Meet Hairy Beaver
He's hairy. He's hungry. He's got trees to chew. Hairy Beaver is a 100-level puzzle game for iPhone and iPad about felling trees to get home, and it's on its way to the App Store.
He's hairy. He's hungry. He's got trees to chew.
Hairy Beaver is a side-view puzzle game for iPhone and iPad about one very hairy beaver, a lot of trees, and the long walk home. He has left the big city for the countryside to build a lodge, and maybe meet a nice lady beaver. Between him and home there are pits, cliffs, rivers, brambles, wolves, hunters and crows.
Luckily, he has teeth.
Chomp. Timber. Home.
Walk up to a tree and chomp it three times. It falls away from you, and that one rule is the whole game:
- Across a gap, it's a bridge.
- Against a cliff, it's a ramp.
- On top of brambles, it's a path.
- On top of a wolf, it's a solution.
Which side you chew from decides which way it falls, so half of every puzzle is working out where to stand.
Then it gets complicated
Fallen logs can be bitten in half, grabbed, and pushed or pulled to where you need them. And hairy beavers don't swim, so water changes everything:
- A log in water is a raft. Paddle it across a pond, or let a current carry you over a waterfall.
- Block a drain with a log and the rain will flood the pit, floating your raft up with it.
- Drop a tree across a rock and you've built a see-saw. Drop something on the high end and whatever is on the low end gets launched, including you.
- Thin ice holds a beaver. It doesn't hold a tree.
Not everyone in the forest is in your way. Rabbits and other friends must not be squashed, and a level is lost if one is. Wolves, hunters and crows are fair game.
100 levels of log-ic
The levels start gentle and grow into multi-step contraptions with names like Stairway to Beaven, Raft Punk and Rube Goldbeaver. Get home in the fewest moves to earn up to three maple leaves on each. Undo is unlimited and restart is instant, so experimenting costs nothing.
The seasons change as you go: orange leaves, then snow, then blossom.
No nonsense
No ads. No in-app purchases. No accounts. No data collected. There's an original theme tune, Game Center leaderboards and achievements if you want them, and keyboard support.
When
Hairy Beaver is nearly ready and headed for App Store review. It will be free. I'll post here when it's live.
Until then: how the 100 levels get made, and why the game ships with no image files. If you like your forestry louder, there's also Dwayne Saw.