Dorfromantik News

Yup, you're reading right! The Creative Showcase is back, back again!

We have taken some time to revamp how we want to do these, how not to run into time constraints on our end, and so on and so forth. Before we get to the Theme announcement, let's have a quick look at the things we changed:

[h3]The Creative Showcase will be held on Discord only![/h3]
We will post announcements whenever we hold Showcases and will share the results everywhere, but participation and voting may only occur on Discord as that makes it easier for us!

Speaking of Voting, we have revamped how we handle Voting for Showcases massively:

• You may cast as many votes as you'd like
  
• There are four categories of Votes now
  
• Voting will be available all through the Submission phase!

You will now be able to cast four different kinds of Votes as well, each pertaining to a different kind of "Liking" a submission. The different kinds of Votes are:

• 👍 ENJOY
  • This is your 'basic' vote. You 'enjoy', or 'like', that submission.
• 🎨 ARTSY
  • Artsy is used to highlight submissions which you think represent interesting interpretations of the Theme.
• 🤯 MINDBLOWING
  • Found a Submission you think goes above and beyond? Remember the Dragon Island of the Showcases of old? Yup, those are Mindblowing!
• 😆 FUNNY
  • Submission made you chuckle? you are obligated to vote it as FUNNY!

Themes will be selected from a pool that we will happily add suggestions to, and once the pool is empty we'll start to recycle them, should we get to that point. We are also going to experiment with 'Modifiers' like restricting shape and size of your submissions (Think our Dioramas for reference), as well as other fun things!
We're still working on some organizational stuff in the back, like how often we'd like to hold these

To participate you need to JOIN OUR DISCORD first of all. Same if you'd like to vote.
For a submission to be valid the following stipulations have to be fulfilled:

• YOU need to be the author of the submission
  
• A Submission is required to HIDE THE UI (TAB on KB/M, SELECT on Controller)
  
• A submission has to be an unedited Screenshot, preferably in .png file format.

BY SUBMITTING A SCREENSHOT TO A CREATIVE SHOWCASE, YOU ALLOW US TO USE YOUR SUBMISSION FOR MARKETING PURPOSES WITHOUT CREDITING YOU AS THE AUTHOR. (Note that we try to credit where possible but is sadly isn't always possible)
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[h2]The Showcase Announcement![/h2]
For the first Creative Showcase 2.0, we would like to ease everyone back into the swing of things. As such, the Theme is Black Forest, a pretty open theme based on the German region of the same name. We are not working with any modifiers for this one, as we want to see your unbridled, raw creativity. 😉
The Showcase will run until 2023-06-13 2359 CEST.

We welcome all submissions from across all platforms. We ask, however, that you take your Submission Screenshots with the UI disabled. To hide your UI, press TAB on your Keyboard or the SELECT button or equivalent on your controller. Submissions are preferably posted as .png files.

Super happy to have these return, we did miss the Creative Showcase but it was just too clunky to handle on a recurring schedule especially when someone who was not involved with planning had to handle things. With this revamp, we're pretty sure we can juggle running the event, as well as passing it around internally, should the need arise.
We know not everyone will be happy about the requirement of Discord to participate and vote, but it really makes things a lot easier for us!

Once again, you can join our Discord here.

This Dorfromantik Monthly will have you chase Highscores by throwing 🏴Flag Quests🏁 at you.
Will you make the most out of this ocean of Flags? Share your Highscores with us using the Twitter Hashtag #MonthlyDorf or our Discord Server!



We have taken your feedback from last month into account, and will try our best to pick Highscores from the official Leaderboards across all platforms. We still need to work out a thing or two, but we hope this will be more to your liking!
Without any further ado we would like to congratulate LukeAinsworth on successfully defending their 🥇 spot! We are already giddy to see whether they'll manage a Three-peat! 😉
Furthermore, we'd like to congratulate Mukade and Siman to 🥈 place and 🥉 place respectively. It was a very tight competition at the top!



Additionally, both Lukeainsworth and Siman also shared their maps andscores with us on Discord which we would like to share with all of you in turn! Both of them tried to keep their map as compact as possible to maximize perfect placements while minimizing open edges, however LukeAinsworth managed to eke out a couple more fulfilled quests which is what helped them secure that first spot!

Check their submissions for yourself!

LukeAinsworth's submission

Siman's submission

One year ago, on 2022-04-28, Dorfromantik left Early Access. Since then, a lot has happened involving Dorfromantik. Some everyone was able to see, some maybe was more easy to miss. Let us look back a year, see what has happened, and celebrate for a little while!

But before that, thank you. Yes, you! Yes, you there on the right as well! Yes, even you in the back there, we see you! Thank You for playing, enjoying, and sharing your love of Dorfromantik! We would not be where we are now, if it wasn't for every single one of you awesome folks!

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[h2]Full Release[/h2]
Let's start at the beginning then, shall we?
With the Full Release, Version 1.0, we added a lot of stuff. Most notably was the addition of no less than four new Game Modes! Each of these additional Game Modes was something that you, the community asked for:

[h3]Quick Mode & Hard Mode[/h3]
These Modes were added due to people asking for a Mode they could play during, say, their Lunch Break for Quick Mode, and for those of you who wanted more challenge, we added Hard Mode.

[h3]Monthly Mode[/h3]
With the Monthly Mode, we wanted to offer you another chance to top a Leaderboard (Yes, there are a lot of you, and we love you) - Every Month, a new challenge is given for those of you, who are a bit more competitively minded. One month, you might have to work out Rail and River routes. Another, you have to make the most out of a very small playable area. And every month, there is a fresh Leaderboard to show up your friends!

[h3]Custom Mode[/h3]
Custom Mode served as the base for the three above. It allows you to change various settings and variables for the game. You also can share the Seeds generated this way and face off against your friends, or foes, with the exact same game setup and stack!

This is also when we added OST Vol. 2 to the game! :)

[h2]Road To Gamescom[/h2]

That's Release. After the initial round of bug fixes, we went hard to work on two things: Preparations to go to Gamescom, and the Nintendo Switch Port! We'll talk about the latter a little later, so let's talk about Gamescom first!

As a remote studio, founded during the pandemic, we've never been all in the same place at the same time. Since we finally were in Full Release, and had some big announcements to make, we decided that Gamescom would a great way to meet up and hang out in person. As part of the Indie Arena Booth, who gave us one of the best spots they had (thanks again for that!), we had the time of our lives, meeting friends old and new, players, and generally awesome folks.



At Gamescom we announced that Dorfromantik would be coming to the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo kitted us out with a bunch of Nintendo Switch Units to showcase the port on. We probably had the most Demo Stations in the Indie Area with 8 or 9, and starting with Press Day up to AFTER closing on Sunday Evening, our booth was always brimming with action which, frankly, was a lot more action than we thought we'd accrue!



[h2]Nintendo Switch Release[/h2]

Next came the release of the Nintendo Switch Port. A highlight here was the new 'Sakura' Biome, which for the first time not only added different coloration, but also changed the style of buildings to really pull together the Japanese inspired theme!
This Port also laid the foundations for our proper, fully-realized controller support, and eventual Steam Deck Verification. Our Core Dev Team worked their butts off for this, even during their well-earned, post-summer-stress vacation.



[h2]Dorfromantik - the Boardgame[/h2]

...and because we did not already have enough on our plates, we teamed up with Publisher Pegasus Spiele to bring the Boardgame-inspired Dorfromantik from screen to table! The German version was shown off at the SPIEL in Essen, where we shipped our Core Dev Team to in order to put them through another convention because that is how we show them how much we love them!
The German version released in time for the holidays, given you were able to get your hands on a copy that is, and the international, English version was released earlier this year to the great relief of everyone already up to their noses in Duolingo learning German to understand the rules!



[h2]Where do we go from here?[/h2]

Since then, we have been prototyping a lot to see where our journey will take us next. We have grown a little bit (We're seven now!), and we have spent a lot of effort untangling our infrastructure from the University, now that our Core Dev Team have their Master's Degrees and are no longer students.
While we can not share quite yet what these prototypes are about, we also do not want to forget Dorfromantik, even if it is on the Backburner right now - After 3+ years we just needed some fresh air - and are aware of a bunch of regular wishes and suggestions from the community!

Dorfromantik will continue to be an important part of us this year and in the years to come, and we look forward to bringing you more exciting news for Dorfromantik. We're looking at other platforms that the community would like to see, and we'll be happy to let you know more as soon as that happens.

We hope to have more News regarding all this, and more, for you later this year.







P.S. - The Creative Showcase will be coming back soon™

We thank you for sharing your Highscores with us for Dorfromantik’s Monthly Mode in March! Here are the three highest Scores you have submitted via Twitter and Discord!

[h3]🥉 Hazey – 28650[/h3]
[h2]🥈 Helenelene – 31160[/h2]



We are interested in your feedback regarding these Highscores. Some platforms allow for easier checking of Leaderboards than others, and if we did it that way, we would love for everyone to have equal chances to be the best player of any given month, regardless of platform.
Would you love to see us pool all Leaderboards together and grab our top scorers that way, or is the way we did it for march, as an opt-in basically, fine for you?
Also, if we keep the Opt-In, would you like us to also post the submitted Screenshots? :)

In April, we keep things simple after the horror that is Transport Frenzy in March. Play an extended version of Dorfromantik’s Quick Mode, with a total of 150 placeable tiles. How much will you be able to get out of those 150 tiles?

Share your Highscores and Tips with the community on Twitter using the Hashtag #MonthlyDorf or our Discord for bragging rights!