Dorfromantik: The Duel


Dorfromantik is a great cooperative tile-placing game, but what happens when it's not? Dorfromantik Duel answers that question. A spin-off of Dorfromantik, "Duel" is what gamers call a "multiplayer solitaire". Both players are playing side by side on their individual "boards" and the actions of one player does not really affect the actions of the other player.

They just want to become a single land mass

Dorfromantik Duel is almost strictly a "multiplayer solitare" with very little interaction between the two players. The game is well constructed, but it does take up a lot of table space (instead of the one playing area needed in the original Dorfromantik, two playing areas are required). In all four of the games we played our maps ended up bumping into each other no matter how hard we tried to keep them away.

Duel came with two "expansions" included in the core box. One module rewarded players for completing tasks speedily. With every third task completed, players were given a choice between hearts, photographer tiles, and other bonus tiles. The second module, we never played because I kept forgetting to introduce it before starting our session. *Whoops* Maybe we'll get to that eventually.

Red vs Blue

The "Photographer" meeple works better in Duel compared to the "Balloon" meeple in the original game. This is because the Photographer is guaranteed to be introduced near the beginning or middle of the game, where as the Balloon sometimes doesn't pop up until much later.

The two new task types that are introduced in Duel are also quite fun.

Cathy and I have been playing Dorfromantik fairly exclusively for two and a half months, and now it really is time to put it away. Memorial Day signifies the end of Spring and the beginning of true-Summer. So it's time for a transition.

There will be a break between Dorfromantik and the next legacy game. An interlude where we can catch up on some classics: Five Tribes, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Everdell or even Cascadia... on second thought, not Cascadia, I'm done with matching Hex-Tiles for a while. 


30 games of Dorfromantik

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