Squirreled Away preview: hands-on with the cozy squirrel survival game

Base-building, acorn-stashing, and crafting stink bombs to scare dogs

Squirreled Away / Far Seas

You’ve never seen more accurate squirrels than in Squirreled Away. This charming woodland survival game actually turned developer Far Seas into a team of unintentional squirrel experts.

“Sometimes we talk about something and you just drop a bunch of random squirrel facts,” admits Jesus Lappalainen, Far Seas co-founder, animator and tech artist. One of those facts: squirrels always land on their feet. Correspondingly, in Squirreled Away, you don’t take fall damage. 

This is a game that turns the everyday life of a squirrel into a survival game. “We kind of figured out that squirrels are actually the living embodiment of a survival game,” says Lappalainen. “They’re mischievous, they’re fussy, and do work. They’re doing survival. As soon as we figured that one out, everything came together.”

Squirreled Away / Far Seas

It’s a lot more relaxed than a squirrel’s actual life, however. You’ll peacefully bound around open-world environments, completing missions for other woodland buddies, harvesting resources, and crafting items. For instance, you can collect some twigs and fashion yourself a pair of wings to glide with. Despite the fanciful concept, it’s clear Far Seas put work into the animation.

“You can definitely tell that it’s somewhat realistic the way it moves and the way it’s animated,” says lead artist Linnea Thydell. “You can imagine a squirrel doing this. If it had wings, it would fly like this.”

Your squirrel also convincingly scampers up trees, paddles in streams, and digs up treasure with its paws. Other missions in the game include crafting a stink bomb to scare away a dog, and scaling a tower to find a golden acorn – which is made harder considering your claws don’t grip onto stone.

Squirreled Away / Far Seas

You won’t always be alone, however. There’s a multiplayer element to Squirreled Away (I didn’t see it during my hands-on, granted), which lets you build bases and explore with other squirrels. Completing certain quests unlocks different skins and fur patterns, as well as cute accessories like hats or backpacks.

Everything in Squirreled Away is useful. As Lappalainen says, one man’s trash is another squirrel’s treasure. In addition to basic tools like axes, pickaxes, and shovels – albeit tiny ones built for squirrels – you’ll scavenge springs to make bouncy shoes that increase your jump height, and find string to make a fishing rod. 

What does a squirrel want with fish, you ask? Instead of eating them, you’ll showcase aquatic life in your base’s aquarium. Building bases and populating them with trinkets is a key part of the game. In my hands-on session, I’ve already got a pre-constructed treehouse at the top of a mighty oak, but you can custom-build your dwelling anywhere and then decorate it to your tastes.

Squirreled Away / Far Seas

There are several sandbox areas to build in, such as an urban green zone that looks like Central Park, as well as European towns based on Paris and Stockholm. There’s a Studio Ghibli look to the visuals, with Thydell citing Kiki’s Delivery Service as a source of inspiration.

Another comes from miniature family The Borrowers. “It was very inspiring, just because of the scale and seeing how they relate to being small creatures in a large world.” A survival game free from the threat of death is unusual, but that’s what Far Seas is going for. “We wanted to have no deep story or anything. You can start this off and have a chill time and play, and you don’t have to think too much.” 

Apart from, that is, all the interesting squirrel facts you’ll come away with. Did you know they can rotate their hind feet 180 degrees to descend from trees head-first? Now you do.

Squirreled Away will launch on PC eventually. There’s currently no release date.