Double Feature: Dorfromantik & Pan'orama
Released: April 28, 2022 & May 9, 2023
Game Length: Around 5 Hours Each
Dorfromantik Grade: B
Pan'orama Grade: A
Dorfromantik
System: At the very beginning of the game, you will be handed a good supply of tiles with houses, plains, and forests. There are also two special tiles - water and train - that cannot be placed in a way that the path is blocked. You will need to connect these pieces with each other properly for points. You can receive upwards to 60 points for a "perfect placement" when all sides match to the adjacent tiles accordingly. On occasion, you will be given a quest to fulfill. This quest will always be a small increase of the maximum chain you currently have on the board. The quests will take a count of each individual piece on the tile and sometimes ask you for an exact amount. If the chain is long enough, it will leave a secondary "flag" quest that can be fulfilled once you enclose the route. These areas can be shown by hovering your cursor over the quest. Completing them will reward you five additional pieces.
Achievement: On the far reaches of the board are a bunch of hidden tiles that will be added into your stack for all future playthroughs once you fulfill their quest. Unfortunately, the system still matches that quest to your current largest count even if it is nowhere near that area. In addition, all contributions to that achievement do not begin until you unlock the tile. As ludicrous as it sounds, the most efficient way to gather these features up is to place tiles down one-after-another as fast as you can with no regard to how they match until you come across one of these. Discovering them this way creates an easy quest that requires a couple of additional tiles, opens up the list from the beginning so all rounds count towards your total, and helps increase the requirements for ones that tallies up things like the number of tiles placed on the board. Unlocks include various biomes that change the appearance of the tiles and motion tiles such as the boat that moves across the water. You can pin up to three achievements onto the screen and watch their progress after you start a new game.
Features: In addition to your standard "classic" and hard modes, you can access creative mode that allows you to automatically match the tiles to the ones placed, change the probability of the type of tile you receive, adjust the biomes, and create an exact replica to any you see on the board. There is also a strange quick mode that tests to see what kind of score you can obtain with only 75 tiles. There is also a strange "monthly mode" that gets the community involved with a selected theme. Any games you play will be saved in case you want to view them later. Game stats like high score, time played, and tiles placed can be seen on the screen.
Review: I personally liked how the game kept you on your toes by allowing you to rotate each piece and account for each individual object. How the special tiles lock the board up and how quests keep track of your longest running path are just a couple of the obstacles I encountered in my playthroughs. Unfortunately, there is this weird divide between playing the game and unlocking features. You either want to play close to the core when trying to survive or branch to the edges when it came to opening up new tile variants. My rounds usually only lasted an hour or two before realizing why the system felt out-of-place.
Pan'orama
System: Although this game looks very similar to the previous game, it actually functions very differently. For starters, you do not rotate the pieces. Each tile is designated as a specific type: houses, rock, water, forest, grain, and wild card. Tiles can also have upwards to three of any type. Points are assigned for the number of tiles you match, completing objectives, and clicking on animals in the world. You can "upgrade" tiles up to a maximum of five times. After obtaining a certain amount of points, you will be given a structure to build. Complete these structures to earn 25 more tiles. They will randomly place a set number of tiles in a given space, double the points of specific types placed in an area, upgrade current tiles within the vicinity that have not reached their cap, or increase the range in which you can place tiles.
Features: Each tile has several available variants that are randomly assigned each time you place one down on the board. For example, the water tile can include a canoe, boat, bird sitting on a few different objects, two fish swimming in a circle, two frogs on lily pads, and reeds. They grow into bigger tiles each time you earn points from them. Structures usually start out as small areas that open up into medium buildings and eventually into bigger ones. After you have advanced each of the three lines available, you will be given a choice between three monuments. This process repeats, without duplicating a piece, until all 52 are built. You can "look around" after you complete a round. Other than the standard mode, there is a creative mode that allows you to place any tiles down anywhere you want. You can rotate between variants and sizes.
Review: A full round placing all the structures down onto the board lasted me about 5 hours with 16,000 points. Multipliers can get pretty crazy with tiles providing you up around 24 points when pairing up structures and combination pieces. There are no achievements to worry about as progression is made within each round. There are a number of random things that automatically appear after placing down a tile or upgrading them. The artwork is superb and the gameplay loop pretty relaxing. It is possible to finish the game rather easily as long as you keep your points steady and remember to build structures.
5-18-2023