This game is so chill it literally put me to sleep three separate times. Not a joke.
If you've played the board game Carcassonne, great! You've played Dorfromantik. Dorfromantik is literally just solitaire Carcassonne with hexagonal tiles and no meeples. You draw tiles and place them trying to match cities, forests, water, farms, and railways to earn points. When you run out of tiles, you get a score, and you can hit the "Try Again" button to try to beat your previous score. That is the entire game.
And if it sounds like that isn't enough of a game, I would agree! There's no campaign, no progression, and nothing else to the game beyond "beat your high score", which is sadly not enough of a motivator for me.
It's a shame there's not really a ton of meat on the bone, because the core gameplay loop of Dorfromantik is quite solid, and the presentation of the game is outstanding. The visuals are excellent and the music is lovely. Placing a tile down and seeing how the landscape would adapt and come alive is immensely satisfying.
The game has a variety of modes but they're all just basically the same thing. Quick play is just the same game but shorter, Hard Mode is the game but harder, and Weekly Challenge is a predefined set of tiles. It's all the same - place tiles, try to complete varying placement quests, get points. I never really found the building part of the game as satisfying as I wanted because the part of me that wants to make pretty landscapes was constantly battling against the game's scoring system which just incentivizes making the biggest cities or rivers possible. Creative mode fixes that.
Despite my issues with the lack of overall structure to the game, I ironically found the chill, no-stakes Creative mode to be the most enjoyable part. While messing around with it, I entered a sort of zen state and ended up spending 2 hours crafting the loveliest little landscape. After that, going back to the normal mode, I was just frustrated with the tile draw and how the game didn't want me to make pretty landscapes; it wants me to get points points points!
Dorfromantik is a charming tile placement game that succeeds in being chill, but fails at gamifying its mechanics in a meaningful way that encourages me to keep playing.
+ So chill it put me to sleep
+ Fantastic visuals with a lovely soundtrack
+ Creative mode is surprisingly fun
- So chill it put me to sleep
- No campaign or progression systems
- Limited modes
- Lacking in content
If you've played the board game Carcassonne, great! You've played Dorfromantik. Dorfromantik is literally just solitaire Carcassonne with hexagonal tiles and no meeples. You draw tiles and place them trying to match cities, forests, water, farms, and railways to earn points. When you run out of tiles, you get a score, and you can hit the "Try Again" button to try to beat your previous score. That is the entire game.
And if it sounds like that isn't enough of a game, I would agree! There's no campaign, no progression, and nothing else to the game beyond "beat your high score", which is sadly not enough of a motivator for me.
It's a shame there's not really a ton of meat on the bone, because the core gameplay loop of Dorfromantik is quite solid, and the presentation of the game is outstanding. The visuals are excellent and the music is lovely. Placing a tile down and seeing how the landscape would adapt and come alive is immensely satisfying.
The game has a variety of modes but they're all just basically the same thing. Quick play is just the same game but shorter, Hard Mode is the game but harder, and Weekly Challenge is a predefined set of tiles. It's all the same - place tiles, try to complete varying placement quests, get points. I never really found the building part of the game as satisfying as I wanted because the part of me that wants to make pretty landscapes was constantly battling against the game's scoring system which just incentivizes making the biggest cities or rivers possible. Creative mode fixes that.
Despite my issues with the lack of overall structure to the game, I ironically found the chill, no-stakes Creative mode to be the most enjoyable part. While messing around with it, I entered a sort of zen state and ended up spending 2 hours crafting the loveliest little landscape. After that, going back to the normal mode, I was just frustrated with the tile draw and how the game didn't want me to make pretty landscapes; it wants me to get points points points!
Dorfromantik is a charming tile placement game that succeeds in being chill, but fails at gamifying its mechanics in a meaningful way that encourages me to keep playing.
+ So chill it put me to sleep
+ Fantastic visuals with a lovely soundtrack
+ Creative mode is surprisingly fun
- So chill it put me to sleep
- No campaign or progression systems
- Limited modes
- Lacking in content
Reviewed on May 28, 2023