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I don’t need to tell you that Dorfromantik is an aesthetically pleasing tile laying game that is continued proof of hexagons being the bestagons. I don’t even need to tell you it’s good. If you want confirmation of that you can go and check Board Game Happy’s excellent review. What I do need to tell you is everything relating to one criminal statement in that review.
“I haven’t played the computer game Dorfromantik”
You can imagine the visible horror on my face as I momentarily recoiled away from the monitor. Slowly, taking a deep breath and beginning to regain my composure… my mouse cursor headed over to that familiar windmill game icon for a round of emotional support virtual Dorfromantik.
Slightly hyperbolic version of events aside, I really do have a special place in my gaming heart for Dorfromantik. Since its release over 2 years ago I have spent over 70 hours feeling any residual stress melt away as I placed fields, forests and houses into my scenic village landscape. I liked the game so much it was even introduced to my partner who proceeded to put over 90 hours in, beat my high scores and immediately make it a less cathartic and more competitive experience.
All this is to say, that when we both sat down to play the board game version of Dorfromantik, we came in with a lot of preconceived notions about how Dorfromantik should play. I need to tell you how the board game version of Dorfromantik met them all.
A Solid Foundation
Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way. We have had a lot of video games get turned into board game adaptations in the past few years. Some from genres that adapt immediately well to the limitations of a board game, others that require a lot more change to the point that the original material ends up as more of a theme. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I am always happy to see more board games, especially related to IP’s that I enjoy. However, if you set off to make a cake, it’s much easier to start off with flour, eggs and sugar. You could start with a cut of prime meat, it’s delicious afterall, but the cake might be left with a slightly uncanny look and mouth feel.
Right off the bat Dorfromantik feels like a digital board game, each turn you lay a tile into an ever expanding panorama. If you squint your eyes and look at a small section of Dorfromantik on a computer you would be forgiven for getting the feeling of a Catan or Kingdom Builder round. The theme of building a euro-esque countryside is right at home on any board gamer’s shelf considering how many games already take place in this charming setting. Game mechanics are simple to understand and directly translatable to a board game, lay down tiles to complete tasks, which let you acquire more tiles to complete more tasks.. Repeat until you run out of tiles to place. There is one problem here, in the digital version you can acquire a huge amount of tiles, build panoramas that I have to zoom out of and still pan around the screen to view in totality. Even with a lot of expansions there is no way the board game could get close to this size. How do we solve this problem?
The Digital Legacy
The answer is to scale it all down. Get players to run lots of slightly smaller, but still expanding games. In the board game version of Dorfromantik each final game score will allow you to progress up a tracker which unlocks additional packs of components. Within these packs you may also find achievements to aim for which unlock a permanent upgrade when completed. This is a mirror to the digital game which also allows the player to unlock new tiles as they hit different levels of in-game achievements. While these are cosmetic and do not offer a permanent boost, they serve as a good reason to play another round and try to achieve a new high score as well as adding a continued feeling of discovery on each attempt. This leaves the player in both cases with that feeling of wanting to play just one more round and try the new tile they unlocked or gain a few more points to unlock a new pack or achievement.
Simplify The Scoring
Every single time you place a tile in the video game of Dorfromantik, your score is calculated. You get 10 points for each matching edge the tile has with a connecting piece. I am pleased to tell you all that this did not make it over to the board game version, as it would have made me rapidly launch whatever scorepad I was using out the nearest window. The same is true for task scoring, in the digital game you might be given a task to get a certain number of trees in a group and the game will count each individual tree on the tile. Given counting these on each individual hexagon would drive a player mad, they elected to just simplify it to the number of tiles instead for tabletop.
While the scoring is scaled down for the board game, it still retains all the same categories as the video game (and then expands on them). Completing tasks is going to be your main source of points but key game concepts like “perfect tiles” remain in the form of hearts that you can place on the board to reward you for each matching edge of a certain tile. Flags would usually reward you with extra tiles in the digital version but exist as an additional point scoring category in the board game, in both cases rewarding you for closing off an area.
If the board game just used the same scoring metrics as the digital version then we would run into another problem. An experienced Dorfromantik or puzzle game player could get a very high score on their first game and then feel they had “completed” it without all the unlocks. To get around this special tiles are added to the board game as you unlock achievement cards, granting you more ways to score and therefore new possible high scores, as well slowly increasing the complexity of the game by giving you more varied placement restrictions and scoring goals. Some of the additional scoring tiles in the board game such as the locomotive and ship are cosmetic elements that will appear over the course of a digital game of Dorfromantik as a lovely homage.
Player Strategies
Now we are really getting into the nuts and bolts. Both versions have a limit on the number of tasks that can be given to the player at any one time, however when you get a new one in the digital version, the size of the group needing to complete the task is based on the highest unclosed group of that terrain you have. Got a group of 500 trees that are not blocked off? Your next goal is likely to be 700 trees. This means the optimum way to play the game is to have multiple groups you can join together and then close them off before they get too big. If I have two groups of roughly 200 trees next to each other but not connected, my goal is likely to be around 300-400. The two groups can then be joined and meet the goal in one turn rather than having to double the size of one single forest.
What I was most surprised to find is that the board game actually promotes this same strategy. Tasks will require you to have groups of EXACTLY 4-7 tiles of a given terrain but you won't know what order you are going to draw them in. Ideally you get a 4,5,6,7 allowing you to complete each additional task with one more placed tile. Sometimes luck is not on your side and you will close off a 5 and then immediately get a task needing 4 of that same type. This would mean you are out of luck and need to start building a new group. Due to this the player is encouraged to build smaller groups of tiles to be prepared for this possibility. Leaving the group of 5 may be beneficial if I still have some tasks requiring a group of 6 in the stack, so instead I’ll start a second small grouping in case I draw a 4.
I mentioned earlier there are flags that reward you for closed off groups, there are also buildings that will double the task values you get within a certain area. If you can manage to complete multiple small areas with tasks and then link them to form one big area, you can potentially double all your task scoring while also scoring a large number of flag points for the combined area. This grouping of objectives is much easier to pull off in a virtual game as there are less variables and a higher number of total tiles but immediately felt familiar from my previous playtime.
Finally there is a concept of knowing which tasks to take. In neither version can you refuse to take a task in the event you don’t think it’s viable to complete or will be too difficult. What you can do though is close the area around the task off to intentionally fail it and draw a new, more achievable one. After only a few games of the board game version we ran into this same scenario where we did not think we had enough tiles left in the stack to complete an objective so intentionally cut it off as a way to draw another and eke out a few extra points before the end of the game.
Final Thoughts
None of this is to say Dorfromantik is a perfect game. I do agree with some of the minor criticisms in Board Game Happy’s review. As far as an adaptation of a video game goes though, I have not found a board game that captures the feeling of the original video game so well. After a quick brush up on the rules, we immediately launched into game after game of the tabletop version with all the hours of familiarity gained from playing so much of the original. For all board game fans, I recommend you give the video game version a go and vice versa. I am left hoping the developers upcoming game “Star Birds” gets a great adaptation too!
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