It seems ISLANDERS (2019) began something of a chilled-out city builder revolution, as there are many of these awesome delights coming out.

Dorfromantik is the latest. It plays a little like the wonderful Townscaper (2020), but has a more expansive feel to it. But it’s every bit as chilled out.

It’s All About Dorfromantik

Dorfromantik is from four game design students in Berlin—Luca Langeberg, Sandro Heuberger, Timo Falcke, and Zwi Zausch. They have an indie studio called Toukana.

The title launched recently and is available on Steam, GOG, and Itch.io. The bonus? It’s super cheap!

Now, unlike titles such as Dungeon Keeper (1998) or any SimCity, this is a minimalist city builder. You really don’t need to think too hard about things.

The aim, along with chillaxing to the highest order, is more of an artistic, visual delight. It’s a pretty game based largely around a sense of rustic countryside.

There’s a structure to follow, though, and it does play sort of the way ISLANDERS des.

The playing field is based around hexagonal tiles, which you have to fill out with bits of landscape.

That can include batches of trees, houses, train tracks, rivers, or fields.

You need to align these together in the correct way to expand the landscape, during which time you complete mini-missions to reach a high score.

As you advance, you unlock new features. Such as ikkle, wikkle boats to go sailing down the rivers. Lovely!

Complementing that low is a grand soundtrack, too, which is cut back and super relaxing.

There’s a helpful little tutorial at the start to get you into Dorfromantik. Then you can launch straight into the full game. Here’s a demonstration for both.

And you do need to think a bit harder than you first realise, as to develop out a huge map takes careful planning.

On the whole the idea is to chillax to the maximum, but there’s enough of a challenge here to keep most gamers occupied.

We think Dorfromantik is a glorious little city builder that doesn’t overwhelm your time.

It’s there when you need it for romps through the digital landscape. Huzzah!