Dawnfolk operates on an entirely tile-based system; even the main menu abides by these rules which gives the game a very consistent sense of theme. The game recommends that you play with a gamepad and I highly agree, it makes the best use of the control scheme and is very easy to pick up. I also found that most of my actions in the game resulted in a very satisfying gamepad rumble that would be missing with a mouse and keyboard.

The story mode for Dawnfolk offers multiple scenarios that are completed in order; each scenario sees the player dropped into a new area, intending to clear the darkness tile by tile to expand and create a new settlement. The light that is used to clear darkness is an expendable resource that needs to be generated alongside other resources such as workforce, food and materials. Erecting the appropriate buildings, or making use of the land itself are the key ways of generating resources, but the act of doing so has a cost and this is the main push and pull of Dawnfolk as with most survival city-building games. Happily, Dawnfolk uses a very clear visual design to show what resources will be gained and lost from buildings, making decisions fast and easily comprehensible.

Despite this, the fast pace of the levels meant that I stayed engaged through my entire playthrough of story mode and actually came out of it wishing for more. Luckily, there is a harder difficulty available, along with an endless mode that I found very appealing because even just working to establish my kingdom with no plot anchor was a lot of fun, due mostly to the satisfying controls and visuals of the game.

The controls in Dawnfolk are very snappy, especially when using a gamepad it’s very easy to scroll between the different tiles and make changes where they are needed. The jump from tile to tile plays a cute little ‘bloop’ noise and has your cursor doing a very satisfying little bounce, placing buildings plays appropriate sound effects and Lueur makes the cutest little babbling noises whenever he talks. It’s all very reactive and endearing.

Minigames are also a nice little diversion, popping up whenever you perform an interactive action such as hunting, fighting or harvesting. It usually just revolves around angling a bow at the bottom of the screen or catching things falling from the top of the screen. They are very simple, but a fun way to make these takes engaging. The controls on them are also very snappy and easy to pick up so there is no sense of disconnect between them and the main game.

The only control issue I had was whenever a random event occurred and Lueur popped up to lay out my options. Whenever I had more than two options to select between, the control on the joystick was too sensitive and I would often accidentally jump over the option I wanted to select, no matter how gentle I was. Luckily this is a fairly rare occurrence, so it didn’t affect the game demonstrably, but it bothered me whenever it happened, especially with how polished the rest of Dawnfolk felt.