Havendock is a beautifully built simulation with much strategic depth to explore in it.
YYZ Productions is a one-man game development studio based in Singapore with a rather lengthy release history. It’s actually surprising what just one developer can do when given enough time. Ying Zhi is that lone developer at YYZ Productions. Granted, the majority of his previous releases were mobile and web games, but he has taken a leap of faith into bigger platforms with the release of Havendock – A survival base builder and city management simulation game combined into one with simple but still eye-catching visuals.
While looking closely at his development history, it becomes incredibly clear that he has a passion for gaming and development like no other. His releases might look simple at a quick glance and sometimes even rushed, but there is a clear dedication that everybody can admire. Havendock looks to be the culmination of all his works brought together to bring us his greatest work yet. Though for now, we can only hope he’ll keep his current pace and release more pc games with the same dedication.
As we enter the game Havendock, we are asked to select the graphics quality with the game showing examples between low and high. This might seem a bit odd, but it could be that the game isn’t heavily reliant on multiple types of textures or loading on the fly. Everything is instead loaded in one shot for the best experience from the start.
After that comes a rather interesting character creator, the characters themselves are incredibly simple but quirky – You’ll have options like hair color, hair types, skin colors, facial expressions, etc. Accessories can also be added for that extra whacky weirdness or to help your character stand out a bit more. The accessories do have an effect of sorts on your character but not in the ways you’d expect.
Another interesting part is that the character creator doesn’t discriminate in any way, shape, or form since you can also choose your pronouns, making this game LGBTQ+ friendly. Not all pronouns are there, but we might see more added at a later stage. You can also give your character quirks like Food Lover, Nerdy Genius, and Night Owl, and there are so many others to choose from that give your characters their own unique flair that would appeal to you. These quirks don’t affect the gameplay, but they do add a unique touch to the game that isn’t seen in others.
After you’ve created your character, the last step would be world creation. You can almost start building your village at sea. However, while it’s not entirely necessary, you can also choose to change the world settings for more creative freedom when it comes to building and taking care of your settler’s needs. Unless you want more of a challenge, you can also build the world to work against you.
You start off alone, on a really tiny sandbank with almost no idea what to do. You are guided through a basic tutorial to help you get started with your new life on the sea. Things might look relaxed at first, but you’ll need to get yourself settled with basic needs, or your future dream of a sea village won’t become a reality. You’ll need to expand your deck for more space to place down other buildings.
Building in Havendock requires materials. There are several ways to get the required materials for all your building needs ranging from easy to complex. The easiest method is waiting for materials to drift close enough to your dock that you can just pluck them from the sea. You’ll eventually be able to research nets that you can place around your deck that will catch everything for you, and this makes resource gathering a lot easier.
You can also build farms that will grow your basic resources like wood, food, and meat. Though farms require seeds, and to get seeds, you’ll have to build birdhouses. Everything in Havendock, unfortunately, takes a lot of time to complete, but you can at least spend resources to speed things up. Leaving some fish with your birdhouses will give them a much-needed boost if your seed supply is running low, and watering your farms also speeds up the growth rate. You’ll need to balance need vs. want alongside what you’re willing to sacrifice to get other resources.
Where resource gathering can become a bit more complex is when you need to create new resources using existing ones like Charcoal, which needs to burn wood. Food also plays a big part, so you’ll need a cooking table to make meals to feed yourself and the many settlers who might join you. There are several recipes to choose from, but they all have different requirements. You’ll eventually get to a point where you’ll need extra settlers to help with gathering up or creating everything you need for your next meals.
Now that you’ve got yourself settled with the basic needs and wants, you’ll have to build a pier to attract settlers. They’ll typically come with one or two conditions before they join you on your adventure to build a village, though these conditions usually range from having a home to a hot meal. Once they join, it expands your options and workflow quite heavily as they’ll start taking on jobs around your new home – like carrying materials to where they need to be or harvesting resources. You can also assign them to specific places to only do that one specific job, like pumping water, for example.
Your settlers also have needs, though, and you’ll need to make sure they’re fed and well rested, as well as happy. Food and lodging are easy to take care of, but happiness becomes a task on its own as they’ll need buildings like bars, prayer chapels, and dance floors to raise morale. A happy settler will keep working and keep your village running smoothly.
Your most important tool in Havendock is your Workshop. Even though it doesn’t get used for actual crafting, it’s more a space for research to unlock new crafting options. The research tree can seem a bit daunting, but you’ll need to unlock previous branches to start research on the next ones. This does make the research more linear but also more approachable. Though as mentioned before, you’ll need to do the research to unlock new buildings or upgrades to keep your settlers happy.
The last major draw for Havendock is that you’re not limited to a small space. You’re only limited to how much you can build. You’ll find smaller islands or even small sea homes that you can connect your village to for further expansion or even to find the occasional animals that will give you things like eggs or poop for meals and fertilizer, respectively. The sea is a vast and mysterious place, there’s no knowing what you’ll find, but that’s the best part of this adventure.
Visually, Havendock has an extremely simple but uniquely beautiful design. While it might not have the intense level of graphics that most top-rated games would have, this game has its own incredible aesthetic that’s easy on the eye, but you can still admire the game’s visual side. Havendock also features a smooth day and night cycle that helps immersion and a rather dangerously realistic weather system. The weather system is dangerous more so because things like lightning strikes can cause fires in your village that you’ll need to put out.
Havendock’s sound engineering and music also carry that same likable charm. The game might come off as fast-paced and rushed, but it’s very relaxed, and the music shows as much with a very peaceful atmosphere. Your settlers don’t just have funny quirks, though. They also have their own sounds, like snoring while sleeping. Unfortunately, the settlers aren’t voiced, so it’s purely text-based introductions. The lack of voice acting might come off as detracting from the game quality, but the rest of the audio in Havendock more than makes up for it.
Havendock has all the best parts of base building and civilization-like games with none of the rush. It’s really approachable and perfect for gamers of any caliber and capitalizes heavily on the overall relaxed atmosphere.
