Fighting mice against cats, winter and other challenges. MeinMMO editor Benedikt Schlotmann played Whiskerwood and built a settlement.
My settlement is doing fairly well at the moment when those nasty cats come again demanding my valuable resources or alternatively shooting cannonballs at me and I have to rebuild everything. It’s a pain when winter is just around the corner. That’s one of those moments when I would have liked to kick my own cats out the door.
3D graphics meet fun factor with mice and cats: That’s probably the best way to describe Whiskerwood, and the cats are actually just one of many problems:
Space is tight, and resources are scarce. Winter is also no joke, and the mice want to enjoy their well-deserved evening. So far, Whiskerwood has kept me busy for about 20 hours, including playtime in the demo version. And do I recommend it? Yes, but with some caveats.
Whiskerwood reminds of Banished and Timberborn
The basic principle is reminiscent of other city-building games like Banished or the popular Timberborn: You start with a small number of workers, build a city with them and try to keep your inhabitants alive.
At the beginning, you choose an island where you set up a harbor and your central warehouse. Then you build houses and production facilities and gather resources to satisfy the insatiable cats.
Yes, the cats. The rulers of this world. For allowing you to coexist in this world, they want to be paid. The larger your settlement, the faster the taxes increase. If you don’t pay, cannonballs rain down on your settlement. And cats are not the only problem. Pirates also want your possessions and will shoot at you if you refuse.
And if the game wasn’t challenging enough, these silly mice have needs too: They want a bed, something to eat, and also want to spend a cozy evening in their favorite pub. Additionally, they all have more or less large expectations.
Mouse 1 with a doctorate has higher expectations for life than Mouse 2, who has no education. Therefore, Mouse 1 wants a better bed and cooked food, while Mouse 2 is satisfied with raw fish. However, if you don’t meet their expectations, the mice will become unhappy and your reputation will decrease. This adds an extra tactical element to the game that you should consider when building your city.
Fun factor, great scope and great music
All over, your mice are running around, climbing, knocking, and working hard. There’s always something going on, and it’s not always easy to keep track. Fun factor, as I have already loved in the Settlers series, and I also get that here. Happy moments when I manage to ignore the annoying cats for a moment.
Otherwise, the basic principle works very well. Important functions work well together, and a settlement is quickly established. And for an EA title, you get plenty of content that will keep you occupied for weeks.
And the music. I’ve gone to bed with a catchy tune more than once, and that speaks for itself.
Balancing and sometimes long waiting times can be annoying
In winter it gets cold, and mice freeze or get sick if they stay too long in the cold. Campfires and coal pans solve the problem but create a new one: Fire produces smog, which in turn lowers the satisfaction of the mice.
This creates a vicious cycle that you can’t escape during winter. Because in the end, the mice are either frozen, all sick, or all angry at me. And right after the harsh winter come the greedy cats wanting something from me. Just when you barely survived winter, it throws you the last curveball.
And beside me on the desk, my two house tigers are looking at me innocently. If only you knew how much your digital counterparts are bothering me right now.
Meanwhile, the developers have realized that life as a mouse might have been a bit too difficult and have released a few updates:
- Fire produces less smog, so satisfaction falls more slowly. Additionally, there is a smog overlay.
- There are larger islands, and resources are better distributed.
- There are more trained mice to make the flow of the game a bit more pleasant.
Another thing that still annoys me: Building feels somewhat strange. There’s no proper top-down view, making it difficult to perfectly align buildings, and you always have to experiment a bit. It becomes problematic underground when you create tunnels but can’t connect them because you miscounted the fields. Annoying, especially if you don’t want to cover up the tunnels again.
However, what disrupts the flow of the game the most and has often made me sigh is the waiting times:
- Sometimes you wait for goods to be produced.
- At other times you wait for research to proceed with construction.
- Or you wait for the day to end to earn new prestige and hire new mice.
- Or you wait for the tax collector, the pirates, or some other event that has announced itself.
And these waiting times are currently not really filled with other activities. Even the great music can’t compensate for that. Games like Anno make it easier since there’s always something to do, even if it’s just moving the entire city center three fields over because otherwise you can’t place the new distillery.
I had a lot of fun watching the little mice in Whiskerwood. I’ve grown really fond of them and was on their side, even though like Benedikt, I am a cat owner. This has often been how I’ve passed the time in between when there’s nothing to do in the game.
But that’s also where my critique lies: As cute as the game looks, it’s also quite empty. At times, Whiskerwood feels very drawn-out when you have completed your tasks and are just waiting for the next ship with the tax collector to come. I’m curious to see what has changed in the game once it leaves Early Access.
Conclusion: Fun, but sometimes too tough city-building game
Can I recommend the game for the price? On Humble Bundle I paid around 20 euros for the game, which I find more than fair for the current extent of the game.
At least when you make clear what you are getting into: The balancing is not yet perfect, there are some downtime phases, and some functions are still missing. However, for an “Early Access” title, you already get a large scope that will keep you occupied for many hours. The developers are also diligently releasing updates to improve the situation.
The official price of 29.99 on Steam still seems too high for me right now. Things like balancing and strange building still bother me too much.
What I like:
- beautiful music that accompanies the game
- clean technical implementation, aside from two crashes in 20 hours
- adorable fun factor with day and night switching
- great scope for Early Access for many hours of gameplay
What I don’t like:
- the balancing is mixed, but the developers are working on it. This sometimes leads to a very high level of difficulty with many challenges (cats, pirates, winter)
- building still feels unfinished
- occasionally long downtime phases
Plan B: Terraform is also a city-building game, but here you have to colonize a planet and terraform it at the same time. The game has now left Early Access. And I think it has become a real hidden gem. Read more about it on MeinMMO: A hidden gem on Steam that I played for 30 hours: Now the game has left Early Access after 2.5 years
