Timberborn News

Hello! Cześć! Bonjour! Hallo! ¡Hola! Olá! Привет! Ciao!

Indie Celebration showcase comes to Steam on May 13th-14th, and we’re lucky to be its finalists. To celebrate and welcome new players, we have a fresh demo build. If you like what you see, please vote for Timberborn in the event’s Community Vote. It requires three clicks and no registration. To vote, go here.

Thanks!


(These beavers are casting their votes. Join them!)

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Now, for the update. It’s time to cross off another point on the list of things to be done before we can announce the Early Access launch date – the translations. We want to give you a taste of that ahead of the release, and today's update to Timberborn Demo is exactly that. Also, the game now looks better, loads faster, and there are multiple new music tracks to enjoy.

Please note that the update may be incompatible with older saves – it's better to start a new game.

If you’re new to the game: hail and well met! Please don’t starve your beavers.

And if you’re a veteran who wants to play Timberborn in another language – now it's the time. Be sure to let us know what you think about the localization. We want to make it right for launch.

Speaking of which: from now on, the best place to report any issues – both translation- and gameplay-related – is our public bug tracker. It doesn’t require registration and will help us prioritize the work for launch and beyond. Please check it whenever you encounter a problem with Timberborn!

(*) We wanted to say こんにちは！, 안녕하세요! , and 你好！here as well. Sadly, we encountered a nasty bug with the engine so even though the Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese localizations are ready to be implemented we had to hold that off. We’ll add them ASAP. Thank you for your patience.

[h2]Patch notes – Demo v20210511[/h2]


[h3]In-game text[/h3]
We have added seven out of ten translations planned for the Early Access launch. The Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese versions will follow as soon as the Unity bug is fixed.

• Timberborn Demo is now available in English, Polish, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Italian.
  
• If the language doesn't change automatically based on your Steam settings, check the in-game Settings to change it manually.
  

[h3]Visual update, part 2[/h3]
We’re following up on the new style update from the previous patch with an additional visual pass. We’re also trying out a brand new style of particle effects! BOOM!

• Made visual tweaks to building elements such as walls, roofs, paper, or thatchings.
  
• Replaced particle effects for fire, smoke and explosions.
  

[h3]Buildings[/h3]
We heard your concerns about the smoke coming out through Grill’s roof… so while changing the particles (see above) we changed Grill’s model entirely.

• Grill received a new model and is now a 2x2 building.
  

[h3]Music[/h3]
We’ve added more music composed for Timberborn by Zofia Domaradzka! You clearly like Zofia’s songs so it’s time for some major additions! We now have a new main menu theme and you will hear different in-game tracks depending on whether it’s a wet or a dry season.

• Added a new main menu track.
  
• Added two dry season-specific tracks.
  
• Added one wet season-specific track (on top of the three existing ones).
  

[h3]Adaptive speed[/h3]
When you increase game speed, it will now increase slightly less if you’re playing on a map with a higher population. This helps reduce lag in later stages of the game.

• The game now uses dynamic speed adjustment. The speed increase remains at flat x3 and x7 at the beginning of the game.
  

[h3]In-game UI[/h3]
We’ve made changes to the in-game UI and screens such as Settings. For Early Access launch, changes will be much more prominent – what you see now is an ongoing work in progress related to the implementation of UI Toolkit now available to Unity developers. (Yay, that’s us!)

[h3]Children behaviour[/h3]
We've made some adjustments to the behaviour of kits and adults claiming free spots in lodges.

[h3]Performance[/h3]
Even though we’re still working on the performance, depending on the size of your settlement and population, the loading times should now be shorter, sometimes even halved.

[h3]Bug and Suggestion Tracker[/h3]
Not really a part of the patch but we wanted to stress out the importance of this. While we will continue to check bug reports on the Steam forums and discuss them on our Discord, the best way to report problems with Timberborn is to use the dedicated tracker we now have.

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As a final note: there’s more happening behind the scenes. In the near future, we’ll tell you about a solution we came up with that makes running large settlements easier and more fun… while also improving the game’s performance. Stay tuned! And vote, please.
PS If you're part of our Polish-speaking community, join us for our very first stream in Polish on our Twitch – this Friday, 3 PM Warsaw time. Będzie bobrze!

Hello everyone!

The work on Timberborn is progressing well, and we wanted to share a bit of that by updating Timberborn Demo! So, we’re changing visuals for ALL the buildings. We have also added the build priority system, a.k.a. the beaver dancefloor. In other news, one of the woes that our beta testers are familiar with is gone – it is now easier to control the population.

[h3]Visual changes
[/h3][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Different playable factions of Timberborn will each have a unique architecture. Today’s update changes textures, colors and models of buildings to showcase the style of one of the factions arriving with the Early Access launch. We have also added lights to the operating buildings. We may still be tweaking the visuals so let us know if you like what you see!

• Changed textures, colors, and/or models for ALL buildings present in the demo.
  
• Windows of occupied buildings will now light up. That includes lodges at night – it’s quite a sight and a signal of the upcoming baby boom.

[h3]New tool: Assign priorities[/h3]
We’re keeping track of all the feedback you send us, and a better building priority system was so often requested we decided to deploy it ahead of launch. Oh, you guys.

• There are now five levels of building and demolishing priority: from very low (1) to very high (5). The default priority is normal (3).
  
• Added Assign priorities tool to the bottom panel. Use it to select a priority and mark (or paint over) objects scheduled for building or demolishing. Each priority has a color, and after clicking the tool’s button, a colored preview will be displayed for all projects.
  
• Added corresponding priority buttons to the menu of each object scheduled for building or demolishing.

[h3]Population growth[/h3]
The change below lets you choose when to grow your colony – which is important, especially when your population hits higher numbers. Need more happy little beavers? Build more lodges.

• Kits no longer move out of their parents’ lodges once grown-up unless there are unclaimed lodges in range.

[h3]Camera[/h3]
The changes below helped us create some fancy new GIFs to showcase new and refreshed buildings. Check our social media channels for those – starting tomorrow!

• It is now possible to Shift-click the “Follow” (eye) icon so that the camera follows the object without highlighting it with a green tint.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused “Follow” not to focus on the building’s centre.

[h3]Miscellaneous changes[/h3]

• Added a counter in the upper left corner that displays a number of homeless beavers.
  
• Updated the “Nothing to do” icon.
  
• Shafts have been renamed Power Shafts.
  
• Replaced “Fuel cycles” with a percentage of “Fuel depletion” in log-consuming buildings.
  
• Replaced “Jobless” with “Unemployed” in descriptions of beavers and buildings.
  
• Made minor changes to other descriptions, including the way we display what needs are satisfied by particular buildings or goods.
  
• From now on, we will be naming Timberborn builds using the pattern you see in the patch notes' title. In-game version names will reflect that, making it easier to keep track of game versions.

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed a memory leak.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused backpacks not to be taken off after beavers carrying them entered the lodge. That’s work-life balance 101.

We would love to hear what you think about the new changes, especially the new visuals! You can use our forums, or if you want to talk to us directly, hop on our official Discord. We’ve just kicked off a new #BeaverBrainstorm to discuss present and future “Fancy towns”!

We hope your experience with the Timberborn demo will now be smoother than ever!

• Fixed two most commonly reported crashes.
  

Hi, everyone.

When we decided to join Steam Game Festival, we wanted to give more people a chance to try Timberborn ahead of the upcoming Early Access launch.

What happened over the last three weeks blew us out of the water.

Close to a hundred thousand people downloaded the demo. The beavers were catapulted to the front page of the Festival and, according to our knowledge, Timberborn’s demo remained one of the three Festival demos with the highest concurrent player numbers. At some point, over 28 thousand people were watching Timberborn live on Twitch.

Our Discord and forums exploded, and the feedback started flooding from all directions. We want to thank you for all the kind words, valuable suggestions, and valid criticisms.

We’re still chewing through it but since today was going to be the last day of the demo’s availability, we would like to let you know what’s going to happen in light of these events.

We decided to postpone the Early Access launch to later this year but we’re keeping the demo up.



[h3]Early Access launch[/h3]
Our plan was to release Timberborn in Early Access by the end of March, but after discussions with the team last week, we decided to push it back. We want to incorporate as much of the demo feedback as possible, but there’s just seven of us at Mechanistry and we do not want to crunch. Your response to the demo was a huge vote of confidence but it also made us realize that the game can and should become something bigger than we previously thought.

We know some of you might be disappointed, especially if you’ve been following us for a while, perhaps even since alpha. We believe, however, that this is better both for the game and the team. We love Timberborn. We want to enjoy the Early Access with you instead of pushing for a release now and then falling flat on our snouts, exhausted and burnt out, with a game that doesn’t meet your expectations.

Because of that, we are changing the Early Access launch date to “2021”. Please note that while this might sound like “Holidays 2021”, we hope to get Timberborn out much sooner.



[h3]What are we going to do with the additional time?[/h3]
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what we’re planning to do before we deem Timberborn ready for Early Access launch.

• We’ll have at least two different factions with different style, unique buildings, and gameplay traits. You already heard the rumours about the Iron Teeth, right?
  
• We’ll expand the water-related gameplay. It's clear you enjoy dams and water physics, and we want to build on that.
  
• We’ll improve the game’s performance. We want to see hundreds of beavers running their errands without the game having a hiccup, and it’s a huge undertaking.
  
• We’ll fix the overpopulation problem. There are ways to control the colony's numbers better than forcing your beavers to sleep on the ground.
  
• We’ll add better work prioritization – it’s by far the most requested feature.
  
• We’ll improve the in-game UI.
  
• We’ll translate the game into 10 languages besides English.
  

[h3]What happens to the demo?[/h3]
The demo is staying on Steam for the time being. Even though the Early Access is our focus now, we will occasionally update the demo, so please keep your suggestions and bug reports coming.



[h3]Thank you![/h3]
Once again, big “thank you” for all the feedback we’ve got from you – we can't wait until we share the results with you. It wasn't easy to postpone the launch, but we are hoping that you’ll understand our decision. Your support is what keeps us going.

~Team Timberborn, a.k.a. Mechanistry

PS If you would like to talk to us directly, hop on our Discord channel and/or join us for one of the live streams we have scheduled for this month. You'll find these on the Steam page, but also on our Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook.

• February 19th, 2 PM GMT – per your request, Michal and Jon will return with the internal Timberborn build to answer your questions and play with a non-demo beaver settlement.
  
• February 24th, 2 PM GMT – you wanted to see more behind-the-scenes content, so we'll have a stream focused on the map editor, with Jon designing a map live, taking suggestions from the chat.
  
• February 26th, 1 PM GMT – after their successful "no carrots, the monument at the peak of the map" run, Jon will take up a different challenge in the demo.
  

We have released a hotfix patch. Here are the changes:

• Restored last week’s two fixes: the game should no longer crash when hitting CTRL+H in the main menu or when opening Settings on machines with more exotic GPUs.
  
• “Fuel cycles left” in building descriptions has been replaced with a simpler “Fuel remaining: X%“.
  
• Other minor changes in building descriptions.