Dorfromantik

The game is a conceptual copy of islanders. Though in islanders the placement is 3d free form and doesn't hard cut you off from more placements if you overshoot a goal, it just lets you over exceed your own expectations which is gratifying, where as this is frustrating. It has replaced the gratification with the frustration of not getting the right tile you need to finish a grouping, not because you don't have the right object but because you have to much of it on the tile you are trying to place. A second gripe is i had expected to play the game and have some steering on making a pretty world, and you do some times... some times. But as its random over a long enough time, sooner or later the game will turn your world to a ugly mess, especially with rails and rivers which force you to match their edges with like pieces. All of this could be forgiven if they had used the strengths of their locked in grid system. You could have had tiles effect tiles at a distance, Example: a train tunnel swallowing a track, then being able to place a opening tunnel anywhere in line with that tunnel to resume the track line from up to six tiles away. they do nothing like this no range effects taking advantage of their static non granular placement. Left me very underwhelmed realizing it had nothing new to offer me despite being a new game. Pros Price is decent Game is stable Nothing is catastrophically broken The things its offering though offered elsewhere are still good in and of themselves. I recommend you buy islanders instead, but if you bought this I think a fair few would enjoy it just fine. In truth I wish there was a 2.5 rating. Please take note of the time of my review, it is listed currently as in development so things may improve.

At first I thought I was going to love this game, but it suffers badly from what you need to do to gain more tiles. The mathematics are such that in order not to run out tiles, you must place a high perentage of tiles near perfectly and complete nearly all of the quests. With a little thought this is not too difficult, but stops me from creating the fun and interesting worlds that I had hoped for. My fourth game has gone on indefinetly, until I became bored out of my mind and gave up. I do not feel motivated enough to chase down the top couple global high scores. Annnoyingly there is no high visible high score table, you are just shown what you postion in it is. As the map grows it becomes increasing tiresome looking for the best tile placements. As my score rose it seemed that the complexity of tiles increased. This made the game slower to play and further reduced my ability to create an attractive world. It takes more and more tile placements to achieve the later goals, which also slows the game down and decreases choice. The hidden tiles are mostly a nuisance. It would be better if they were more positive to link to. The railway tiles are the biggest problem which needs sorting out. It is not in players best interest to build a sensible good looking railway network. Reaching acheivements gains you little more than some small additions to the graphics, such a having the same boats and trains in more different colours.

This review is based on the latest in-development version 0.5.0.3 and over 1000 hrs. playing the game. Looking for a game to relax with Dorfromantik looked promising but didn't deliver in the early stages of development. The RNG was a big problem, there was no UNDO button, it wasn't entirely clear how tiles fit together, and the placed tiles, fields first and foremost, didn't look good. These and several other changes and improvements have been made to this game and it's now close to perfection. Since this has been dealt with it is a true joy to play and truly relaxing. The RNG algorithm has been tweaked and it is now possible to solve challenges and set or beat a highscore. Colors of tiles have been altered and placed tiles look like they are fitting together. It's now in a stage in which i consider it a joy to fire the game up, relax and take my mind off of things. What's more is that developers were and are listening, they publish changelogs and keep continuing to support the game in a timely manner on GOG. If you are looking for a relaxing gaming experience this is the game for you. Be aware that this game can become very addictive so keep a clock on your desk otherwise it's 5 hours later before you know it.

Well, it's still in dev, so it may improve. I was smitten with the game at first, but the infatuation didn't last. My first problem with it is the wide variability of tiles from one playthrough to the next and, if you accidentally start a new game as I did, tiles that were commonplace previously become rarities, for no obvious reason. My second problem is that, if I try to maximise my score (I always do), the game world ends up looking like someone has thrown a large plate of spaghetti into the air and let it fall to the floor any way it likes. The game is presented as offering a more pleasing world than Carcassonne, where it's fine to build a circular road that connects with nothing else whatsoever, but you end up making equally unrealistic placements in DR. The core problem is that the game doesn't quite work as a pleasant jaunt to make a world that looks good, or as a high score challenge, and it's definitely not a settlement-builder, either. Add in other niggles that other people have already mentioned, like the lack of an option to cancel the last tile placed by mistake, the lack of more tiles offering flexibility, like tunnels, level crossings, etc. There are too many tiles that serve very little useful purpose. Also, it could do with different tile sets, e.g. industrial, modern, futuristic, etc. I'm also unhappy that with a top end games PC from a few years back, I get stuttering that causes me to misplace tiles sometimes and that constantly changing my view of the game world gets very intrusive as my map grows in size. I don't begrudge my in-dev investment and I wish the devs well, but I want more.

A puzzle game where you place various landscape tiles on the board to create waterways, forests, towns, railways, and farmlands. The gameplay is easy to pick up, but you also have various challenges (add 10 buildings to a town, create a 24-track railway, etc.) which add more tiles to your stack and unlock new cosmetic items. New game options (some I haven't played yet) let you play a quick game or a longer-term game (that you can save to continue later); there is also a creative mode. There are no time limits, which makes this quite a relaxing game. The artwork is simple but not simplistic - there are trains running on the tracks, deer wandering the landscape, boats on the lakes, etc. And there are different seasonal tile sets, so you can see a snow-covered winter landscape or a green summer. The static screenshots don't do the game justice. When you complete a game, you can have some really nice animated landscapes. Overall, Dorfromantik is an excellent game, and would make a great gift for any age.