Beaver-based city builder Timberborn just got a lot more flexible. The voxel colony management sim has been gnawing its way through early access since September 2021 and is already a big winner, with 95% of players recommending it. Now, it's just taken another big leap forward as developer Mechanistry deploys Timberborn update 7, titled 'Ziplines and Tubeways.' The major overhaul introduces Satisfactory style transport networks and a range of additional terraforming tools that would make Minecraft or Terraria players jealous.
Along with its consistent development cycle, and of course the cutesy cast of furry friends that make up your town, best city builders – both metaphorically and literally – with its more vertical focus. Its post-humanity world, troubled by seasons of toxic waste, droughts, and floods, demands that you build upwards as much as you do outwards. The cubic environment restricts your space, and flooding seasons demand you ensure safe channels for water to flow through without damaging your structures.
You'll need to scavenge for resources – wood, of course, is a big factor, but making more advanced creations demands metal, which requires you to venture out into the ruins of the old world. With a pair of entirely separate factions to play as, each with unique traits, buildings, and technology, there's essentially two games in one here. No matter who you choose, however, you'll have to make sure your beaver colony is kept happy and healthy.
With the launch of Ziplines and Tubeways comes a whole heap more tricks and tools that are set to totally transform how you build. The Folktails make use of ziplines, which allow them to zoom high above the land and structures at high speed between stations. The Iron Teeth have to be a little more thoughtful, as their Tubeways must be built at ground level, but they're more flexible in the long-term, and resilient against both water and the toxic badwater.
Also opening up entirely new avenues of construction is the ability to place terrain blocks on any solid surfaces, including the likes of roofs, platforms, and overhangs. That presents entirely new avenues, allowing you to nurture crops or forests on platforms above your buildings, design compact, multi-level hanging gardens, or create cave networks for your beavers to live in. Taking that one step further is the newfound ability to carve tunnels directly through walls.
Thanks to these changes, the layer tool, which allows you to quickly hide entire levels of the map to take a closer look through your settlement, has been expanded. It now allows you to strip away the terrain along with structures and water, and can quickly click on a given tile to jump to that particular layer. It'll also temporarily uncover terrain if you're attempting to delete anything that will result in breaking other parts of your world.
Rounding out the additions is a redesign for power shafts, which are now adaptive and will change shape as you build around them. That enables the ability to expand your power network without the need to delete pieces and throw your districts into an awkward outage. It also allows you to create vertical power junctions. The map editor has also been given an overhaul with several new tools to make creating your own custom regions even easier.
Timberborn update 7: Ziplines and Tubeways is out now. To celebrate, the game is also on sale at a 30% discount until Saturday May 17, meaning you'll pay just $24.49 / £20.65 for your copy. You can read through the full patch notes courtesy of Mechanistry for a list of further balance changes, recipe tweaks, and bug fixes.
If that's not enough construction for one day, here are the best sandbox games for even more creative possibilities.
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