A review of a dorfromantic, comforting but challenging strategy

How do you like to approach video games? Do you want to relax and invest your time in a simple and stress-free activity? Or are you always looking for a challenge? Prefer to optimize your every action to the maximum? Or maybe you just need to keep doing the bare minimum required?

It doesn’t matter what your answer is, because Dorfromantik can be played any way you want. It’s a small but big game, whether you’re looking for a relaxing game where you can create an idyllic landscape or a strategic puzzle game where you have to think through every move. Toukana Interactive has something for you.

After the Early Access period, the developers released version 1.0 available on PC starting April 28, 2022. Let’s see all the details ourselves Dorfromantik review.

one card at a time

how it works Dorfromantic? The idea is very simple. The game starts with a single piece to be placed on a board. On the right, we have a column of tiles. We can see the tile we are about to place and the next two. The object of a game, as a rule, is to score points by placing the piece in the best possible way.

Each tile is basically a a piece of landscape and on six sides it can present a range of elements such as trees, a cultivated land, wasteland, water, houses and more. The newly placed tile gets more points if it touches squares with equal sides. Additionally, some tiles will trigger tasks such as “create a forest with a certain number of trees” or “a cornfield with enough squares”.

Complete missions It allows you to get additional tiles and avoid ending our game too early. In classic mode, we actually have a limited number of tiles and our ultimate goal is a “simple” score hunt before we run out. Therefore, you must optimize your moves to survive as long as possible and at the same time get more points.

It may seem trivial at first glance, but there are some limitations such as waterways or rails that cannot be connected to different boxes. Some tasks also ask to create thematic areas with a full number of tiles. In summary, if you want to set world records, you have to play with great care (and maybe with the help of a little luck).

mode

But as we said, Dorfromantik is not just a game for those who want to be challenged. On the contrary, there are many possibilities for light games. First of all, you can ignore making real records and playing calmly to unlock various objectives that accumulate between multiple games, such as placing a certain number of tiles or getting a certain number of points.

These macro targets It allows you to unlock graphic variants of various game elements such as lavender fields instead of wheat fields. These aesthetic elements can change the graphic style of the game a lot, for example, by switching from spring to winter environments, to keep new games always fresh. Within a few hours, various items are unlocked, so even if you’re not looking for high-level challenges, you can still have the feeling of getting something out of your sessions.

then there is full zen modelike the creative one. In this version, Dorfromantik does not set any limits. We have all the tiles we want, we can throw them and there are no points. Therefore, you can approach the game like a blank canvas and you are a painter who wants to create a huge piece of art consisting of houses, forests, rivers with boats, train stations from which trains leave and more.

then there is quick modes, with objectives that can be completed in a few minutes for those who don’t want to spend a lot of time in the game. The score hunt can actually take tens and tens of minutes without difficulty. It’s also nice that the map isn’t deleted when a game is lost, but can be moved to creative mode to continue your creation.

Then there is also hard modeA fully customized mode for those looking for a tough challenge and allowing you to choose the type of cards and how often they are displayed. You can also choose the difficulty level and high details of the missions to create the best experience for you.

Art

As you may have understood, the essence of Dorfromantik is to let the player choose exactly how to approach each gaming session. Moreover, visually pleasing. Even unintentionally, just playing in classic mode will create a beautiful landscape where villages, forests and rivers blend perfectly. The background music also creates a pleasant, relaxing atmosphere without being overwhelming.

It is clear that there are no particularly complex game mechanics. We’re not talking about a 4X strategy or resource management game. The development team confirms that they have no plans to include such a mod. he won’t even be multiplayer: maybe that’s the only shortcoming, because it would be very interesting to create landscapes in a co-op or compete to see who reaches a certain score with the same set of tiles. But these are just our fantasies and it shows that we want to play Dorfromantik in many different ways, because the basic idea is very simple but very nice.