskerwood, a new settlement game with a focus on automation. Visually, it’s very evocative about the survival settlement sensation, Timberborn, but is more? focused on automation and production rather than survival.

It’s also about a different creature. While Timberborn was centered around beavers (nature’s engineers), Whiskerwood has you watching over the well-being of mice. These mice, however, live under the thumb of aristocratic felines. Fat cats, if you will. Aristocats. The cats have demands that must be met, so your task is to gather resources from the environments and process them ?for export.

The block-based building system and, indeed, many of the buildings themselves look very similar to Timberborn, but that game was about helping your beavers survive droughts. There wasn’t very much in the way of trade and economy, which is where Whiskerwood diverges significantly.

It’s looking very feature-dense. There are forty commodities to produce, conveyor belts and elevators to move them, and various mousey needs like healthcare and heating. The main challenge, as stated by the store page, is to strike a perfect balance between the needs of the mouse and the demands of the cat. There is also a naval asp??ect, as you can explore other islands and battle at sea. I thought this might be menu-based, but the press release says, "turn-based combat using ships of war." Radical.

I think it looks terrific, but then, I do love Timberborn. The promised depth in Whiskerwood just looks so focused and well-planned. I’ll be keeping an ey?e on this one.

Whiskerwood will first be released into PC Early Access o?n Steam. No release window has been stated.

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