What a fun little game! Similar to what happens in the board game Carcasonne, randomly drawn tiles are used to piece together a landscape. Players can win extra cards by completing assignments (e.g. build a village consisting of 35 houses), allowing them to expand the landscape further. The game is finished when the player runs out of cards. Quite relaxing, and very replayable. My only quibble would be that the music is somewhat repetitive, but I am sure others are fine with the music as it is. Runs well on my Linux system using Wine. I did tweak the graphics settings a bit as I noticed the graphics card was getting quite hot even though, as an isometric game with many static elements, Dorfromantik shouldn't be too taxing. Installing DXVK and disabling the anti-aliasing fixed this problem.
I greatly enjoyed this game - so much so that I played it three times over the past six weeks. The art is charming, and the puzzles are generally fun - though easy to solve. These are not the game's greatest strengths, though. Trüberbrook offers a lovingly realised image of German provincial life in the second half of the twentieth century - nostalgic, mildly clichéd, and offset by humorous dialogues and a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi plot. The main character's habit of launching into dramatic language in response to relatively mundane situations adds to the fun of the game, as do the many references to popular culture. Finally, two recommendations: - Play the game in German if you understand it, as some of the jokes and references don't work as well in English. - After finishing the game, please watch the closing credits before exiting it. The opening scene of the game will make more sense afterwards.
I enjoyed playing this game, with its quirky art style, sound track composed by Floex and simple, but engaging storyline. The puzzles, which make up most of this game, do get somewhat repetitive after a while, although the introduction of new characters with different behaviours helps to keep them interesting. I would have liked for the player character to be more involved in the story that unfolds - initially he is only a spectator. He does interact much more closely with the other characters towards the end of the story, though. The game also features paintings for the player to find, some of which were interactive. To be honest, I did not really see the point of those. They had very little baring on the events in the game, and I did not find them very interesting artistically. I hope that, in future games, Amanita will focus on the story more, as they did in Machinarium and the Samorost series.
I like the art style, and the use of 'cards' is a clever take on the current vogue for Gwent-esque multiplayer games. I think the makers of this game should rethink a few part of the plot line, though: 'winning' the game involves either forcing a father to give up his daughter by threatening him with violence, or killing a monster in exchange for the girl's hand in marriage. There is no suggestion in the story that such actions are undesirable or reprehensible. In fact, if one wants to finish the game one cannot avoid choosing between these two paths.
