Whiskerwood proved to be a surprisingly interesting colony simulator game, albeit one that, being in Early Access, obviously needs a bit of time to work out its kinks and develop more content.
The game is what I would describe as Tropico 5‘s colonial era, but with a voxel map. You begin in an archipelago and are immediately tasked with building a free harbor and storage building. You, a mouse governor of the social class called the “whiskers,” must build a colony of fellow whiskers and pay taxes to the royal government that sent you here, otherwise known as the claws.
I really enjoyed the theme and symbolism of this literal cat-and-mouse game. Far more than just a cute coat of paint to make this colony sim stand out, the portrayal of colonists working hard to survive as mice and their ever-insatiable tax masters as cats is a less-than-subtle but still really clever commentary on colonialism. And if the symbolism doesn’t connect, you can simply enjoy it as a cute animal game, which it certainly also is.
As a true colony management game, your task in Whiskerwood is twofold: to produce the materials your Whisker colonists need to have happy, fulfilled lives and gain their approval, and to fulfill your tax obligations to the Crown of Claws, which periodically visits your colony. Your colonists are rather simple. They need food, housing, and material goods such as clothing in order to stay happy. Keeping them happy rewards you with influence each day, which is a currency you can use to recruit more colonists to your island or do special actions like having a production building work overnight or enacting powerful policies to affect your workforce.
Said workforce is unique in that every individual Whisker who works in it is assigned to a guild and has personality traits. Said personality traits either improve or debuff their ability to work, or affect how they interact with supplies or other Whiskers, meaning that you can optimize your workforce by putting the right mice in the right jobs. There is even an apprenticeship system, where mice who work at certain skilled labor positions eventually become masters and do the job far more effectively. The guild a mouse is assigned to gives the mouse a 50% efficiency bonus when working at the right job. A member of the guild that specializes in mining is going to work better at a mine than they would at a farm, for example.
The tax system I find particularly interesting, because you can’t just collect money from your colonists and send it to the Claws. Rather, your owed taxes are paid through resources, with the Crown requiring a certain monetary amount to be paid out with whatever resources you have available. Each resource has a per-unit price, and you trade it to the tax collection ship every few days to meet their demand. Typically, ore trades for the most part, and if you can, you can mine and refine gold to meet your tax requirements easily.
The Claws will also occasionally bring you resources to help out in the colony. If you accept them, it raises the cost of your next tax dues significantly. You don’t have to pay your taxes, or pay all of them, when they’re due, but doing so incurs a relationship penalty with the Claws. If you anger them too much, eventually they’ll attack you, destroying a few buildings with cannons and then leaving. Pirates will do the same when they arrive if you refuse their demands for payment.
Whiskerwood has a lot going on for it for an Early Access title. It has a solid gameplay loop figured out and over 100 buildings to construct throughout your playthrough. It took me a while to really put my finger on how the game needs to improve before it leaves Early Access.
First of all, I would love to see a way to fight back against the game’s invasions. Anno 1800 and Tropico both provide ways to fight back against those pesky foreign powers, and though it might break the game’s gameplay loop a bit, a way to at least stop pirates from busting your colony if you refuse them payment would be great. Losing entire buildings early on can be really devastating to your colony, as can having Whiskers outright die because your taxes were late.
I also found the early game to be surprisingly slow. This is especially true when it comes to harvesting the basic resources, especially wood. Part of this is due, I think, to the game’s elevated voxel map, which requires you to build stairs to access a lot of resources, which can be costly early on. The general pacing of the game also slows down with the day and night cycle, with night essentially being a time when the AI collects food and rests, but a time where the player has nothing to do. Buildings won’t get built and Whiskers won’t work (normally) during this period, so it drags the game on a bit.
Beyond pacing and some questionable balancing issues (I could just suck), I would say that Whiskerwood is shockingly well put together for an Early Access title. Essentially, I would just like to see more come from it. An expansion on its core gameplay with more buildings to build, perhaps more mechanics like defending from pirate attacks, and perhaps other maps and even exploration. I recommend you give this game a try and be on the lookout for what else comes from it in the future.
Pros:
- Deep workforce system
- A fun, simple gameplay loop that uniquely implements colony management
- Unique cat-and-mouse aesthetic that sets the game apart from other colony sims
Cons:
- Early game can feel punishing, and the game’s pacing can feel slow
- While there are a lot of building options, many of them are just upgrades or do similar things
TryHardGuides was provided a Steam code for this PC Early Access Review of Whiskerwood. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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