Whiskerwood is An Awesome Dystopian Colony Sim - Demo Preview

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Whiskerwood is an upcoming colony sim that has really piqued my interest. It is planned for a release later this year, and Hooded Horse provided us with an early peek at the demo for us to check out. This demo contains a vertical slice of the content that will be available on launch when the game comes out in Early Access, and there’s more than enough in this preview to sate your appetite.

Whiskerwood is another twist on the classic city builder genre, and while I say it differs from Timberborn quite a bit, the influence is there. Instead of growing a slow empire of hard-working beavers, you’re broadening the mice kingdom in a New World island colony vibe, hounded by the tyrannical cat overlord. Developed by Minakata Dynamics, there is some incredible production quality here, and I came away from my time with the demo excited for the main launch.

The island colonisation brings some interesting challenges out of the gate. While the islands vary in resources and size, building space will always be restricted. A cool feature in Whiskerwood is the ability to build upward towards the skies or dig deep underground to create a cavernous home that dwarves would envy. Resources are critical to survival, like in most city builders, but even more so here because of the lack of freedom. This is a great mix of challenging gameplay that is easy to learn but hard to master, and the tutorial helps get players started. There’s some great voice acting on display, too.

The gameplay loop is what you might expect from the genre. You must develop your budding colony while managing resources, space, and food, while paying attention to the fat cats that come to collect taxes every few days. Quests come through thick and fast, and I appreciate the progression system on display.

One thing I’ve grown to prefer with my management sims is having a good sense of accomplishment. Sandbox modes are enjoyable enough, and I believe every citybuilder should at least consider them as a separate option. Still, I’ve found that I get more enjoyment when real stakes are involved in developing a colony.

Alongside the standard game mechanics for citybuilders and alike, Whiskerwood requires careful management of logistics and supply lines. Like Timberborn and games like Factorio, automated economic networks become vital for survival, especially later when difficulty ramps up. You have to pay attention to the layout for the best optimization, balance dozens of commodities, and survive the vital climate conditions. I love the dynamic gameplay Whiskerwood has offered me so far, and this demo is lengthy enough for players to get a great feeling for the game.

Whiskerwood is playable on the Steam Deck with some solid controls and UI scaling out of the box, although performance leaves a little to be desired. To keep a stable 30FPS on my LCD Steam Deck, I had to lower all settings to low with FSR enabled and a Quality preset. Fortunately, the game still looked quite nice even with these settings, but it's clear that Whiskerwood needs some optimization under the hood. These are promising signs, however.

To sum things up, Whiskerwood has exceeded my expectations and then some. I went into the preview hoping for a solid experience, but with the huge amount of competition in the genre, citybuilders need to set themselves apart from the pack to grab my attention. Whiskerwood feels like someone made a delicious sandwich between Satisfactory’s automation and citybuilders like Against the Storm, and I’m now an official convert of the almighty Whiskers.

Whiskerwood can be wishlisted on Steam.

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