There’s now a budding new subgenre of city builders, and it’s all about making beautiful scenery from whatever the pieces of tiles/lands/buildings you’re dealt with.
Dorfromantik fits that mould, and this little indie puzzler brings its own distinct charm and a challenge that keeps you not dozing off to its serene, beautiful sights.
This is still in Steam Early Access, with some parts that still could use a little work. But it’s already a promising relaxing game about building idyllic European villages.
Not Settlers Of Catan
Here’s how Dorfromantik works. You are dealt with a random stack of hexagon tiles. And you are tasked with connecting these tiles together in some form. At first, you just combine what looks the best. Get the trees to clump together to make thick, forests (undisturbed by the horrendous acts of illegal logging). Get the house close to make a little cozy village by the riverside. And so on.
The gimmick in the main mode is that your tile stack is finite, and to gain more, you’ll have to complete objectives that will appear in random tiles. Say, pull out a tree tile and it may ask you to make a forest containing a set number of trees all connected together.
There will also objectives where you are tasked to have only a specific number of the same objects together. Should your main solution be to have an always-growing clump of connected farm fields, you would face problems when you are asked to make a new tile connect with only a smaller number than the sprawl you’ve prepped.
Some objectives will also ask you to close the loop- ending all available connection points so the sprawl of houses/farm fields/trees come to a stop, and begin a new one.
It’s an engaging gameplay loop. One that always encourages you to think a few steps ahead, as well as to adapt on the fly should the tile selection don’t go your way. The puzzles of completing objectives are all based on the tiles as laid by you, and it’s satisfying to get one that you’ve pre-empted, or one that you don’t but course-corrected to get it done.
Minor Nitpicks
The problem right now, for me at least, is how river and railway track tiles are doled out. They are tricky ones to work with. Especially with how often the intersection river/railway tracks are being thrown at you. I would have preferred that the game eases you into putting a labyrinth of tracks and rivers by weighing the long straight/curvy ones more often early on (as you have less room to work with at the start).
Then again, there are at least a hundred thousand more people who have figured out tricks and have made bigger, more sprawling villages (there’s a high score tracker with a global leaderboard for the main mode). So maybe I just don’t get the game’s other intricacies as well yet.
Another improvement I wish to see is having more clarity on what part of the tile does the specific objects connect. One tile can share many different objects- essentially making them jigsaw puzzles. But sometimes I lost track of where an open connection is still available, or not seeing correctly that the two houses on one tile are not connected to each other despite being on a tile. There are a few glowing auras that hint at this, but I don’t feel all bases are covered with this solution.
One thing that’s already great is its aesthetic choice, described as a board game-like look. With simple, hand-drawn art and a soothing soundtrack, Dorfromantik is such a peaceful game. I love that there are biomes that slightly alters the land and object colours, as well as changing the hue of the empty sky.
If you just need to unwind from the chaotic world we live in and see a perfect, idyllic paradise crafted with your own mouse clicks, this is the game for you.
Closing Thoughts
As far as Early Access goes, Dorfromantik is already a decent game for what you’re paying for. There is more content to come (including a Creative Mode which I probably would enjoy more when that arrives). With a bit more tile variants, Dorfromantik is looking to be a fun, relaxing game when it leaves Early Access later this year.