Power isn’t a problem when the river is flowing, and water wheels provide plentiful energy. Sadly, the Prof Beaverson memorial dam was not a hydroelectric dam, and power is needed to run lumbermills and other vital structures. The beavers that survive the famines will learn from this, so I constructed the Prof Beaverson memorial dam, named in honour of a recently deceased inventor beaver. As the water level drops, the ground dries out crops die, water stores run low. A drought will fall upon the land, and the river will stop flowing. As the days progress, each cycle ends with a dry season.

Instead, the true foe is that absolute bastard: nature. The main threats to your colony don’t come from hostile forces. Then a different kind of dry season came. This led me to spend a handful of in-game days shouting at my beavers to get funky and make me some new workers. Unfortunately, this was because there weren’t enough beavers for all the jobs that needed doing. It wasn’t long before they had established agriculture and begun mass housing initiatives. I established Beavertown and followed the highly minimal tutorial to ensure that my furry labourers had water, food, and construction supplies.

READ MORE: Japanese Breakfast on making the music at the heart of ‘Sable’.

In Timberborn, if a beaver is unsupplied with resources it turns off… forever. In Satisfactory, if a machine is unsupplied with resources, it turns off for a bit. There is one significant difference between the two games, though. The only tool I brought was my love of Satisfactoryand the hope that some of those skills were transferable. I embarked on my Timberbornjourney with no knowledge of the game.

Timberborn gameplay