I am a big fan of pixel games, and a big fan of games that appear cozy at first glance.

Let me tell you... this game quickly becomes Dave the Murderer as you run fades with random people in the ocean on behalf of the ocean critters. Big fan of that.

The mechanics are explained easily- but not in a way that makes it feel like a drag. Another big win for my newest buddy Dave (who is a Diver).

Okay, let's keep things real. This game satisfies my need for a TTRPG while also satisfying my need to never talk to real people ever again. It is all the joys of the OG TTRPG, put virtual. I love the legacy system that allows my favourites from old campaigns to join new ones.

For my fellow Alphabet Mafia members, let me just tell you. He/Him, She/Her, They/Them. Any pronoun can go on any of the body shapes. The faces can all get facial hair, so build you a bearded lady if you want. I won't judge you, and neither will the game.

There are a few places where the pronouns or related words (wife/husband/spouse or mother/father/parent, ect) are a little janky. But honestly, I look past it because it doesn't entirely ruin my immersion.

Okay, so my girlfriend gifted this to me since my favourite games are city builders. And let me tell you, these beavers now run my life. I care more about my beavers than I care about remembering to eat. But that might just be my ADHD hyper-focusing on these cute little friends.

I adore Timberborn. The gameplay is fairly easy to grasp, yet remains challenging while you try to terraform via explosives, survive the droughts via levees and floodgates, and expand your Beaver Empire. I had a crisis during my fourth or fifth drought. Went from 45 beavers down to 5! I am still on that save file with well over 200 beavers running my little beaver society and getting ready to build a lake. My beavers shall know no bounds, and neither should yours.

You need a secondary account to play this game, which is entirely fair. Like- Runescape, ESO, FFXIV... Most online multi-player games need an additional account to play. But signing up for this additional account is so janky. You don't get the "an email has been sent" notification for a solid 2-5 minutes after you've hit the "create account" button. And if you close that notification, you then have to do it AGAIN because the only place you can insert the code is into an incredibly tiny bar at the very bottom of that specific notification, that is in a font colour just barely lighter than the popup itself, and doesn't actually look anything like a text bar.
Then once you DO manage to sign up, you have to convince the game to find one of IT'S OWN SERVERS to launch, but it can't find any of it's own servers.
I really wanted to like this game as I love games modelled after TTRPGs. But in the current state, this game isn't even worth $5, let alone the $34.50 CAD that I paid for it. I would at least expect my game to be able to launch, even if it IS in Early Access.