The First Mine

[i]The First Mine[/i] is a more simplistic, yet still solid, Dorfromantik clone where you build a village on a hex grid by placing tiles one by one from a stack, matching their types to form clusters. There are a few notable differences between The First Mine and Dorfromantik. Tile placement here is much more restrictive: tiles have only two types of openings, limiting clusters to just two or three tiles of the same kind. Where Dorfromantik has you plan for a snake of one type of tile to stretch far across the map, here the objective is to close a group of two or three tiles of one type and then to upgrade their output to balance your resource production. Tiles can only be placed next to two other tiles, which restricts the overall shape of your settlement into more of a compact, centered mass rather than spreading it out in different directions. Your central gold mine generates gold that scales with population. All other tile types generate resources (wood, stone, wheat, or fish), while house tiles increase the village population, which consumes some of these resources. Furthermore, certain map locations provide bonuses when the right tiles are placed on them, and some biomes …

While I haven't sunken an awful lot of time into this game just yet, partly because it's so easy to finish a quick round and come back at a later time, I can already tell it's a fun one. It's not super deep or anything (new tiles would be awesome), but it has some variation between each game. I do wish we could set up custom games with our own rule sets. Not sure why even the easy difficulty has to have a time limit, for instance. But even without, it's a good time, although I will admit combat feels kind of lopsided and rarely worth the risk. Endless mode would be cool. The rules could be based on running out of a resource, perhaps most logically losing a settlement, or population pool as a whole. Not sure what the best implementation would look like, but this could be a fun grind to hop in and out of for 30 minutes to an hour at a time. While I appreciate the addition of some meta progression, I wouldn't mind some more, so people can feel a bit more invested. As someone who found the listing for this game a long time before its release, I'm glad I've finally had the chance to give this title a try, as it looks and feels neat. Just wish the in-game music sounded more like the…

I want to start by saying this is a fantastic game. About 75% of the achievements are fairly easy to earn, while the remaining ones require a solid amount of dedication and grinding. If that kind of progression and challenge appeals to you, this game is a perfect fit. Its repeatable, board game–inspired style makes it incredibly replayable, and I can easily see myself coming back to it again and again. There’s also a surprising amount of strategy involved in achieving a successful run. It definitely challenges you—but in all the right ways.

Addictive game

I have never played Carcassone, but I was immediately told this is similar to it. So, if you know that game, you'll probably find yourself at home with this title. The First Mine feels a lot like a resource builder and matching game, with some foresight required in your part while balancing the amounts of undos, previews, and shuffles you have on hand. Ideally, you want to pause and consider your next move. Do I have the patience for that? [i]Hell no![/i] But, I still enjoyed the game when I took chances and didn't think too heavily on the achievements. As a puzzle game, this should win an award. It's structured very well with resource management and allocation of funds to really make you consider where each piece serves your mining community. I do wish there was a way to make the grids more aesthetically pleasing, or if there were power-ups or similar to allow you to place tiles without having them linking next to previously laid tiles, or even allow you to turn tiles a different way if you mess up. However, those are not options so you have to treat this like a rogue game where you either succeed or you don't. Overall impression is that the game is fun, interesting and def…

It just did not click for me. There must be better ways to indicate where to place tiles. Also, look to other games when it comes to friendliness to new players.