Hello, everyone!
Timberborn has been in Early Access for over four years now. During that time, we had a single goal - to create the best sandbox beaver city-builder possible. And today, having released seven major content updates, we can finally announce that…
As you’re about to see, the 1.0 update is going to be different from anything we’ve done before. It expands the gameplay across the board, with an extra nod to the user-generated content enjoyers. Whether you’re a map creator, a modder, or just want to further customize your settlement, you should like this one. Plus, we’re finally bringing many other little things that both you and we wanted to see in the game.
The resulting list of changes and additions is long, with even more coming, and they all require heavy testing. Because of that, we do not have a public release date for Timberborn 1.0 yet. Fortunately, the testing phase begins… today!
The first batch of 1.0 features has just landed on the experimental branch. The list includes multiple new map objects, such as Water Seeps and Unstable Cores, as well as two fresh maps that showcase some of them. There are the long-awaited additions, such as Spiral Stairs, customizable Banners, and the duplication tools. We’ve also reworked modding, making it easier to create new custom content, even without coding experience. There are other smaller tweaks and additions (*cough* beaver deaths *cough*), and we’re not done yet!
Check out this thread to see how to switch to the experimental branch.
How to play the 1.0 experimental build
Note: this update is only compatible with recent Update 7 save files. If you have a save file created before version 0.7.6.0 (including Update 6 or older), open it on the most recent U7 build first, save the game, and only then open it in the 1.0 build. However, if your save contained old Platforms or High Power Shafts, they will be removed - yes, even for the U7 saves.
Upper row, L-R: Aquifer, Ancient Drill, Drill, Natural Dam, Water Seep
Middle row, L-R: Reserve Warehouse, Reserve Pile, Reserve Tank, Geothermal Field, Geothermal Engine
Lower row, L-R: Brambles, Unstable Core, Small Relic, Medium Relic, Large Relic
Timberborn 1.0 makes the post-apocalyptic wasteland much more varied, thanks to the many new objects found on the maps. Map creators can use these tools to make beavers’ lives even harder, prepare more meaningful challenges, and encourage unusual strategies.
New object: Water Seep. Like Water Sources, these 2x2 objects spill out water… but only until it reaches height of 0.8 tiles. This might sound simple, but it allows creating new wetlands-style maps with shallow, still water bodies that enable cultivation, but dry out fast and won’t sustain too many pumps.
New object: Unstable Core. Featured prominently in the video teaser above, this remnant of human civilization lies dormant somewhere on the map… until it doesn’t. After it activates, your beavers must hurry - they can’t disable it, they can only try to mitigate the effects. As the explosion radius is up to 5 tiles, consequences may be dire.
New object: Geothermal Field. For a beaver, the smell of sulfur means only one thing - there’s geothermal energy ready to be tapped. All you need is…
New building: Geothermal Engine (50x Log, 30x Plank; 160 SP). Build it down on the Field, and enjoy your renewable energy courtesy of Mother Earth.
New object: Aquifer. What looks like a small crack in the earth can become a new source of water (or badwater, when a badtide hits). It needs some help, though.
New building: Aquifer Drill (40x Plank, 25x Gear, 15x Metal Block; 400 SP). Oh, this should come in handy! Build it over an Aquifer, hook it up to the power network, and spice water will flow.
New object: Ancient Aquifer Drill. Sometimes, there will already be an old drill fixed to an Aquifer. Some power and elbow grease, and it will work like new! Or, you can scrap it.
New objects: Reserve Warehouses, Tanks, and Piles. Your generation of beavers is not the first to roam the wasteland, and let’s face it, not everyone makes it. You can now find all types of resources scattered around - and even reuse that storage if needed.
New objects: Small, Medium, and Large Relics. Despite Ma’ Ngonel’s claims, human knowledge is not that useless. Find the relics, and enjoy some free Science Points!
New object: Brambles. These natural - yet dangerous - obstacles are now found in the wasteland, cutting some areas off. Your beavers can demolish them, but it’s a lengthy process that results in injuries. Maybe it’s time to send the asteroid bots.
New object: Natural Dam. Similar to regular Dams (duh), these objects block water only to half a tile, allowing some to spill over.
Some Timberborn maps, both built-in and created by our talented players, are centered around a specific challenge rather than the regular sandbox gameplay. With the newly added map objects, we expect that to become even more common. To accommodate that trend, we’ve added a new map category - the Unconventional maps - with two shining new examples.
New map: Pressure - unlike existing maps, all water and badwater sources here are flowing underground. Plugging up one outlet could have consequences elsewhere. There are also multiple Unstable Cores, so you have to tackle the additional timed dangers on top of the regular droughts and badtides!
New map: Oasis (seen on the screenshot above). Your beavers start in a solitary green refuge in the middle of the wasteland. Fortunately, with some clever beaver engineering, you can access the Aquifers scattered around the map and bring life back to the entire area.
Added Water Seeps to: Lakes, Craters, and Helix Mountain.
Added Geothermal Fields to: Canyon, Mountain Range, Thousand Islands, and Beaverome.
Added Relics to: Cliffside, Craters, Meander, Mountain Range, and Thousand Islands.
Added Brambles to: Helix Mountain and Mountain Range.
Added Natural Dams to: Lakes.
Added new map category: Unconventional maps.
In addition to Pressure and Oasis, Beaverome and Diorama are now Unconventional maps.
Following an embarrassing accident involving a speeding beaver, we removed that single living tree that somehow survived in the desert on Lakes.
The new objects are now available in the map editor. We’ve also made some changes to how the toolbar works, and added the feature that all map creators have been asking for.
Added Undo and Redo support to the map editor, accessed using buttons and your usual keyboard shortcuts. This also works with map thumbnails and descriptions. If only Ol’ Kazko was still around to see it.
Added the ability to set up delayed activation of Water Sources and Badwater Sources (and Water Seeps).
Grouped map editor objects into new categories.
Ah, yes, the legendary design that eluded beaver engineers for years has finally made it into the game! The Spiral Stairs make it much easier to create compact routes connecting different levels of terrain and structures.
New building: Spiral Stairs (1x Log, 4x Treated Planks; 350 SP to unlock). It finally happened!
Renamed Wooden Stairs to Stairs.
When we made it possible to paint beavers’ tails and saw how much our players liked that feature, the banners were bound to happen next. If you enjoy customizing your settlement, you may now put up banners of two types. Pick from a few faction-specific designs or use any custom image you want. Just make it safe for work, that’s all the beavers do!
New building: Pole Banner (4x Log, 4x Plank, 1x Extract; 700 SP to unlock). Add your unique design and decorate your settlement. Using motivational posters is encouraged.
New building: Square Banner (2x Log, 4x Plank, 1x Extract; 700 SP to unlock). The square version can be used for even grander designs. This one is for you, pixel art fans.
We agree that at later stages of the game, placing multiple identical workshops or warehouses gets tedious. Lo and behold - it’s now much easier! You can copy a building’s settings - for example, the chosen recipe - onto another existing building of the same type. Or, you can order the construction of a new building that will be set up the same way right away.
Added the Copy settings tool, found in the top left corner of the building panel. The default key binding is V - this has replaced the Save camera position key binding.
Added the Duplicate tool, found in the top left corner of the building panel. The default key binding is B.
Both key bindings also work when the cursor is hovering over a building.
(A GIF is a very poor way of showing visual changes like this. Better watch this 4K comparison.)
A 1.0 release can’t be complete without tweaking the graphics across the board. In today’s build, you can see the following changes.
Added glare to water and badwater.
Increased the game world’s brightness and contrast.
Updated the skyboxes. The sunny day’s sky is now indeed blue!
Tweaked the terrain’s gradient.
Contours of underwater objects now quiver slightly.
It only took us four years (more, actually) to add the animation to beavers’ deaths! But since we hope you won’t need to watch it too often, we’ve also expanded the idle animations’ list and more.
Added the death animation for beavers.
Added new idle animations for beavers - kits and adults alike.
Added shower animations.
Water spilling through dams and floodgates is now displayed at its actual height limit.
Made minor tweaks to the visuals of some building particles.
Smoke particles now properly respond to environmental lighting. Praise the sun!
Made some minor tweaks to plants’ textures.
Notifications and alerts receive an important quality pass today.
Moved the notifications (“22-2 Rotsack was born” etc.) up on the left side of the screen and made them collapsible.
Tweaked the visuals for the alerts (“Beaver is Injured (3)” etc.), giving them a lighter, more modern style which takes less screen space.
Opening the well-being panel from an alert now has an extra visual effect.
Added a small notification at the start of the game.
…are gone! You can see the difference in this curiously shaped setup pictured above.
Removed the waterfall flow limitations, allowing water to move more naturally and without simulation restrictions. No more odd-looking waterfalls.
Here’s a bunch of other UI-related tweaks.
The game now displays anticipated energy output for Water Wheels while in the preview mode. Guessing games end here.
Injury probability is now displayed in building descriptions.
Editable text fields in the map editor’s UI are now consistently sized and have a neat frame.
Updated the view toggles (such as the water visibility toggle) to better communicate if a particular view is toggled on or off.
On the wonder launch screen, the Big Numbers are now separated with spaces every three digits.
The Load/Save screens now support the long-forgotten art of double-clicking.
Status icons displayed in the world are now always consistently updated at the same time, reducing visual noise. As a bonus, this improved performance a bit.
The game now displays a warning when trying to place a building in a way that would result in a flooded entrance.
The game now displays a warning when trying to place a partially underground building with not enough room below.
The game now displays a warning for non-functional pumps, for example if you place dynamite underneath, limiting the pipe’s length.
Updated icons for Forester and Gravity Battery.
The “Prioritize by haulers” checkbox is now displayed during the construction stage. Also, we’ve moved it up a bit.
Goods are now ordered based on when they usually appear in the game instead of alphabetically. Also, badwater now has its own category on the top toolbar.
We standardized water sources' strength units. Don’t be surprised that a water source with strength 1 now has the same strength as a source with strength 2 used to have.
Terrain Block now costs (and produces) 4 Dirt, down from 6.
Dirt unit now weighs 7, up from 5.
Demolishing crops is now faster. Go crazy with these hammers!
Improved loading times by about 25%.
Slightly improved the game’s performance.
Added support for Steam’s virtual keyboard - have at it, Steam Deck gamers.
Today’s update upgrades the mod creation pipeline. From now on, it’s much easier to create mods - whether you’re a veteran modder or a newbie who wants to try their hand at modding. Mods should also be more resilient to changes in the base game and other mods. We’ll cover that across a few sections. If you’ve ever wanted to add a crazy new building or translate the game into Pig Latin, read on!
We’ve added a new way to start your modding journey. This one is as simple as it gets… and we feel that the pastry-lovers among Folktails will be satisfied.
Added the Create Mod button to the in-game mod manager. Choose one of the predefined templates, enter the name, and voilà - your first mod is ready to be used and tweaked further. The available templates are:
Example building. Using Blueberry Jam as a tasty example, this template showcases adding a new building to the game together with a new food production chain.
Translation. This helps you translate the game to the language of your choice.
Tails and banners. Use it to add templates for images used by Detailer and Banners.
Empty. Guess what, this one simply waits to be filled with your own ideas.
The Mod manager layout was adjusted to fit this feature. As a result, the Upload button should be more difficult to miss.
We’ve just finished what we started in Update 7, where we took steps towards unifying how specifications and prefabs are defined.
JSON files, a.k.a. Blueprints, are now used to specify virtually every in-game object, such as buildings, characters, or natural resources. We use Blueprints internally, which means you get the same powers as our development team, with easy access to every tweakable parameter.
They work with the regular JSON files merging process that we introduced along with the native mod support. This means modifying a building is as simple as modifying a Blueprint. Changing basic building stats can now be done in a one-line JSON.
You can now see the Blueprint of any in-game object by selecting it in dev mode and clicking the Show Blueprint button.
The newest version of our Unity modding tools now also imports additional assets from the game’s build: all Blueprints, localizations, UI styles and views, and our Unity Editor tools.
One of these tools is the Blueprint Editor, which is our custom inspector for editing Blueprints in Unity. As almost every prefab is now a JSON file, you can edit it using Notepad or your IDE of choice, but we strongly recommend Blueprint Editor for tweaking things like colliders and block objects, or adding new Specs to your Blueprint.
For a JSON file to be considered a Blueprint, it has to have a .blueprint.json extension.
The macOS warning about Rosetta being off was no longer needed and removed, as Harmony officially started supporting Apple Silicon processors.
Added #delete keyword for JSON merging operations, which allows you to remove existing properties from it (for example, built-in Specs from Blueprints).
The #append JSON keyword now ignores duplicates.
BaseComponent no longer inherits from MonoBehaviour, so keep in mind that for Awake, Start, or Update methods to work, your class must now implement the appropriate interface (for example, IAwakableComponent).
Crash screens in modded and dev mode games now display the exception stack trace.
Mods with duplicate names now include the root folder name in the mod manager.
The obsolete StartMod method was removed from the IModStarter interface.
The modding documentation was rewritten and moved to our modding tools repository Wiki: https://github.com/mechanistry/timberborn-modding/wiki.
Sample mods were updated to be compatible with the 1.0 experimental version of the game. HelloWorld and OverwritesExample were also expanded to cover more cases.
Modding tools compatible with Update 7 were moved to the update-7 branch.
The game now shows a pop-up if any issues were detected during the loading phase - for example, if the save included buildings from missing mods or an older version of the game.
Saplings spawned by plants marked for demolition are now also marked as such.
On maps where it’s not possible to place a particular building, it will not show up on the toolbar (for example, you won’t see the Geothermal Engine on a map with zero Geothermal Fields).
When switching between buildings in the construction mode, they are now all rotated in the same direction.
Hydroponic Gardens no longer reset their visual state if their output has not been removed yet.
Renamed Engine to Steam Engine now that there’s also Geothermal Engine in the mix.
Made some small tweaks to the Polish localization.
Updated the game’s welcome screen pop-up text.
Updated in-game credits with new Eager Beavers.
Fixed Terrain Blocks not returning goods when destroyed.
Fixed the map description field breaking when the scroll bar appeared.
UI click sounds are no longer played multiple times after clicking a single button.
Fixed some rare cases of tooltip flickering.
Fixed the Floor model occasionally disappearing when switching between layers.
Fixed the stuttering animation of Gravity Batteries.
Wind Gauge now correctly displays the “Flooded” status when completely submerged. Kind of makes sense.
Fixed a bug that prevented Carousel from being built if its base would be surrounded by terrain or other buildings.
Fixed a small visual glitch on Inventor.
Fixed the lag occurring upon placing the Dirt Excavator.
Fixed the incorrect toolbar spacing in the map editor.
Fixed incorrect capitalization in building descriptions.
Larger Suspension Bridge variants now correctly use the new flavor.
Fixed exploded beavers sometimes being teleported to another dimension.
Fixed a bug with sluices not opening.
Fixed the console not scrolling.
Fixed a bug which caused the game to make network connections to Unity Analytics even if there was no data to send.
Removed the water “curtains” visible with the transparent mode turned on.
The building destruction sound no longer plays when exploding terrain. If you were able to hear that, congratulations.
Contamination now spreads across the terrain in a less blocky fashion.
Re-aligned the asymmetrical window in the Minilodge.
Fixed a bug with the scroll position not resetting correctly in the Save Map pop-up.
Goods icons are now correctly aligned in the goods selection pop-up.
Fixed a crash caused by deleting a storage while some beaver was thinking about it.
📍 Seremban, Malaysia
