In Whiskerwood, you will need to establish a colony on untouched islands, rich in all manner of resources, to meet the immediate and ever-growing demands of your feline master. Your citizens, the common mouse, will need to have their own needs met to stay happy, and you’ll need to establish core structures, essential services, and production capabilities to ensure continued growth and prosperity.

With your colonists each having their own unique attributes, a great governor will be able to ensure that the right mouse is fit for the right job, the right living conditions underground or above, and even a tolerance for pollution or clean air. Balance their needs well, and you’ll have happy citizens across the board, even in the most industrial parts of your city.

Govern well, and you’ll be rewarded! It’s up to you, Governor!

Before you can begin this perilous journey, you must first set up the basics of your colony:

1. Colony Name - The Claws have granted you the opportunity to name your first colony; I recommend something befitting a royal charter!
   
2. Difficulty Presets - Clicking on any of these presets will automatically toggle all settings underneath this Preset, allowing you to start your journey much faster.
   
3. Custom Settings - Should you prefer to customize your settings, you can do so here, with options ranging from map size to number of islands, from fertility to the greediness level of The Claws, the feline empire you serve.
   
4. Colony Crew - You will start with five Whiskers as your first colonists. All Whiskers have a set of traits and attributes that are befitting of certain job types. Hovering over these will bring up a tooltip to help you determine the best jobs accordingly. NOTE: Clicking on the dice will reroll all crew, providing better (or worse) options in who you start with.
   
5. Starting Resources - All charters begin with a small set of resources that will allow for basic infrastructure and keep your citizens alive until they can make their own food.

Once you’re all set, select the Embark button at the bottom, and your journey begins!


Your first step in starting a colony is to place your Export Dock on an island, preferably in a location with adequate trees and berry bushes. Once built, another ship will drop off your starting colony crew, where you’ll construct your warehouse, receive your initial starting resources, and sign your charter.


Your Charter is ready to be signed, and with it comes taxes to the Crown, due every 3 days. You can view a breakdown of the debts owed and the acceptable resources to pay your taxes. Hovering over each resource displays the value it contributes to repay your debt. Sign the charter, and your Colony is now entirely in your governance.


Unsure of where to start? Have no fear, Governor! You will receive quests that guide you through the basics of setting up the necessary infrastructure for success, including mining for precious stones and metals, wood cutting, food gathering, and constructing houses for your Whiskers to stay cozy in. This will help you understand the basic principles of running a colony.

Understanding the User Interface is essential for a good Governor; thus, the King would like you to review this portion closely. As the interface that you will interact with the most, we will break down all the main elements, beginning at the top left, and going clockwise:

1. Upcoming Events - Provides you with the time the debt is to be paid, the debt amount, and the total value of goods in storage that you can use towards your debt, as well as the status of any current mission objectives.
   
2. Citizen Elements - An overview of several elements tied to your citizens:
   
   • Total Population
     
   • Construction Workers - any citizens not working a job will work on construction sites.
     
   • Population Approval - Positive thoughts by your Whiskers will generate approval every night. Use approval to attract more Whiskers or use it on various Actions and Policies in your colony.
     
   • Diplomacy Seals - Used to negotiate special requests from the Claws
     
   • Food Amount - Hover over this to view a drop-down menu of available food types.
3. Warnings - Provides information on your colony, from Whiskers that need housing, to low food, and items of importance.
   
4. Resources - Various resources that are used in construction or other industrial processes.
   
5. Colony Menus - An array of menus that provide additional information on the Whiskers, resources, tax reports, and your quest report.
   
6. Time Management - Whiskers only work a certain number of hours every day. Use the controls to adjust the speed at which time passes.
   
7. Colony Construction - Top-level categories for construction in your colony, divided into three areas: Transportation/Logistics, City Production/Housing, and Administrative/Decoration.
   
8. Weather Conditions - Weather conditions and seasons impact multiple areas of your colony, with colder seasons requiring warmth from campfires and other sources, or a clear sky to increase crop growth. Keep an eye on the weather!
   
9. Views - Toggles that provide a specific point of view, such as temperature, “slices” of the map at different levels to see underground, and a default bulldoze button.

Your citizens are no basic mice - they have unique characteristics and traits that, when appropriately utilized, can create quite the efficient colony in the service of the King.


Let’s take a look at Tim Bender to get an idea of what kind of Whisker they are:

1. Guild Association - Every Whisker is associated with a Guild: Explorer, Miner, Farmer, or Engineer, with each Guild providing three traits to that Whisker. These traits could lead to increased food consumption, resistance to certain weather conditions, or other factors that enhance their efficiency in specific tasks.
   
2. Characteristics - Some Whiskers may have a characteristic that enhances their overall efficiency in various production categories, such as carrying capacity or eating habits.
   
3. Jobs & Housing - While you can automatically assign a free Whisker to a job, you could manually assign them based on the aforementioned Guild Association and Characteristics by clicking under the gear and selecting the appropriate job. You can also manually assign them to a house or let them sleep in any free bed.
   
4. Whisker Stats - A set of stats that includes movement speed, productivity, carrying capacity, and body temperature. Guild Association, characteristics, food types, and heat sources can modify these stats.
   
5. Modifiers - These are items that are affecting the Whisker in the moment, which can include food types and Guild Specialty bonuses when they are in a job that aligns with their Guild Association.
   
6. Positive & Negative Approval - Daily factors that provide the approval rating from your Whiskers.
   
   With all of this in mind, a well-fed, warm Whisker who is in a Guild Specialty job can see a massive boost to productivity and create the most efficient colonist!
   
   
   At the end of every workday, you will receive a daily report, which includes any approval gains/losses, a breakdown of positive and negative thoughts that contributed to the overall approval for the day, as well as any resources harvested/mined/generated, any resources used through food consumption/construction/production, and any trades that occurred. It will also show you your tax breakdown, which can increase daily depending on any resources bought or Whiskers accepted into the colony, but let’s talk about that in the next section.
   
   
   Approval not only shows that your Whiskers are pleased with your governance, but it’s also a resource that can be used to accept additional Whiskers into your colony, enact policies, or use in actions such as picking up Whiskers to move them.

Your ultimate goal as Governor is to provide Taxes to the Crown and prove your loyalty to the Claws. The Tax Collector arrives every three days, giving you time to gather resources and goods that can be used to pay the balance.


When the Tax Collector arrives, you have several options to look over:

1. Trust Level - Your Trust Level is how loyal you are to the Crown. If this falls too low, the Claws will revoke your charter!
   
2. Tax & Debt - The total amount due to the Tax Collector, which is a combination of taxes, travel costs for your Whiskers, and any supplies you may have purchased in those three days.
   
3. Resources - Provides a list of resources you can use to make your payment.
   
4. Payment Levels - You have several payment levels, ranging from a portion of your total amount to a large shipment, vastly more than what is being demanded of you. Each level below the full shipment results in lost trust from the Claws, while each full shipment or higher increases trust, providing additional benefits such as building schematics, extra supplies, and Diplomacy Seals.

Should you choose a shipment level that comes with extra supplies, you’ll receive an offer of Supply Gifts, with the ability to use Diplomacy Seals to reroll, should you not like the offers presented to you.

It’s up to you, as Governor, to determine how much you choose to pay in taxes. With taxes rising every time you pay, due to taking on more Whiskers, buying supplies, or just the demands of the Crown in general, you may not be able to overpay every time, balancing their trust and loyalty with the needs of your own colony for their survival.

The colonies of Whiskerwood are built on islands, and though they range in size, space will always be limited. Utilizing wooden paths, stairs, ramps, and slides, you can - and will - need to stack buildings and roads on top of each other, climbing up the mountains of your islands, or dig deep underground and into the cliff sides and mountains to make the most of the space available to you.

The life of a pioneer is not an easy one – far from home without familiar creature comforts, you must learn to withstand and harness the forces of nature to provide for your colony and tend to the various needs and wants of your colonists.


Climate plays a key role in the success of your new home – a stormy day might dampen the natural enthusiasm of your mice, while a cold front can quickly ruin a season’s harvest or otherwise endanger their lives. Hovering over the weather in the bottom right corner will show you any positive or negative modifiers that could affect your colony.



Seasons also play a role in how you approach infrastructure and the well-being of your citizens. Spring and Summer will see higher temperatures and ideal conditions for growing certain crops, as well as keeping your citizens warm enough.

During the Fall season, the temperature starts to drop, and by Winter, the temperature will drop low enough that without proper heat sources, your colonist may freeze to death.


Using hotkey H, you can toggle the heat overlay to get an idea of what areas of your colony are hot or cold. Providing campfires (the only heat-related building in this preview) will keep your Whiskers warm. However, they will eventually run out of wood, meaning you will need to rebuild them periodically.

There will be more advanced heating and cooling mechanics in the full game, providing much more efficient ways to keep your colonist alive during the cold months.

• Unlike most other city builders, it’s not always a good idea to stock up on food and wood immediately. By prioritizing mining and sending larger shipments of metals and other resources to the Claws, you can receive all kinds of goods and luxuries you need, assuming you stay in their good graces. The Claws may also reward you with favors you can use to reroll more reward options, or request additional Whiskers from the tax report screen.
  
• When mining, be sure to use the slice view (Z default) to see what lies beneath the immediately visible deposits on the surface. It’s often the case that there will be even more resources in a vein right below the initial tile, but it’s always possible that there’s even more below; you’ll only discover by digging closer.
  
• Your main warehouse may fill up quickly, especially since the Claws aren’t interested in everything you’re finding as tax payments. Be sure to prioritize having some extra storage around resource sites early, both for storage and better logistics.
  
• At the end of the day, Whiskers will need to go somewhere to eat and then go to bed afterwards if they have a home. Be sure these locations aren’t so far apart that a poor mouse has dinner but can’t make it home for bed before morning!
  
• Consider approval as a resource to be spent rather than as a “happiness meter”. If it’s being maxed out every night, you should be spending your approval where you can each day rather than letting it sit unused.
  
• Remember, winter is coming, and the Claws (hating the cold and snow) are hesitant to travel during the season. This means fewer immediate tax collection ships, but you can still build up debt through supplies and other means. Be sure to stock up for winter and prepare for the cats to return in spring!
  
• Beyond stacking your buildings on top of each other, you can build out into (or across) the sea. Just keep in mind that the support for these structures and bridges will cost you in logs, especially as the ocean grows deeper.
  
• Some Whiskers have traits that can assist in specific jobs that may not always align with their guild position, and are worth paying close attention to if you’re aiming for max efficiency.
  
• You can directly move Whiskers by clicking on one and then using the “Pick Up Whisker” icon next to their information panel. This is especially handy if a Whisker is stuck or too far somewhere, but they’re not going to enjoy the experience, so it will cost an approval point to handle them.
  
• Bulldozing buildings (B default) will often return to you a portion of resources. This is especially handy for creating makeshift paths for mining operations that can then be easily dismantled as the operation moves elsewhere. Mining scaffolding can also be demolished in order to construct across the holes, but this will cost more in log supports similar to building on water tiles.