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Dorfromantik Discussion (Nintendo Switch) [game]
 
Dorfromantik on the Switch
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05/28/23, 21:48  
 
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Dorfromantik is a German word, consisting of the word dorf, meaning village, and romantik, meaning Romanian door-to-door salesman. Dorfromantik is also a very relaxing gaming experience, combining puzzle mechanics with basic city building elements.



Every session of Dorfromantik starts out with a single hexagonal tile in the middle of an endless void. Your task is to place down more tiles, one at a time, in order to build a little world, with different biomes, terrains and structures. At your disposal is a stack of 40 tiles, with random features. Tiles can feature trees, water, wheat fields, houses and more, in all sorts of combinations. By connecting hexagons in such a way that features of the same type link up, you get more points, and if you manage to connect all six sides of a tile with the right features, you will earn more tiles for your stack. In essence, the better you plan your session, the more you get to play.



So far, so sehr gut, but certain elements will keep you from simply putting tiles down all willy nilly. For starters, the tiles you get are random, and you have to place them in order. You can see the layouts of the upcoming three tiles in your stack, so you do get an opportunity to plan ahead, but only to a point, and you can't change the order of the tiles in the stack. Secondly, you always have to connect a new tile to a tile that is already on the board, so to speak. You can never place a tile off to the side somewhere, all by its lonesome. Thirdly, certain terrain features, like the railroad tracks, have to connect to tile sides with the same type of feature. If you don't find a way to connect, say, a tree to another tree, no problem. Put that tree next to a house or a field or whatever. But you can't just connect a railroad piece to a tree. The mechanics of Dorfromantik won't stand for such filth!



So, the game, as slow paced and peaceful as it is, can still present you with a challenge. Sometimes literally. Certain tiles will give you quests of sorts, asking you to connect them to a chain of a certain number of other tiles carrying a certain feature. Perhaps a water tile will give you a reward if you manage to hook it up to at least 11 other tiles featuring water. Maybe a village tile wants you to connect it to exactly 3 other village tiles. It's not rocket surgery, but it's enough to create a decent balance between the relaxing biome building and the strategic puzzle piece placing.

Further enhancing the - as they say in Germany - chill ass nature of the game, is the gorgeous soundtrack. You get a handful of instrumental tunes that sound like they were made for cloud gazing, stargazing or...gazer...gazing. They're the perfect companion to the visuals, and it's easy to get lost in your little world listening to the music, just watching the puffs of smoke slowly rising out of the chimney of the lonely little cabin by the edge of the woods, or the flocks of birds passing over the small boats going back and forth on the clear blue river. It's almost meditative.




I like Dorfromantik a lot, and I think everyone should look into it. If you're the kind of person who is under a lot of stress, maybe this will help, at least little bit. Or, if you're the kind of person who isn't stressed at all, maybe this game will help you collect your thoughts and remember all the stressful things you've forgotten about, so that you can play more Dorfromantik to help rid you of your stress. Peace of mind costs 15 bucks on the eShop as of right now.
05/28/23, 21:48   
Edited: 05/28/23, 23:28
My cousin-in-law offered to buy me a copy for Steam, so one of these days I'll have to take him up on that! (Too much to play at the moment.) I love the art style, and it seems like a cool experience.
05/29/23, 21:32   
@J.K. Riki
That's a very generous offer, and you should totally accept it! My backlog is insane, and there's no shortage of games to play right now, so I know what it's like, but games like this are relatively easy to squeeze in a short session of, here and there, I think. If that's something you want to do, that is.

I love the art style too. It's seemingly simplistic, but it all comes together so well. It's equal parts children's storybook and aerial photography, and it gives off such a nostalgic, rural vibe. Full of that village romanticism, it is.
05/29/23, 23:28   
05/31/23, 20:26   
06/02/23, 12:27   
Really cool to see you make this thread R_hjort. I've had my eye on this game ever since it was announced for Steam. I was begging them on social media to bring it to Mac or Switch. Eventually, I got my wish. I picked it up at launch on Switch and I really enjoyed my time with it. I'm not sure how often I'll keep coming back since there's not a huge incentive to chug away beyond just the blissful peaceful puzzle goodness.

I actually picked up the board game edition of this too. It's pretty great. Reminds me of Carcassonne but co-op. I almost didn't bite on the board game so I could save money and also, I just wasn't convinced that the "no real win" situation was going to be grippy for me and the people I play with. However, we find the 'legacy' kind of setup for it to be quite nice.

When I went to South Africa earlier this year, I thought I was going to have so much time for gaming, what with the 17 hours of flying each way and then a 5-6 hour bus ride into the mountains (and out later on). However the cramped traveling meant I really didn't play much of anything I needed to focus on. I definitely wouldn't have been enjoying playing Zelda there, that's for sure. But Dorfromantik was a GREAT game for this. I could zone out to the music with my noise-canceling headphones, look out at the ocean, African-countryside, etc and then glance back down at the beautiful landscape of Dorfromantik.

Overall, Dorfromantik is a big win in my book. I encourage everyone to give it a try.
06/09/23, 00:50   
Edited: 06/09/23, 00:57
@DrFinkelstein
I'm really happy to see both you and J.K. Riki being aware of the game, and even happier to hear that you're a fan. It's great to see Secret_Tunnel in here as well obviously, but I'm still not sure what the Daft Punk connection is... Anyway, I don't really have any idea of how many people have played Dorfromantik in general, I just know that it's too few. In my mind, Dorfromantik occupies a space similar to that of Tetris Effect: Connected, in that I don't really mind that I don't seem to progressing much or unlocking new stuff, because the vibes alone make playing the game feel worthwhile.

I can totally see Dorfromantik being perfect for a trip like yours. I've sadly never been anywhere in Africa, but I can imagine the contrast between the South African countryside and the (digital) Northern European countryside must have been a pretty cool feeling.

I keep forgetting that they turned the game into a board game. I seldom play board games anymore, but one of my closest friends gather people for board game weekends every once in a while. Not sure they would go for Dorfromantik, 'cause they all seem to be into more complex and competetive games these days, but I think I'll run the idea of playing Dorfromantik by them before their next session, just to see what they think.

EDIT: Oh, btw, the game is part of Nintendo's summer sale right now! In Europe, at least. I'm not sure how big of a discount the game has in NA, if any, but hey, it's worth looking into for anyone interested.
06/09/23, 21:21   
Edited: 06/09/23, 21:31
@r_hjort

Haha, it's just a joke about the name! Technologic, Dorfromantik. I hear it every time I see this thread title.
06/10/23, 01:13   
DrFinkelstein said:
I just wasn't convinced that the "no real win" situation was going to be grippy for me and the people I play with.

Honestly this is my biggest hang-up with taking the plunge on the game. I like goals.
06/14/23, 18:01   
@J.K. Riki

That's where the Legacy-style gameplay comes in with the board game at least. It's been fun to earn points based on how well we do in a game, add them to our campaign, and unlock additional facets to the game. Future games are enhanced for it.

The video game doesn't really have that if I recall. You can explore and discover new tiles but they're not too common and it's still very high-score based. I too have never been big into games where getting the high score was the focus. That's why I'm very glad I started gaming in 89' when Zelda, Mario, etc started coming out. If I had been a gamer first in the Arcade era, maybe I wouldn't have my high-score dislike, but also perhaps I would have hated how everything was about high scoring and nothing more substantial goal-wise.
06/19/23, 17:10   
@Secret_Tunnel
I didn't pick up on that at all! I think it's probably due to me pronouncing Dorfromantik in a weird way.

@DrFinkelstein
You also unlock the new biomes, but they probably don't qualify as goals either, since you don't know what's in there for you to unlock. I don't think?
06/19/23, 20:16   
@r_hjort

By biomes do you mean like the way that fields can look purple eventually?
06/20/23, 19:55   
@DrFinkelstein
Yeah, I'm not sure if they call them biomes or not, but there's a bunch of those. Yesterday I realized that I had unlocked a more Japanese looking biome, with more asian looking buildings, turquoise fields and cherry blossoms on some of the trees. Very cosy!
06/20/23, 20:58   
@r_hjort

Ooh, then there's probably more I've yet to find. Fun surprises but to the greater point, probably not that motivational for most.

I'm surprised they didn't try to add a bit of that later.
06/20/23, 22:29   
@DrFinkelstein
Yeah, it's not something that's gonna keep you going, more a neat bonus for you if you do keep going.

I booted up my game to check, and I have seven biomes (they do call them that) unlocked right now, counting the standard one. Seems like that might be the lot, judging by the other menu tab that I've totally neglected to look at before now:

The Rewards tab informs you about the special tiles that you can find during gameplay, and how they unlock new challenges. Below that are the current challenges that I have to work with. They come in three different types, apparently. The Champion, Engineer and Landscaper types. It seems that the Landscaper challenges unlock biomes, the Engineer challenges unlock trains and boats and such, and the Champion challenges unlock new buildings. Right now it seems that if I want to unlock a new type of train, I have to "form a train route with at least 50 train tracks". My current best is apparently 24.

So, not a definitive goal, and perhaps not enough for everyone even as a minor goal, but it's something to work towards.
06/20/23, 22:48   
Edited: 06/20/23, 22:49
@r_hjort

I do want to see more of what this game has to offer so I think I'm going to have to check out more of this content. While it's not motivational to play for 50 hours off of biomes alone, I do want to know what they look like.
06/20/23, 23:32   
@DrFinkelstein
The differences between the biomes are often kind of subtle, like the lavender one you've seen, but when you have several unlocked and active on the same map it makes for some very pretty countryside patchwork, I think.
06/21/23, 00:01   
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