March 25, 2021 This piece was first published on Feb 10, but we figured we'd give it a little bump as Dorfromantik is out today.
I played a lot of game demos during the Steam Festival, but I kept coming back to one for some head space each evening before turning in. Dorfromantik is a gorgeous, soothing mix of city-building macromanagement and strategic tile placement, and its demo provided me with some much-needed calm during the doom and gloom of winter.
You start with a single hexagonal tile of grass and a stack of 50 additional tiles, each containing some mixture of railway, water, pasture, housing, or woodland. As you place these tiles, the game reveals certain tasks: perhaps you need a cluster or a string of a certain type of tile, like a forest with 40 trees or several houses clumped together. Completing these tasks rewards you with more tiles, so you can continue expanding your city and accumulating points.
The difficult part is that while you can see the next couple of tiles in your stack, you can't skip any - every tile must be placed in the order in which it's served to you. You start trying to compartmentalise the board, hoping you can create neat and efficient areas for each type of tile. Inevitably, the stack throws you a curveball, forcing you to abandon your plans and improvise in order to meet your growing list of tasks. Over time you end up with a patchwork of forests, canals, and hamlets. Keep going and you might end up with a town that's separated from satellite settlements by lakes or fields, with a railway track linking them all together.
RELATED LINKS: Best city-building games, Best strategy games, Best relaxing games
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