Dwarrows

I feel somewhat conflicted in giving a bad review as there are some good aspects to this game, but I don't feel like it deserves a $30 price tag and still needs some help to begin to make sense. The Good: This makes for a good chillout game where you just want to mindlessly grab some shinies and solve simple puzzles. For the average 8 year old, I think this would make for a perfect game. There is nothing challenging about this game... It just exists for you to invest time into it. The Bad: -- First, this game is an homage to all of the various forms of grinding that exist. There are six basic forms of resources that all have to be found in order to develop your town (along with a bunch more stuff to collect). After about 6 hours into the game, I realized there is no reason to every actively harvest the building resources as I could just idle and let interest accumulate things for me while I explored, or during the three hours I took to level up my pet taming level. After about 7 hours in the game, I just decided to stop trying to build up the town more as nothing more could be gained by doing so. Even though I had gotten the second size upgrade, expanding the total land by almost double, I couldn't build some buildings that I long since knew because of random artificial resource caps. There is certainly more that could be said about the economy, but imagine all of the worst ways an open world game could go. -- The artifact grind. This game has a weird system where the ability to build certain buildings is contingent on the player finding artifacts randomly in the world and restoring them with a different resource found by completing challenges. The system feels incredibly contrived in order to draw out gameplay, and ends up being another grind. -- The puzzles. The game wants the player to challenge a good number of these random platform and logic puzzles found across the map. Most puzzles can be accomplished with only one of the characters on your three person team, but some require two or three. This becomes immediately irritating as you have to pull the builder and harvester from their locations and run/teleport them to the puzzle. Then, once the puzzle is done you have to reset their locations. Luckily, you start rolling in scrolls of teleportation once you explore a bunch so you can at least get your people back to the closest fast travel location and run them back to where they were from there. On that front, I also find it weird that for the duration of play, your teammates just stand in place doing nothing while you are not using them. If it wasn't for these random puzzles, Dwarf would have been stuck south of town staring down a unharvestable tree for hours on end. Back to the puzzles, they are rather simple fare. For what this game could do in jump quests for a little difficulty ramp, I certainly wish the puzzles had more to them. -- The graphics. Normally I dont try to worry about the graphics in the game, but it is the stark mismatch between different assets that really gets me. The three playable characters are very well done stylistically with significant time spend giving them their own look and feel. Then there are the Wood-Elves, with weird bulbous heads, a skin palette somewhere in the neighborhood of barf, facial features that look glued on, and ROUND EARS?!? The first time I saw them, I honestly thought it was a graphical glitch. I can only assume that this was a stylistic choice, but it feels so weird to go from the very detailed team to the Mr. Potato-Head looking Wood-elves. There is a vaguely beast race in the game that look moderately detailed, which then further makes the gradation of attention feel weird. You also see this mismatch in the terrain as well. There are multiple points where the terrain texture looks like a MS Paint style color gradation, while the wall sitting on top of it has some real care and attention to it. Furthermore, a bunch of the random buildings found the the wild vary from solid color, almost no texture walls, to nicely done stylistic choices. Overall it gives the feeling of the game being unfinished with large chunks of the graphics just being placeholders. Final Verdict: If you are looking for a mindless and non-threatening game, somewhat in the style of a increadably watered down version of Super Mario 64, and you are willing to deal with an economy that feels like 3-4 systems bolted together with no real thought towards direction and graphics that feel confusing, this is a good game.... for maybe a $20 price range.

[h1]Overview[/h1] [b]Dwarrows[/b] is a single player, third person adventure game set in a fantasy world that combines together city management, puzzles, minigames and open world exploration. Players impersonate three members of a colonization team sent to unexplored lands to settle a new city, while also uncovering the secrets of ancient civilizations and doing tasks for various people. 🔵 [b]Pros[/b] [list] [*]Varied gameplay formula that blends together many activity types and makes each of them meaningful for progression. [*]A large world to explore full of secrets, treasures, collectibles, animals to tame, dungeons and puzzles. [*]Good content amount for the proposed price. [*]Overall decent visual style that pairs well with the fantasy setting. [/list] 🔴 [b]Cons[/b] [list] [*]Important locations, NPCs and critical items are not marked on the map even if already discovered or close by. [*]Resource balance feels very grindy in the late-game phases, with low density around the map compared to the costs. [*]Some bugs and technical issues, though mostly on the minor side with very few actually crippling. [/list] [h3]Rating: Very Good[/h3] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2548409603]Click here for the complete Rating Chart[/url] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2009368382 The first and arguably best point in favor of Dwarrows is variety: from town building, management and puzzles to quests, pet taming and open exploration this game offers a plethora of mechanics that make the experience diverse and interesting, while also making all of them worth doing and perfecting. The world is large and dotted with secrets, NPCs to talk with and things to discover, while fast travel points and consumables make traversing it comfortable. The visuals, while not stunning and cartoonish, are well suited for this lighthearted fantasy setting and create a fairy-tale-like atmosphere. On the bad side, the fact critical locations, items and NPCs are not in any way marked on your map, even if you pass very close to them, makes it annoying especially later on to find that small bit you need to progress in a huge map. The late-game phase, especially when seeking the highest town rating, felt very grindy as even the best resource farming zones resulted in poor gains compared to the huge amounts to spend in advanced buildings. The technical issues with the game are several but in large part part minor, at worst reloading a previous save or restarting the game will fix most issues. [b]Overall Dwarrows is a solid open world sandbox that with its variety and mostly well-designed gameplay will please most fans of adventure games. It took me around 30 hours for a thorough run, completing all the puzzles, quests and other side content I could find, while bringing my town to an advanced level - for completionists aiming to tame every pet, fully build all the city space and doing every possible bit, it can go as far as 35+ hours. For the price of 25€ default tag, and overall solid content quality, I can definitely recommend getting this game for full price.[/b] [quote]Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39323490]Tamaster's Review Archive[/url] to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.[/quote] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2009370787 [h1]In-Depth Breakdown[/h1] 🎮 [b]Gameplay Analysis[/b] The gameplay of Dwarrows is divided into Exploration, City Management, Puzzles and Minigames. [b]Exploration[/b] Is done on foot with each of the three characters, and also with the aid of fixed fast-travel points, consumable teleport scrolls for when you're far from a static one. One of the three heroes can sprint and is considerably more agile than the others, he will be the prime candidate for exploring new areas. While exploring you'll find things to repair, people to talk with and get quests from, material piles to harvest, diverse animals to eventually tame, and puzzles to solve. Exploring thoroughly is fundamental in getting all you'll need to progress the main quest. You can control one character at the time of the three, while the other two will stay idle. [b]City Management[/b] Is not overly complex but has a lot to it. Using the workbench, accessible only to your Engineer, you will be able to build new facilities for the city such as farms, houses, gardens and so on. To unlock new structures there are two ways: the first is to complete an Artifact Set, ancient items belonging to a past era and found with quests, exploration or puzzles, while the other way is using the Design function to combine two existing buildings and create an advanced one. Each inhabitant has needs such as food, happiness, energy and more, making sure there are enough crops, housing, environment quality and entertainment are critical factors to keep citizens happy and productive, if not, they may even decide to leave in the long run. Most facilities give bonuses but they need to be manned, so having citizens working happily boosts how well these buildings also work. This said, the whole management is never overly obnoxious and can be taken with leisure. Once certain thresholds of statistics in the city are reached, the city will evolve to a new tier, up to Tier 5. Space can be expanded by collecting Spirits in the world. [b]Puzzles[/b] Are scattered throughout the land and often are logic-based challenges involving one or even all of your team members, that you will have to position and control with some degree of multi-tasking to get to the treasure. Puzzles are fundamental because they give out Soul Quartz, the only way to examine artifacts and in turn, discover essential new buildings. Trials are major puzzle segments composed by a long series of both platforming and logic enigmas, with usually a large reward and major story revelations at the end. [b]Minigames[/b] Are varied and include pet taming, with each pet giving modest to powerful passive bonuses to the equipped character, treasure hunting for extra consumables and materials, while also time-based races for extra quartz and a special challenge if you complete them all. The various minigames are good diversions and actually very worth doing if you plan to unlock all artifacts or get an edge with the pet's passive buffs. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2009372822 🔩 [b]Technical[/b] [u]PC Specs: RTX2080Ti, Ryzen 3900X, 32GB RAM DDR4[/u] The game has by default numerous visual distortion effects such as glow, bloom, depth of field and so on that cannot be individually disabled, requiring manual editing of .ini files to get cleaner visuals. Same goes for anti-aliasing, which even at the highest in-game setting proves insufficient and requires external aid to function properly. Optimization is not the best with the game's relatively simple visuals using 90-100% GPU on a 2080Ti, even if locked at 60FPS frame cap. Stability is good with no crashes to mention, and despite the high usage, the game actually runs well without stuttering or other issues in 1440p, 144hz. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] Dwarrows is a varied and engaging open world sandbox that introduces many different gameplay elements and manages to make them all interesting and worth doing, resulting in a solid experience for the genre. [i]This game was reviewed using a free key[/i]

[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30168383] If you liked the review and interested in completion and perfection time of games with additional useful information (for example: how difficult to get all achievements, is MP or DLC required and so on) or interested in reviews like this, then please follow my Average Achievement Hunter curator. [/url] [h1]I completed the game, earned all achievements and I created an ultimate game and achievement guide, which took a lot of time. I believe, that I experienced all the content and so I can share my experiences about this game. [/h1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2011684132 Dwarrows is "A peaceful 3rd person adventure and town-building game. Gather, build, puzzle, explore, and quest in a beautifully handcrafted world." Sound cool right? It is. [h1]Not abandonware[/h1] The game had few issues on release. You can see those on a few negative reviews. The developers, however, kept patching up the game. Improved performance, fixed broken achievements, added difficulty setting to the game (no combat in the game, it affects platform movement, etc, during the puzzles) they were listening to the community so added extra hints, and made some objects easier to find. [h1]The Story and the protagonist characters[/h1] The wood elves looking for a new home. The Queen gave them some new land and you need to help them to build their new home, make some deals with the other local population, explore the hidden secrets of an ancient civilization or just help strangers with their goals. You need to do that with your 3 protagonist characters, each has different abilities. From now on they mentioned by their names, however, you can rename them. [b]Dwiblin, the dwarf[/b] He is the gatherer of the team. Buildings require resources and you need to gather them manually. This is actually the bad part of the game, which is also mentioned by others. But if you don't care about the achievements, then this is just a short-timed problem, as you can replace gathering after a while with market buildings. Those give interest on your owned resources every 5 minutes, so you could even get +10-100% resources every 5th minute, based on the number of market buildings you have. Dwiblin is also the character that handles explosives, once unlocked. This helps faster gathering, required for some puzzles or to unlock some hidden treasure chamber puzzle areas. [b]Horbir, the hobbit[/b] He is our ultimate explorer, as he is the only one who can sprint. It is quite useful for exploring new areas so you can unlock teleportation stones and use them for faster traveling with your slower characters. Horbir is also capable of finding secret treasure chests. I must say I did not use this ability many times as a bit more time consuming than gathering, not offers many resources or other required items. [b]Gloria, the builder[/b] Most of the time I left Gloria behind, inside of the city. She is required for some puzzles, she is required for some quests, but other than that, not really required for the exploration part of the game. His ability is fixing broken things, build objects. Sometimes you need bridges over rivers or some platforms for some quests, this is where Gloria is needed. [h1]The Content[/h1] [b]Puzzles[/b] The game offers 42 regular, smaller puzzles, and 4 major trials. Major trials usually long subzones, some could take easily for an hour or more, until you figure out what actions are required. The 42 ones usually easier puzzle areas, but these also include the treasure chambers. Those are subzones too, with a bit more challenging puzzles. The puzzles aren't too hard, so they could give nice entertainment to those too, who not master in puzzles. [b]City Building[/b] At the beginning of the game, you can build only a few type of buildings. How to unlock more? You need to develop their blueprints by combining existing blueprints (for example if you know the House and the Library buildings then combining them unlocks the Schoolhouse building) or unlock them by quests or by finishing artifact collections. At the end of the game, you should close to 50 buildings, which allows you to build a nice and varied city. [b]Exploration[/b] Dwarrows is a sandbox open-world game. The area you can explore is not huge, but it could be called large. You need to unlock additional areas by money or some quests or just by finding secret levers to open gates. You need to explore the area on your feet, there are no mounts in the game. Other than finding the puzzle areas or resources you can also explore hidden chests, collectibles (spirits), race trials, stranger NPCs (and they offer some funny, interesting quests, one even offers a D&D roleplay minigame) or you can meet new, tamable animals. No, the game won't have any form of combat, it focuses on puzzles and on city management. So the game is totally child friendly. [b]Pets[/b] Every single wildlife animal is tameable in this game after unlocking the pet center building. No exceptions. Tame wolves, rabbits, birds or even dragons, and that is just a few of the ~40-50 tameable animals. Each of the animals adds bonuses to your characters or to your city. Some increase the running speed of your character, some provide a passive resource income, some increase the detection of collectibles and animals, so you can see them on the map. This is a very interesting part of the game, as taming not just a click, you need to play a minigame every time you want to tame a creature by building up their trust and interest, so they will trust in you which allow the domestication of that pet. [h1]Disliked[/h1] The game is entertaining and fun, it has a charming art but there was still one or two I quite disliked in the game. What was it? The gathering of resources. It felt like playing an MMO. While I liked that in a 2000s years, now I find such manual hardcore gathering a bit out of date. It is just a minor problem, as you can replace gathering with interest incomes through market buildings but still a problem if you want to get all the achievements as you need !gather! 300k resources manually for one of the achievements. The other one, which was quite disappointing, that voice acting or some narrations not existing. I believe we could expect something like that from a game priced like this. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Dwarrows is a charming and entertaining game. It might be a bit pricey, 25eur quite much for an indie game and the competition on this price region is quite hard, already in the 20eur region has many very decent, full-priced indie games. Still, the 30hours expected game completion time, and an additional 5-10 hours if you want to finish all quests, get all achievements means that the game is less than 1EUR for each hour the game offers. That value will significantly be lower if you will wait for a sale. [h1]Hey, I am an achievement hunter! [/h1] All achievements are obtainable now. Previously 9 were broken, but developers fixed all of them. You can get all on a single save, nothing permanently miserable, so you don't need to start a new city with a new story and start from zero. Perfection time: 30-40 hours, my playtime is more because of the guides and videos I made for this game so you guys will have an easier job to find secrets and solve puzzles:-) [h1]This review was created for Average Achievement Hunter curator [/h1] Follow my curator if you like to see achievement-related information (completion time, difficulty to get all achievements) on the store page of the games. https://store.steampowered.com/curator/30168383-Average-Achievement-Hunter/ The curator group doesn't mark any game as recommended so it shows useful information about achievements on the store page of the games without influencing the main store page of steam with recommendations + all games sorted to lists based on expected completion times. No point not to follow!:-)

I purchased the game with high hopes, but the game didn't do it for me. I enjoy gathering/townbuilding games, but this one was just too sedate. It feels like a MMO crafting/gathering system without the MMO piece. Collecting resources involves just slowly walking around on holding right bumper until the item is gone. The treasure finding person is pretty fun with a hot/cold mechanic to find it. All the characters move at a pretty slow pace, and the hit box distance is a little too short. There is a taming mechanic also, but even that feels too sedate and slow, without obvious indications on how far off you are from a perfect button timing. I usually use a mouse and keyboard but planned on using a controller for this game. All menu selection is made by virtual mouse movement though, and is really clunky. Maybe this was my specific setup that triggered this, but I am going to assume its the default. I also ran into a few situations where I had to left click before I could continue dialog again. The dungeons were interesting, but I ran into a few more bugs switching characters: when I came switched back to them they would be looking in a different direction then I left, making quickly switching cumbersome as I spun around to figure out where I was looking at. The blueprint experimenting was interesting, as is the town building mechanics. I admit I didn't get too deep in it, but initially placement didn't seem like it mattered. Overall I could see this as a fun game for someone looking for a really chill sedate experience, but it was just too slow for me. Lacking combat isn't a negative at all for me. Pro: Great charm and graphics Cool concept Multiple people management each with different skills is cool. Puzzles requiring different character skills is interesting Cons: Gathering is ultra slow and boring Taming system is ho hum Controller use is a little buggy

Edit 3: Dwarrows is the only real, as of version 1.4, peaceful game where there's no violence, hatred or other... well, let me go on a tangent. Games today are focused on evocative content. Be it murder, destruction, theft, or other forms of violence. That's not cool. On the other end of the spectrum, we have intensely resource-heavy, micromanagement games where you have to keep track of every minute detail tied to everything. Both of these types of, "entertainment," are draining. They're heavy, they're boring, they force you to grind forever, in some cases, for mundane nonsense rewards. They are designed to hit your visceral, violent or completionist agendas. Dwarrows isn't like that. It is a release from that horrid, ugly world where anger and mundane concepts rule people's lives. Dwarrows is straightforward, it is peaceful, and it is an experience in a world where ugliness does not exist as the forthright storytelling point. It is a bastion of peace among a sea of dirt and grime, and it is, as of Sept. 14, 2020, the only game of its kind in the market. There's no violence, there's no anger, there's no hatred. There's no grinding or tedious resource management systems. Dwarrows is unique and it welcomes all. Give it a ago. Edit 2: It's not like My Time at Portia, and it's not like mining/digging games, like, perhaps, Deep Rock Galactic. It's different from both of those tropes, where Portia is a bunch of grinding for random mats, massive inventory management, and so on, and the latter is action-based with mining being the core of it. I found Dwarrows better and more enjoyable than both of those other types of games. It's relaxed and yes, some may say sedate, but there's substance here if you're looking for calm. Edit 1: There's good work going into accessibility and fixes in general. It's only getting better. Initial review: Finally, a peaceful game where you can go at your own pace and the mechanics of time don't work against you. There's no pressure to constantly build new roads, hospitals, manage traffic, fight off disasters, all of that other complex stuff present in similar games. There's no violence, there's no anger, it's just an enjoyable way to pass time. The controls are fine. The sounds are good and the music's fitting. The graphics are charming. The building system is intuitive and straightforward. The three characters are neat and there's a good mixture, even with my (current 3 hours) limited time playing, of ways to use them... well, I don't know how to really "fix" anything with Gloia, but whatever. Minor bug, sometimes items can spawn into groups of settlers and unless you get that group out of the way, I.E. invite them to your town, you can't get the item. It would also be neat to be able to choose text options via keyboard, not mouse-only. Overall, if you're tired of the constant murder, anger, violence and extreme resource-management of other games, or just want something more laid-back that's set in a fantasy world where you can go at your own pace, this is for you. I waited for this game to come out ever since seeing its kickstarted, then-closed, and it's great to finally be able to enjoy it.

One of the most ugliest character designs ever.

[h1]Surprisingly good... I actually enjoyed it[/h1] I don't like puzzles and I HATE platforming, but in this game fortunately 80% of the puzzles and platforming is avoidable... and that just really leaves the player to explore the VERY large open-world map, just building up their city and collecting pets and resources. I particularly like the pet system. Overall, there's many things that the devs could have done better or improved upon, but what's here is more than enough to justify paying $30 for it. It's not GOTY material and it's unfortunate that the devs aren't releasing any content after the game's launch, but what's here is totally playable and a solid game for $30. For more reviews, visit my curator page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/7851637/ For my full recommended list of games: https://steamcommunity.com/id/lfpg/recommended/ See my 2hour first impressions review here: https://youtu.be/dWZguyYHBlQ

The camera shake is so aggressive and present in this game, it literally hurts my brain playing it. I couldn't find a way to turn it off.

[b]-- GAMEPLAY --[/b] [u]City bulding:[/u] Initially this was the one, that sold the game for me. I love city building games. But here, well here, i don't really know. The city bulding and planning in itself is well designed, though the look of some buildings, are just so not in the same style of every other building, that it becomes an eyesore. The management of the town, well that needs some tweeks. Every citizen has it's needs, but sometime they just can't find the buildings to satisfy these. Even if there is more than citizen. And they stand next to it. So kinda randomly, 1 or 2 citizen go full angry and leave the town. But the biggest problem here is, that the city has zero impact on others parts of the game. The only thing that matters is that you build a bank and the special stores. But those do not even need the population. Just a city with 1 citizen is enough. And this makes me sad. [u]Exploration:[/u] Exploration is fun in this game. The gameworld has it's problems, but it is fun to look around and find stuff to do. [u]Puzzles:[/u] These give me a mixed feeling. Most are fun to solve, but there is a lot, that are just plain annoying. Not because they are hard to solve, but because the solution is annoying. Especially the jumping puzzles. When i was at the fire trial, i almost dropped the game. [u]Pet taming:[/u] Yes, this is a thing too in this game. And it is terrible. The idea itself is good, but the execution.... You need a lot of luck to it, because the minigame is full random. You can make it easier by leveling up the skill, and exploiting dogs, but it still not negates the randomness, that makes it terrible. [u]Resource gathering:[/u] I have to mention this too. It is an MMO style gathering, which makes it really slow and a big chore in the game.Especially since late buildings cost a lot. At the end, where you can buy black powder and have access to the swamp it becomes faster, but it still takes a lot of time. A hell of a lot of time, if you want to build a nice, big 5 star city. [b]10/6.5[/b] [b]-- GRAPHICS --[/b] They do not want to become the next big thing in graphics, so do not expect much. You do not need a strong graphic card. It looks a bit cartoony, but, it really fits the game, and the gameworld itself. One can say, kind of a perfect match. [b]10/8[/b] [b]-- BUGS --[/b] You can catch and HUG bugs trough the pet taming system in this game, but i'm not talking about those here. I'm talking about the glitches. Which are almost non existent. The only thing i encountered is, that it is really easy to stuck in texture, when jumping around. But it is really easy to get out from it, trough teleporting. [b]-- SOUNDS --[/b] Well, they are just there. Not amazing, not bad. Just there. [b]10/7[/b] [b]-- STORY --[/b] It has something of a story, but it is only there to fill the void. [b]10/4[/b] [b]-- WORLD && WORLDBUILDING --[/b] The world looks nice. It has a nice feel to it. But It is static. Really static. NPC-s only exist, when you have a mission with them. And that is all. There is some worldbuilding, but only enough to be some minimal framework to the story. [b]10/5[/b] [b]--REPLAYABILITY --[/b] There is nothing to replay here. Any time you can just rebuild your city, while the other parts of the game does not offer any exttra enjoyment or value when replaying the game. [b]10/1[/b] [b]--TL;DR--[/b] Taking everything to account it is a fun game, with a lot of annoying gimmicks. Don't buy it if you are into city building games, but if you want a game that is a peaceful mix of city building, puzzles, exploration then go for it, if there is a discount. They made these elements fit and work together in a unique way. [b]10/6[/b]

Unbearably dull. The whole game feels like it's one of those vapid half made games that James Stephanie Sterling used to do squirty plays of. It just feels unfinished. The game definitely has potential. And if it was early access, I'd say it was on it's way to becoming something awesome. But unfortunately, it doesn't quite meet that. It just feels... empty. Hollow. Another issue, the game likes to show you things and to talk... Oh god it loves to talk. The dialogue is exceptionally dull. I do however recommend checking out LetsGameItOut's video. Josh makes awesome content. He's clearly very skilled if he can make this entertaining. It did keep me entertained for a little while. The first dungeon was largely just boring. And I wish I got to it asap instead of exploring, because then I would be able to refund this.