Review: Dorfromantik

destructoid.com:

Games are very goal-driven, which is an extremely obvious statement to make, but I do have a point. Throughout the history of video games, there have been attempts at concepts that don’t have a set goal. Sim City, for example, has no real ending. You can say that the goal is to build the biggest, most functional city possible, but how do you know when you reached that?

Dorfromantik has that same sort of mindset. Technically, there is a goal. You can argue that there’s an ending. You can even point out that there’s a competitive angle. All of that is missing the point. Dorfromantik is about putting that all aside and just letting your mind go, but as it turns out, letting my mind go isn’t that great of an idea.

Dorfromantik (PC)Developer: Toukana InteractivePublisher: Toukana InteractiveReleased: April 28, 2022 MSRP: $13.99

It’s hard to peg Dorfromantik to a genre. You might say it’s a city-builder, or perhaps it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle. I’d say it’s Solitaire. You’re given a finite stack of hexagonal tiles and that’s it. The tiles have things like streams, train tracks, forests, houses, fields, and empty plains, but there’s no picture you’re trying to complete. You can only see three tiles ahead of you, so you just have to try your best to connect them in the most optimal way.

If you want to continue with your creation, you need more tiles. Certain tiles have objectives attached to them, such as being connected to a certain number of matching tiles. Other times, you have to connect them to a specified number of matching tiles, and you can’t go over. Whatever the objective is, completing them adds more tiles to your stack.

That’s all there really is to it. You just plop them down as you see fit. Maybe you want to