Cat-and-mouse city-builder Whiskerwood is charming, engrossing and out now in early access on PC

I’m about an hour into Whiskerwood, the new city builder from Minakata Dynamics and publishers Hooded Horse, and I’ve already made an absolute mess of my coastline. A clever and charismatic hybrid of Against The Storm, Robin Jarvis novels and the settlement of North America, Whiskerwood puts you in charge of some mice building colonies on cuboid islands. The islands are lovely so far, their Minecrafty nooks and crannies crying out to be decked with gardens and windmills and cobblestone paths. But you’ve got taxes to pay, so the first thing you do is sink a bunch of mineshafts at random, scooping out coal and copper for the literal fat cats back at court.

My island town currently looks like it’s been attacked by termites, though I’m trying to instigate some Cosiness by populating the bedraggled shore with nice chubby cottages. I’ve had to abandon my grand plans for a dockfront cafe for the moment, but perhaps we can circle back to the gentrification stuff once I’ve stripped the caves of gold and hacked down all the trees.

You don’t have to pay your taxes – shucking off the feline yoke appears to be one of the endgame possibilities in Whiskerwood. But keeping those tabby tyrants happy has benefits in the shape of new building blueprints and other resources, while also decreasing the likelihood of royal warships showing up to whip your population into submission. You can also turn in partial tax shipments, but you won’t earn any blueprints from these, and you’ll lose a point or two of moggy approval each time.

I think Whiskerwood could be very good. It’s familiar in many ways, but the faintly satirical cat-and-mouse premise puts a different spin on the business of extracting resources, keeping workers happy, and expanding or upgrading your dominions. It’s also pretty intricate. All your mice have traits like Slow or Patient or Good Teacher, which affect how willing they are to, for example, work emergency shifts, or sleep outside at night. They have guild specialisms and accompanying strengths and weaknesses – there’s a guild of heavy-duty manual labourers who can carry more stuff but also need more food.

There are questions of terrain to consider when setting up farms and foraging stations: certain crops favour higher altitudes, others want to grow underground. You’ve got to think about keeping your squeakers warm during the winter, and supplying them with fine clothes and other luxuries once you’ve dealt with basic needs. Lots to pick at, indeed – and later on, there’s the prospect of Whiskerwood going full Factorio once you’ve unlocked relevant technologies. If you think my island looks dystopian right now, just wait till I’ve deluged it in conveyor belt spaghetti and started hollowing out mountains for storage. We’ll make a Dunwall out of this place yet.

If I have a broad criticism, it’s that I’m not sure the game’s anthropomorphic take on colonisation includes any equivalents for indigenous people. Based on the little I’ve played, it’s all about pioneers wrangling with their masters overseas, operating across a species split that is probably more of a metaphor for social class than race or ethnicity. The islands appear devoid of life besides plants before you arrive. If this is to be an allegory, I’d like the game to think harder about the fantasy of unspoilt, “virgin soil”.

Again, Whiskerwood is out in early access today. It’ll stay there “for a year, but that could change depending on how the design develops with player feedback,” according to Minakata Dynamics. Everything mentioned on the Steam page is apparently in the game now, but the 1.0 release “will include additional quests, more goods and production chains, additional tech tree options, additional buildings, and additional mechanics pertaining to rebellion, combat, and the sea.” I’m tempted to conclude with another upbeat mouse pun, but I don’t want to sound cheesy.