Sometimes you hear or read about a game and think, 'That sounds like just my cup of warm beverage.' So it was, in the 'New To Me' lists on BoardGameGeek.com, that I learned of Pegasus Spiele's Dorfromantik: The Board Game a long time before the rest of the gaming world heard about it. I bought it; I played it; I loved it; I loaned it out and it was similarly enjoyed by another. It was then that the (gaming) world at large heard about Dorfromantik: The Board Game, because it was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres.
What the what‽
Yes, that is an interrobang; possibly the most unloved punctuation mark and unfairly so (tho' it is, admittedly, quite ugly). In fact, the degree of my surprise - nay, shock - almost warranted two. But... but... it's not a game, I said, aloud, to the cat. It's a puzzle, an activity, a zen experience of do-your-best-but-it-doesn't-really-matter-if-you-don't-do-very-well-anyway, in a box. What with another non-game activity - Fun Facts (Repos Production) - also nominated and the play-once-and-you've-seen-it-all Next Station: London (Blue Orange) roll & write alongside them, I felt the SdJ nominations this year were off brand.* Has 2022-2023 been a bad 12 months for SdJ-level games? Maybe it has; but even so, two non-games and a somewhat average entry made me question the cognitive functions of the nominating panel loudly, both to my cat, and to anyone who would listen, board gamer or not.
In a manner similar to my exasperation, you might be wondering if this review is actually going to be a review of the game and not the meta around it. Fair point, let's get that done.
Designed by Michael Palm and Lukas Zach, Dorfromantik: The Board Game is based on Toukana Interactive's Dorfromantik the video game, which I bought and played after playing the board game; I found it meandering and somewhat dull. Dorfromantik: The Board Game, tho', is a focused reimagining of the video game and, henceforth, any time I say 'Dorfromantik', you can assume I mean the board game. The name translates to something like 'idealising village life', which is a fancy way of saying you'll be creating a landscape with fields, forests, rivers, railways, roads and villages.
In the game, one player (or up to six, but really one - remember, this isn't a game, it's an activity) undertakes a number of Tasks which mandate contiguous areas of particular landscape types, with the objective of scoring as high as possible over a campaign-ish series of games, unlocking different ways of scoring, more Tasks, new tiles, and even a special power, with the objective of, well, enjoying oneself. The way you progress means that you can eventually unlock everything in the game, even without playing particularly well, tho' a few of the Achievements have slightly more taxing requirements to unlock them.
Each turn, you take a landscape tile and place it adjacent to at least one other tile, hopefully progressing toward completion of a Task, alternate scoring method, or planning ahead. Roads and rails must match but nothing else has to. That last is quite important if you want to maximise your score, as you can prepare areas for Tasks you know are still to come, so that they can be completed quickly. You have to place any new Tasks so that they *can* be completed but, once placed, there's nothing to stop you making it impossible and discarding it for a new one. That small piece of trickery is about as complex as the game gets, tho' there's definitely skill in keep multiple plates spinning over the course of each game.
At the end of a game, you tot up your score, tick off some boxes on the campaign sheet and/or flip some Achievement cards over, and include whatever new content from the five tuckboxes you have qualified for. It might waver a little but the way all the tributaries flow in to the rules mean your score for each game will increase as the campaign progresses. Once you've had your fill - my target was 400 points and everything unlocked - you can reset the game and start again; or share the love.
And love Dorfromantik I did: I played through it right after moving house and it de-stressed me. I would hope to wake up early enough that I could get a game in before having to parent or work, and was happy going to bed early because I knew another slightly tweaked but just as fun puzzle awaited me the next day, like a long hexy Wordle. So, a couple of questions, then: one, is there anything wrong with it? And two, why was I so shocked at its nomination and - not really a spoiler, I'm guessing - eventual win of the Spiel des Jahres?
One. Yes, of course there is; there isn't a 'perfect game' out there. All games will have plays or players that are less than they could be. While I very much enjoy the puzzle of Dorfromantik, it has to be said that it's not just your ability to solve that puzzle which determines your score. With the Tasks being to connect 4, 5 or 6 contiguous tiles of a landscape, it's fairly easy to see that if they come out in ascending order, you only have to use six tiles to complete three Tasks; if they come out in reverse, tho', that's fifteen tiles to do the same thing. It was noticeable that the games I did best in, there were more 4-5, 4-6, 5-6 Task orders than normal. That's randomisation for you; it happens. My attitude was, when the first few Tasks came out as 6s then 5s, to shift my focus to unlocking Achievements rather than scoring high. But it's something that can't be denied.
Two. Simply put, it's not a 'game', it's a puzzle, and a solo one at that. I've played Dorfromantik at two, three and four players and - while I know this will come across as incredibly selfish - I can say the best company for it is me, myself, and the cat. I don't want other people's ideas messing with my plans and I certainly don't want to have to accept bad ideas out of politeness. This, excepting the graphics, is what The Board Game most accurately ported over from the video game; it is best experienced solo.
For what it's worth, I really like Fun Facts as well; again, an activity not a game; and, bizarrely for the SdJ, not particularly family friendly. How many 'long-term relationships' have your kids had? How long is their commute to work? How many bottles of alcohol do they have in the house? Yeah, not so much, sorry; it may be a great icebreaker for adults, but families will A) know each other too well and B) if they don't, it'll cause arguments (believe me, I've seen it). But I digress.
Of the three games nominated, I'm glad that Dorfromantik won the Spiel des Jahres.** A good number of board game reviewers out there in Content Creation-land haven't 'got it', tho': for them it's only a very lacklustre 5 or 6 out of 10. I can see how they'd come to that conclusion, so I like to think that they're reviewing it as a 'game', because if you come into Dorfromantik The Board Game looking at it for what it is - a zen, plate-spinning, solo puzzle - then you should come away happy. And chilled. And wanting to play again tomorrow. But, I can't play it tomorrow, because people keep borrowing my copy and enjoying it. Dammit!
(Review by David Fox) *I was told that the Spiel des Jahres panel changed a lot this year, so perhaps this is the way things will be from now on. **My personal pick was Sea Salt & Paper (Bombyx), by the way, but probably too much luck in that beauty.