When you reflect on city-building strategy games, it’s hard not to think of titles like SimCity or Civilization, representing the high end of the genre spectrum and revered for good reason. The thing is, a variety of indie titles have proven to have their own takes on this sort of play, and an appeal all their own for people who are looking for some version of a city-builder, but one that’s more simplified and friendly by comparison. Dawnfolk is coming to the party a little late, to be sure, but it does have enough appeal that people looking for that stripped down strategy vibe may still have a great time with it.

Rather than tackling the monumental goal of building a major metropolitan city or civilization from the ground up through many hours of painstaking efforts, Dawnfolk will have you tackling a variety of smaller scenario-based challenges. Everything from the game’s concepts on down to its art style shares this pretty minimalist approach, and while there are absolutely some things you’ll need to learn to be successful, they can be tackled in the first hour or so, rather than over a long and arduous journey towards an ambitious end goal of some kind. Here the objective is more simple enjoyment, and in many ways what you’ll need to do resembles some sort of puzzle rather than pure strategy, since most of your success will stem from how you’ll try to optimize the use of every tile. This usually involves being sure to place complimentary tiles near each other whenever possible, maximizing their potential and your resource output so you can keep pace.

The thing is, while their implementations may vary, the above actually describes a variety of indie titles already out there on the eShop, so it’s important to acknowledge some of the things Dawnfolk does a little differently to differentiate itself. The first is the inclusion of pretty simple, but generally effective, mini games that you’ll have to complete when dealing with certain spots. Whether that involves needing to move around to catch fruits, take aim at wildlife when you’re hunting, or defending yourself against attacks these are all quite basic pixel-based games, but they do add a different skill component to things that’s at least refreshing. The other is that though the overall experience is a cozy one, most of its peers don’t include any real threat for you to contend with, where here you’ll have to take on mysterious shadow entities that will periodically test you and what you’ve created. While this is by no means a grand strategy title, what’s there is generally approachable and effective, so if you’ve been curious about larger-scale strategy gaming, this may be an opportunity to at least get your feet wet in the genre.