Dorfromantik - did this really deserve to win the Spiel des Jahres?

hey everybody the following is an excerpt from the monthly Rado rounds up and if you'd like to see the rest of the Roundup you can hit that I up in the top right corner of the screen or if you'd like to know more about the game you can follow the link down the show notes and with out of the way let's talk about dorf romantic the board game and now this is based I guess on a very very popular uh video game which I've never played I don't know much about uh but more importantly it has been nominated for the Spiel to jars and honestly I I think the smart money is that it will win the Spiel to Yaris based on its competition and here's the deal folks I think it should I am blown away by how good this game is and honestly I went in thinking this was gonna be my lowest rated game of the month uh because oh it's just meal charge game that means you know it's it's a it's a game for family and kids it's a Gateway game it's gonna be really really lightweight I do appreciate the facts and I wish I'm I hope this is a signal of more to come from this wheel just yours nominee um not Nam you know uh jury because it is a Cooperative game and I think Cooperative games are much better gateways to bring families in the competitive games and it's a tile Lane game and here's why I thought I was gonna hate it and honestly this is my least favorite thing about the game it's a solo game it really really is there's um because there's nothing done to make it feel like a multiplayer game like players hey uh here you know I tell you what I um I'm gonna give this to you so I can do this other thing there's no way we can interact with each other we just all it's oh is it my turn well I would do the exact same thing I mean if you played the game and played five turns in a row it would play the exact same way as if you and I were playing and you took three turns and I took two turns there's nothing to make it a multiplayer game it is a communal puzzle solving thing more than it is a game and that's a huge disappointment and honestly I thought that was gonna just pretty much ruin the experience for me and for Jen um plus then on top that was gonna be a a lightweight Gateway and so why is not gonna be interesting and yet here's the deal folks this is a keeper this is coming in very very high at number five on a a month full of really good games why do we love it so much well if you look on the screen right now you will notice over on the right side there are what is a right in this particular example I was just doing a little bit of filming to so I could have something on screen this is where we are in our campaign this is a campaign game that you will play through dozens of times and the game comes with I think it was either five or six boxes full of additional stuff they did the more you play the more you unlock new ways to score points um at the end of the day this is a game that's very chilled back a chillax laid back and chill um because all you're trying to do is just score the best points you can by laying tiles and matching different groups and you know trying to make sure wronger longer Rail lines and really simple straightforward stuff at least that's what it is when it first starts but and honestly the games your first stress game are are a slog uh honestly we played halfway through our first game and said oh my God this is so terrible tell you what how about we just look up how the campaign works and we're just gonna pretend we have played the next four games and let's see what will he have unlocked over the first three games unlock those and then suddenly Boom the game exploded because if you look on screen you'll notice over on the right there are five cards at the top those represent different new rules that I have unlocked and I'm not gonna go I don't want to spoil anything here but there are lots of really really cool special tiles that get added they are a lot more interesting than the basic tiles but more importantly the longer you play the more you give yourself new objectives that's what those what is it nine cards are over on the right imagine a simple tile there like Carcassonne where every time you play you've got anywhere upwards of a dozen different objectives that you could be trying to achieve in addition to just scoring the most points possible because every time you complete one of those objectives you'll unlock more stuff and in this way it is so compelling Janai we played a few games oh my gosh gotta play one more because if we unlock if we just get that box open what's in that box and you know we've seen this before this is not new but it is done so much better here because I believe the developers are borrowing from their video game um origin of this because a lot of times the objectives you get you look at it's like this is impossible there is no way I could achieve this I can't get 18 points off of uh Clover pieces I made that up there are no Clover pieces I'm just making something I don't spoil anything how could I possibly do that and the thing is um later on you'll open a box and like oh there's a second clover in here and oh my gosh now could I possibly do this uh at any given time a bunch of the objectives you look do you have available to you you can't do until you complete other things and then unlock stuff that will let you go back and revisit those objectives you thought were impossible and in this regard this is straight out of Legends of Zelda or Castlevania or metroid I think it's called metroidvania gameplay design where you know the game gives you doorways and you have to find the key to be able to open the doorways but the keys aren't just Keys they're new tools you can use to do other stuff and the developers have brought that into this game so freaking brilliantly it is so compelling and while I have heard some reviewers say yeah the game is so simple nine times out of ten it's really obvious where to put your tile on there's no real needs for group discussion those people have not played the game enough because once you've got nine different objectives and there's no way you're going to be able to finish more than one or two or three of them and to be able to do it you have to build towards that hoping you're going to get that that key tile and you have to leave spaces open you do have to make interesting tough trade-offs to be able to complete these really really tough objectives where oh you know normally asks go around 120 points I have to score 500 points gonna do that do that okay I have to I have to this entire game we have to bend on trying to complete this objective and we just unlocked something that I think is gonna maybe make that possible and that's what really makes this game special it even more special if they had done any work at all to really make it a multiplayer game rather than a solo game that you can just share the experience with other players but you know what the the the the game is beautiful it's really satisfying the little Landscapes you make and that unlocking and growth system which by the way is completely resettable so once you have played I don't know 30 or so games you can just reset all up and have that whole experience again and unlock things in a different direction so good I doffed my cap to the spirits jury they made the right choice nominating this and if it wins I think they'll have made the right choice as well a door formatic the board game is absolutely amazing I'm very impressed by it and thanks for watching folks if you enjoyed it please like And subscribe it makes a huge difference believe me but with that out of the way if you'd like to see some more over on the left you can find a playlist of a whole bunch more Rado rapid reviews up in the top right there's the latest thing that's been added to the channel and in the bottom right you've got something YouTube recommends okay folks thanks for watching

Channel: Rahdo

Views: 7,909

Keywords: board games, boardgames, radho, baord game, baordgames, rahdo, baord games, baordgame, boardgame, board game, game, rhado, review

Id: KbbE7RZj3WU

Length: 6min 49sec (409 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023