The Reveal: Havendock is an upcoming cozy resource gathering, crafting & open sea base building game. In this game you gather materials similar to Raft but you build out from your original dock. Research new recipes, craft new items and invite travelers and nomads to join you on your own slice of paradise. Multiplayer is currently a work-in-progress mode, so expect bugs. The game is currently in early access on Steam.
The Demo Review: Havendock opens with an immediate warm and relaxed vibe. The bluish-green waves bobbing while a small established dock community lives. This is the goal for the game. To build your expansive life on a series of docks with houses, gardens, tables, water pumps, dance floors, hen houses and more!
Pressing ‘PLAY’ will start a new game where you can create your character with some very basic cosmetics, customizations and some personality traits that have no effect on gameplay (see image below).
The tutorial is quite extensive and your hand does get held through a good majority of it. I did find myself wandering off the tutorial path based on the resources I was able to collect or what I wanted to craft. The graphics for Havendock are a low poly style with bright colours. The water, fire and sunlight are beautifully rendered in.
The music is cute and quaint, cozy but repetitive. The soundtrack could use some work, or variety. It’s like in the Sims when I was designing and building, the Sims original soundtrack would send me through the roof – definitely enjoyed when I was able to insert my own music files into the game.
To transition to another avenue of the demo, the buildable options are decent for the demo to give you a good idea of the basic technology you need to start before you reach a point where the demo ends and full game/paid release begins.
Castaways are a key component to growing your handcrafted island paradise. They arrive by boat when you’ve completed an objective early on. It’s your job to keep these castaways happy, busy, well fed and rested. They can perform jobs for you as well, like pumping sea water and bringing it to the purifier. Make sure to either assign someone to cook or become the chef yourself and keep your growing community fed.
Pros
- Large technology tree
- Creative placement and building style
- Management of resources not overly difficult but a nice challenge
- Variety of craftables
- Beautiful fire, water and sunlight bloom
Cons
- Tutorial holds your hand a bit too long
- Settings automatically begin at maximum resolution (easily fixed in settings after game launch)
My overall impression with Havendock is that it’s a nice chill game with farming, crafting, building and management aspects. Some more improvements to quality of life, keybinds and settings changes would be really nice in the final build. I don’t really understand some of the character customization choices and the personality trait that has no effect on gameplay – maybe challenging to have them alter gameplay. Its game play style, freedom of building and variety of crafting options is hopeful.
Havendock is now in Early Access on Steam!