Do you know that one game you unexpectedly discovered and accidentally played for twelve hours straight? That is pretty much my experience with Fabledom.
As kids, at one point, we all dreamed of having our kingdom just like in the books and movies. Greena Games took this very concept and made a game about it and Fabledom might be one of the most addictive yet simplistic city builders I have ever played. And I had a blast with it.
A Book Of Fairytales
After choosing a suitable “realm” or, in this case, a map, adjusting the difficulty, and creating your own coat of arms (I loved this!), the game’s opening minutes begin with a narrator and a book. As the book opens up, there is a brief introduction about the story involving princes and princesses, with colorful visuals and narration adding an extra layer of charm. It almost felt like I was being read to as a kid about a dreamy world where I could get lost. The story of Fabledom wasn’t anything of glamor; instead, it takes the most famous trope in any fairytale story and makes it the game’s main objective: finding love for your character and living happily ever after.
Fabledom isn’t your average city builder. Though the baseline of the game works pretty similar to other city-building games, some unique add-ons and features make it feel different, like the addition of romance options. I have played my fair share of city builders, and the best part about Fabledom is its simplicity. The game even has an additional creative sandbox mode where the players can do whatever they want without interrupting story objectives.
A City Builder For Newbies
You start your Fabledom journey with a few peasants by building them houses and a labor camp so they can get to work immediately. New fablings (people) show up in your realm every nine days, which further increases your population, which means you have to keep building those houses to hire them for different jobs. Population growth is important to grow and advance your settlement, but the game gives you an option of whether you want to allow new people into your upcoming kingdom.
Once your population starts increasing and your settlement keeps advancing, you will unlock more and more buildings that will aid the future of your kingdom and open up more jobs for your fablings. But the more your population grows, the more you have to start micromanaging, especially your finances. Once I reached around two hundred or more fablings, I realized I was suddenly having a shortage of food, so I had to build more farms that grow vegetables and wheat in large quantities. The same thing also happened with certain resources like coal, which is an essential item during winter.
One thing I noticed that was different in Fabledom compared to other city builders is the lack of a skill tree. The game depends on your kingdom’s population to advance to the next level of your settlement, which I didn’t mind, honestly. Of course, I did face issues with my fablings, sometimes dying of starvation even though I had enough food in my storage. However, with the game constantly sending me new fablings who wanted to join my kingdom, it was easy enough to catch up.
Resource collection is fairly simple in Fabledom. When starting your settlement in the middle of a forest surrounded by trees, stones, and other minerals, certain factories like iron quarries or stone masonry can only be built close to deposits of either iron or stone found in certain areas. However, once these deposits are depleted, you will eventually need to find another site to relocate. If you don’t find the deposit you need, you can certainly find it outside your territory, which means the game eventually forces you to purchase more land.
Running Your Own Kingdom
The structure of Fabledom is not overwhelming. The game does give you main objectives, but you can complete them at your own pace as there is no time limit. However, certain objectives in the form of announcements do pop up, and though these have a deadline to complete, if you are unsuccessful, it is not a big deal. Completing them gives you nobility points that can be used in certain situations. For example, sometimes your settlement is cursed by a witch, and you can use your nobility points to shoo her away. You can also use these points to make purchases or help people from other kingdoms.
Apart from the witch, your realm is also visited by dragons because how is it a fairytale without dragons?! When a dragon shows up, you can either get your military defenses to attack it, or you also need to build a stronghold around your territory. If you want the dragon to leave faster, you can pay it in gold to leave you alone.
Even though your settlement has a happiness meter indicating where your fablings stand, the game doesn’t really make it a priority that the meter should always be high. Since the meter is always changing depending on your kingdom’s situation, sometimes it gets low, but even during this, you don’t face much of a loss as a player.
The more your kingdom grows, the more defenses you unlock, like training your fablings to be successful swordsmen and archers. By creating your own line of military defenses, you secure your kingdom’s protection and can send them on certain missions off-world and reap certain rewards. More on that later in this review!
Once I reached a certain settlement level, I also unlocked the opportunity to have a “Hero” join my kingdom by building a Hero Tent. This character can be controlled and interact with peculiar objects. I found an abandoned glass slipper in the forest and had my hero collect it, which presented me with two options: return it to the owner for nobility points or sell it for money. I returned it to the owner, of course, but such small quests were a delight. Strange creatures visited my realm in other cases, and I could get my hero to interact with them.
Finding Your Happily Ever After
One of the best parts of Fabledom is the option to romance another prince or princess. Later in the game, after building the “Messenger Guild,” I was given the world map where my character could interact with other rulers of various kingdoms. I could send them gifts, court them, or simply gain an ally/friend. However, one of the main objectives was to court a ruler out of six options. I decided to romance Princess Agnes, the Harvest Princess.
Each romanceable option has likes, and Princess Agnes likes farming, as you can guess from her title. To court her, I had to gift her vegetables and flowers and complete several specific missions later. These were not very hard to finish and were also fun, but some missions needed me to spare specific units of military fablings, my hero, and citizens alike. As I completed Agnes-related objectives, my romance meter with her increased with a favorable chance of marriage.
I also had a chance to complete random missions offered by five other rulers, which increased my friendship meter and made them my allies. Another way to get them to like you is to trade resources with them, and it is an easy way to stock up if you are running low on any resources and have money to spare.
The game’s feature of allowing players to interact with and romance other rulers made the gameplay more engaging and immersive. Usually, city builders get too repetitive for me, but this specific aspect did help to some extent to keep me playing. Not only did it fit so well with the fantasy theme of the game, but it also presented an equal amount of challenge and fun, with each romanceable option having different missions to complete.
A Game That Doesn’t Take Itself Too Seriously
My time with Fabledom was well enjoyed. With its cutesy art style, easy-to-follow gameplay, and funny one-liners from the narrator as you expand your kingdom, this might be my favorite city builder right now.
With its relaxed and laid-back structure, this game is perfect for city builder beginners.
Fabledom
As kids, at one point, we all had a dream of having our own kingdom just like in the books and movies. Greena Games took this very concept and made a game about it and Fabledom might be one of the most addictive yet simplistic city builders I have ever played. And I had a blast with it.
The Good
- Simplistic city builder
- Has a creative sandbox mode
- Relaxed gameplay
- Romanceable options
- Gorgeous art style
The Bad
- Can get a little repetitive
