Of Mice and Cats. A Review of the Whiskerwood City-Building Simulator [Early Access]

In Whiskerwood, you need to help a group of anthropomorphic mice build their small utopia. Each worker has strengths and weaknesses, as well as various needs. You'll have to take care of your charges to make them work. However, you won't be able to go about your business peacefully – the cat overlords are always watching and will do everything they can to rob honest workers.

Little Pioneers

By order of the crown, the loyal servants of the monarch cats must populate the open islands and transform them to suit the needs of the overlords. A group of brave mice, called tails, are landed on one of these islands. By the grace of their majesties, the loyal colonists are provided with everything necessary to ensure that the expedition does not end prematurely.

First of all, you need to build a forester's and gatherer's house to assign tails there – after all, the colony must receive a supply of wood and provisions. Wood is needed for the construction of basic buildings and modest dwellings for the tails, where they will rest at night. Wood can be used to instantly build ladders that will help you climb to higher ground. Given the remote location of resources and the structure of the island, ladders will be indispensable when the time comes to expand the colony.

At first, the tails are delighted with the state of affairs. They will gladly agree to sleep on the ground and eat crackers – giving the player approval, which can be spent on hiring new rodents and passing laws. The laws allow the tails to carry more cargo, build faster, and work at night.

Over time, the tails will begin to make demands. They will want to live in comfortable conditions, eat well, wash, wear clothes, and have luxury items such as furniture. To provide the colonists with everything they need, you need to expand production and study new technologies — this will allow you to build new buildings and hire tails to work there. The result is a vicious circle, where to meet the needs of the increased population, you need to build production buildings and hire new workers to make these buildings function.

To operate advanced production, you need to use mechanisms provided by the monarch overlords. Without them, the sawmill that produces boards or the fishing house that provides the colony with food will not work. Catalysts in the form of ropes, fishing nets, and oil increase the productivity of buildings – catalysts are produced or purchased separately. Mechanisms tend to wear out, which makes the tails dependent on the help of the overlords.

Resources are not in a vacuum – warehouses need to be built to store them. You can connect production buildings to warehouses so that the resources needed for their operation are transported exclusively from there, and the finished products are transported there. You can build logistics centers, and then workers with carts will especially effectively transport everything you need.

Buildings such as a mine help terraform the island. Miners remove ledges and simultaneously extract minerals. Stone can be used to remove the resulting gaps, but it is worth bothering with the sequence – workers tend to seal the passage in front of them. If you don't want to bother with changing the island, you can spend money on beams that allow you to build even on a curved surface. It is better not to touch the green areas – they are indispensable for farms where food, cotton or flax are grown for the production of clothing, as well as for the growth of new trees.

Developed technologies allow you to optimize production. In the early stages, the chute system will allow you to lower resources to the necessary buildings. Later, it will be possible to create convenient conveyors. In the end, an industrial revolution comes, when productivity reaches its peak.

The gameplay is divided into day and night. During the day, the tails work, and at night they rest, eat and bathe. You have to adapt the development to the seasons and weather conditions, which affect the performance of the tails. The most severe test begins in winter — during this season, the tails begin to freeze, and if you do not take care of heating, the poor fellows will get sick and die.

Solving the main problems will allow you to deal with less pressing issues. Adherents of the monarchy can erect statues of cat overlords – their mere sight makes the tails work harder, but the experiences negatively affect their mood. Or you can put decorations everywhere, which will make them happier.

Cat-Mouse Fuss

The main threat to survival comes not from pressing problems, but from tax collectors. With frightening regularity, cats arrive to demand tribute for the existing population and provided resources. It will not be possible to refuse the demands – the collector's escort is not for beauty, and the ship's crew will gladly punish the disobedient. In winter, bloodsuckers do not bother the colony.

The results of the tails' labor go to pay off the debt. If the overlords remain satisfied, they give handouts in the form of drawings for new buildings, as well as luxury items in the form of tea and clothing. Over time, the appetites of cats only grow, and the obedient monarchists from the ranks of the tails will continue to pull the yoke. But there are also rebels who do not agree with the state of affairs. It is up to the player to decide which side he will take.

The arrival of pirates is becoming a frequent occurrence. The so-called "free tails" are fighting for the fate of mouse brothers. And to continue the fight, they demand tribute for themselves. If you do not agree with the demands, then the villains will shell the island from cannons – the cores will hit even the buildings on the opposite side. You will have to allocate resources to restore the destroyed. The developers claim that they are going to add the ability to fight pirates.

The game has a wide variety of settings. You can complicate your life – setting a small amount of resources, exorbitant taxes and constant pirate raids. Or you can make life as easy as possible and remove the pirate presence. I would also like a tax disable function to turn the game into a cozy sandbox — most likely, something like this is worth waiting for in the full release.

Diagnosis

Whiskerwood is a typical city-building simulator. But there's nothing wrong with that! Its main advantage is that the game provides a rich and well-thought-out toolkit for developing your own colony. After a few hours of thoughtful passage, you begin to be proud of the complex production chain that you finally made work!

A separate plus is the theme of the game. It is extremely fascinating to watch the mice work, go about their business and relax. How can you not love animals that walk on their hind legs and wear human clothes? I got my share of cuteness!