Dorfromantik Preview

Steam’s library has hosted a few cracking Early Access games of late, and Dorfromantik is no exception. A light-hearted soundtrack accompanies a vibrant art style in this charming city builder, both of which attribute to a calming atmosphere. Players must place down hexagonal tiles side-by-side with the correct feature or biome, accumulating points for each successful placement. The aim is to replenish your tiles and continuously expand, scoring as high as possible along the way, and with no turn time, a soothing looped soundtrack, and a clutter-free interface, Dorfromantik seems fit for a relaxing evening of gaming.

When beginning a new game, you start with limited tiles and each tile is generated at random. Fear not, you can replenish your stock by completing mini-quests or forming perfectly matched side-by-side tiles. Furthermore, should you expand far enough, hidden tiles will spawn with thick white borders, some with quests to complete unlocking additional buildings or aesthetic improvements to jazz up your village. The tutorial will give you access to a windmill which is often surrounded by multiple farms, other trinkets include boats that appear in your lakes or river tiles, and there are multiple skins to collect as well. You can choose to prioritise matching tile features for Perfect placements or branch further out looking for these extra unlockables. Whichever path you take, the more you nurture your starting hamlet the closer you will get to a wide-spread city.

The tile RNG can be frustrating to begin with, waiting on a particular set of features that may never come. However, this seems to be more of a learning curve than anything else. After a few attempts, you will more than likely find that learning when to bunch together matching tiles and when to hone in on the available quests is key to longevity in Dorfromantik, and is interesting to experiment with.

As the game currently stands, there is only a Classic Mode to choose from. That being said, Toukana Interactive has teased its future plans with a Creative Mode coming soon on the other side of the screen in mode selection. Perhaps this is an unlimited tiles mode encouraging the community to share some of their wondrous creations. The company also expressed its wishes to add ‘more biomes, more unlockable tiles (some with special behaviour), more options to collect points and more supported languages’, as shown in a note from the developer in the Steam store. It is great to see that the developer is looking ahead, and for a small team of four game design students to have achieved such positive feedback, so far, is really encouraging. Dorfromantik already offers a range of targets to reach, such as connecting at least 40 tiles of water, or aiming for a high score of 10,000. Successfully completing one of these unlocks the next step in that respective challenge, each growing in difficulty. These little milestones add an extra sense of achievement and direction to an otherwise very free range game.

The mention of ‘special behaviour’ describing new tiles in the game’s future is a very interesting idea. Should Toukana follow up on this to add some variety to the game, players might find a more flexible and diverse playstyle, which seems to be what they have in mind.