Dawnmaker

About

Dawnmaker is a single player city builder game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Arpentor Studio and was released on July 31, 2024. It received very positive reviews from players.

Dawnmaker is a turn-based city building and deckbuilding game, made by 2 strategy fans. It feels like playing a solo board game. Build luminous cities, optimize your deck and create powerful combinations between buildings and cards to bring life back to a dead world. Available in English, French and Japanese. In a world covered by a toxic Smog, only you can rekindle the ancient lighthouses an…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

90%

Audience ScoreBased on 101 reviews

gameplay13 positive mentions

story3 negative mentions

Engaging gameplay that combines deck building and city management, providing a satisfying challenge.
Beautiful graphics and sound design enhance the overall experience, making it visually appealing.
Offers a variety of strategies and synergies, allowing for different approaches to gameplay.

Limited replayability after completing the campaign, as many players find the gameplay becomes repetitive.
Some mechanics, such as RNG and card draws, can lead to frustrating experiences, especially in critical missions.
Lacks sufficient variety in levels and characters, making the game feel stale after a few playthroughs.

gameplay
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
50%
9%
The gameplay of the game is a mix of deckbuilding, city-building, and puzzle-solving mechanics that initially provide a fun and engaging experience, with a solid tutorial to help players learn the ropes. However, while the game offers unique mechanics and strategic depth, many players find that it becomes repetitive after a few hours, with a need for better balance and additional engaging elements to maintain long-term interest. Overall, it strikes a balance between being easy to learn and challenging to master, but some players express a desire for more variety to keep the gameplay fresh.
- “The gameplay took me a couple of minutes to figure out, and every time I played, I ended up discovering new ways of scoring combos.”
- “Dawnmaker has smart mechanics that make you think and plan which cards/buildings you take and how to position the tiles.”
- “The mechanics are good and it's a nice balance of easy to learn and difficult to beat.”
- “Mechanically, this feels like it's still in alpha despite the graphics being quite good.”
- “The way things currently stand, synergy bonuses between adjacent buildings are by far the strongest mechanic and badly in need of balance.”
- “The difficulty goes up every time you shuffle your deck, which then resets every time you expand your city's borders; basic mechanics like drawing more cards become double-edged swords.”
story
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
11%
72%
17%
The story aspect of the game is noted for its minimalistic approach, focusing primarily on gameplay rather than extensive narrative elements. While players appreciate the relaxing and beautiful puzzle mechanics, many express a desire for a deeper ecological emphasis and more engaging story elements, such as varied music and random mission modifiers. Overall, the campaign can feel lengthy and repetitive due to RNG challenges, but the ability to upgrade decks between missions adds a layer of strategy.
- “I like the minimal world building and the effective tutorial; there's no filler story or other nonsense to wrap things, just pure gameplay.”
- “Would be nice to have some more varied music during levels, maybe some more to the story elements, but those are really cherries on top.”
- “There is some deckbuilding/thinning in between missions, but this did not matter enough to make the next mission more exciting for me.”
- “I played the campaign twice and failed both times at the same mission areas.”
- “A campaign can feel a bit too long if you start to fail a critical mission and have to go the way around, but at least you can upgrade your deck between each mission, so it's not all wasted.”
replayability
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
58%
21%
Overall, the game's replayability is a mixed bag; while completing all three difficulty modes offers some variation, many players feel that there is limited incentive to replay after the initial campaign victory. Although the game features a variety of cards and maps that suggest potential for replayability, most reviewers agree that it lacks long-term engagement and variety, with many feeling they have seen everything after one run. Suggestions for improvement include the addition of achievements and challenges to enhance replay value.
- “The challenge is good, and the variety of cards, buildings, and maps imply a large amount of replayability.”
- “The replayability of each level is astonishing!”
- “While I agree with other reviewers that there is currently little replay value past the first campaign victory, I'm sure this can be fixed with achievements and daily/weekly challenges.”
- “When all three difficulty modes are completed, there's not a whole lot of point to replayability, but that's a nitpick since you can argue each difficulty level is in itself its own run of replayability.”
- “While I agree with other reviewers that there is currently little replay value past the first campaign victory (which did take me almost 20 hours, but I'm just bad I guess :)), I'm sure this can be fixed, not necessarily with more cards and buildings, but perhaps with achievements and daily/weekly challenges and such.”
- “Not much replayability after that as this game lacks variety and/or balancing.”
graphics
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
83%
17%
The graphics of the game are generally praised for their quality and aesthetic appeal, contributing to a relaxing vibe. While some users note that the game feels mechanically unfinished, the overall design, sound, and effects are considered elegant and well-executed.
- “The game has a very nice feeling and aesthetic, and gives a very relaxing vibe.”
- “I enjoyed the graphics, the sound design, the effects, and the gameplay loop.”
- “Elegant design paired with a pleasant aesthetic, and plenty of depth to be found here.”
music
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
100%
The game's music is notably lacking, with users expressing a desire for more varied and engaging tracks during gameplay and story elements. The absence of music is seen as a significant oversight, suggesting that its inclusion could enhance the overall experience.
- “It would be nice to have some more varied music during levels, maybe some more to the story elements, but those are really cherries on top.”
- “There is no music in the game :(”
- “Would be nice to have some more varied music during levels, maybe some more to the story elements, but those are really cherries on top.”
- “Needs music as well.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from significant performance issues on macOS, leading to a suboptimal experience for users on that platform.
- “Unfortunately, there are severe performance issues on macOS.”
- “The game runs poorly on lower-end hardware, making it unplayable for many.”
- “Frequent frame drops and stuttering make the experience frustrating.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be a mixed experience; while some appreciate the lush farming environment and the potential for increased agricultural production, others feel that the extensive time investment required—often exceeding 100 hours—can be off-putting. Despite this, some users enjoy the satisfaction of building powerful engines that allow for prolonged resource farming, even if it isn't their preferred playstyle.
- “It's a good game, not my cup of tea; I don't see myself spending 100+ hours grinding.”
- “However, in the last level and some in between, I had built my engine so powerfully that I could have sat there grinding for the golden resource for a very long time.”
- “For example, give me a lush farming environment where agricultural production from farms and harvests is increased, but there's a penalty to industry and activated buildings.”