Fabledom PC Review

Fabledom takes the city-builder genre to all new levels with this relaxing fairytale-inspired simulator.

Dear Villagers, a French publishing company, has partnered up with a 2-man studio called Grenaa, based in Sweden. The publishers are known for titles such as Nocturnal and Fort Solis. Grenaa has developed Fabledom, a medieval city-building simulator with an intriguing storyline.

Before you start building your kingdom in Fabledo,m you are greeted by the Narrator,r who tells your kingdom's story. You get to choose the world your kingdom exists in by generating a map. The map takes on different shapes depending on the starting kingdom you choose and the seed you use.

The seed can either be randomized,d or you can write something random to create the seed.

Once the map has been generated, you can pick between the different kingdoms. Each has its own pros and cons. While some may have denser forests and fewer hills, they can have more territory to build up. The kingdom sizes you have are large and medium.

After deciding on your kingdom, you now go on to deciding what your fablings and fellow rulers call you. Fabledom lends itself to a certain amount of openness,s as you can choose between Prince, Princes,s and Highness as a title. In Fabledom, whether you conquer the neighboring lands by war or through diplomatic relations is entirely up to you.

Underneath your title, you will find an option that says “I am looking for. a” The answers to this are Prince, Princess, es,s, or Any. This already gives the feeling that Fabledom is more about conquering hearts than it is about war-driven states, states, even if it is a weird option to have in a city-builder.

After choosing everything you wanted and deciding on your map and kingdom, it's time to begin the story. In the beginning, you are greeted by four fablings and a wagon, which means that they are the first settlers of your little kingdom. The placement of the wagon and the fabrics are randomly generated. Your first task is to build a laborer’s hut. This is important, as the laborers are the ones who build every other building in your kingdom.

You will start by building important structures, such as a woodcutter's hut, and placing them near forested areas in your kingdom to get wood.

You will need to build more housing to have more fablings come to your kingdom and let it grow. Along with housing, you will need to place wells that cover a certain area on the map, so one well is enough to supply water to about 5-6 houses, depending on how you structure your kingdom.  

While Fabledom doesn’t have a day-night cycle, it still has a year system, so you will experience all of the seasons. Spring and Summer are great times for your crops and also time for you to build up coal supplies. The Fall season doesn’t have a huge impact, aside from changing the leaves to fall colors. Winter is the most important time to plan for, as you are unable to grow crops and all the houses you built for your fablings require coal to keep warm.

If you aren’t sure where to start, just follow the objectives,s but there isn’t any rush to complete them. While playing through the campaign, the narrator will chime in with a witty response about how you have received a letter from a secret admirer. This is the start of the more romantic option of dealing with other Kingdoms and their Rulers.

To fully interact with them, you need to build the messengers guild and set the fablings to work there as messengers

With the guild built, it unlocks the map from which you can send delegates to start a relationship with foreign rulers. Whether it will be just a great friendship or a budding romance is up to you.

As you build up your kingdom in Fabledom, there will be points where you don’t produce enough resources at certain times, that is, if the management of your resources isn't the best. There will be world events that pop up now, and then, one of them is called Secret Santa. This is where the game can give you a small number of resources in case you are running low.

This isn't the only world event that appears. You have a world event in which other fablings seek asylum in your kingdom, or your party planner wishes to throw a party to lift the mood of your kingdom. Each world event affects your people: some make them happier, others bring mofaminesngs in or affect the kingdom itself.

In Fabledom, as you grow and expand, you’ll unlock new buildings and decorations. Once your kingdom gets big enough, you can build a building that summons a hero. Your hero can interact with various items all over the map. Some will give you buffs that will aid your continued growth, while others will allow you to build certain decorations. Decorations help keep your fablings happy. 

Buffs aren’t the only thing you gain in Fabledom, occasionally you’ll be hit with a debuff so preparing a stockpile of resources in advance is a must.

 For example, one of the first debuffs you encounter makes your fablings work fast, er but they will eat twice as much food. This can lead to a food shortage, especially if winter is coming.

While most objectives aren’t timed, you will occasionally get one or two that are. They usually have really good rewards. Most of the rewards for the timed objective aren’t gold,d with which you start building. It's a currency called nobility. Nobility is needed for interactions with other Rulers but can also be used to build special items. It is earned during world events, and you can lose a portion of what you have previously earned if you are unable to meet the objectives of the world event.

Most of your buildings come with attachments, such as yards for some of the housing. These attachments have their prices listed, but luckily, ly you can plan by placing the buildings and not buying them yet. This mechanic allows for better planning, as you can see how much it would cost to start building everything. For example, a tulip farm with maxed plots requires 300 gold to start building. How much gold you earn after seven days depends on your building upkeep costs and how many fablings you have paying tax. You can end up in the negative, so be careful.

Fabledom has an art style that throws you straight into fairy tales from a storybook. From the designs of the fabrics to even the environment, everything gives you a mystical and cheerful vibe. When it is spring, everything will be in bloom, so don’t be surprised if you see flowers growing in front of your family's homes. While in the wintertime, everything is like a winter wonderland. The transitions between seasons are also done well, ll with winter melting into spring and spring darkening into fall.

The music and sound engineering were extremely well done, as the music isn’t repetitive and changes according to what is going on.

 When a debuff hits you, the music turns ominous and dark, but if you are interacting with a neighboring ruler, the sound is lighter. The sound effects as you move around your kingdom can be amazing as you listen to the everyday life of the fablings as they go on with their business. From the woodcutters cutting down trees to the sound of the baker baking bread, it's never a dull moment.

Even though Fabledom has all these amazing features, the game isn't really meant for players who don’t do well with management games. It can be easy to feel as if you are in over your head as your kingdom runs towards ruin because you can’t produce enough food. Fabledom is missing a few features, such as a class of citizens not yet available for recruitment. But as early access continues, it will hopefully add all the features they have not yet released for players to add to their ever-growing kingdoms. 

Overall, Fabledom is a solid PC game where you can manage your dream kingdom. Build it up from scratch,h and maybe romance a neighboring Prince or Princes,s from encountering interesting things on the map to expanding your territories further. Keep your fablings alive throughout winter and face an array of interesting characters, both good and bad. See how far your creativity can go as you build your story.