The sky-blue Fabledom shortcut and I have been locked in a fierce staring contest for weeks.
She’s been intently gawking at my mouse, seemingly making the base of her ‘F’ larger to grab my attention. My mouse, however, only hovers momentarily before double-clicking on RKGK, the indie 3-D platformer about toppling capitalism one graffiti at a time, or aiming for the Wuthering Waves icon next to her. “Hey, I was here first!” Fabledom protests, I imagine.
One day, I decide I can’t keep ghosting Fabledom any longer.
Reluctantly, I open the game and take a quick trip to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Imagine my surprise when I return to find Fabledom‘s title screen talking to me. She immediately has my full attention.
Key Details
- Publisher/Developer: Grenaa Games
- Platform: PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox
- Price: $20.99 USD
- Review Copy Provided: Yes
Manage your cozy medieval kingdom
I spend entirely way too long choosing between being a Prince, Princess, or Highness; crafting my adorable frog emblem; and declaring I’m open to royalty of any gender as long as the marriage benefits my kingdom. But when the narrator chimes in with his elderly voice, saying it’s his favorite choice, my time suddenly feels completely justified.
I build my kingdom from scratch. Builders gather in their tiny wooden offices, looking ready to pull out their phones mid-break until I snap them back to work building their tiny homes. Snappy tutorials keep me on track and give me direction. Finish the first buildings, and earn some gold. Bring in more inhabitants, and level up from wretched village to slightly less wretched village.
My workstations gather the usual resources: wood, stone, and iron. Surprisingly, they’re not run by work fairies but by Peasants toiling day and night. Some stations allow multiple workers, but Fabledom knows some jobs are solo gigs. Sawmill for planks and building a Messenger’s Guild to connect with other kingdoms? One-person jobs. A dancing stage, though? That’s a four-person job, naturally.
These peasants are the best—bless them. Everything runs smoothly until, one day, snow covers my farm, and production grinds to a halt. I watch as twenty-odd notifications flood the left corner of my screen.
Hugh Flores, Emily Torres, Matilda Myers, and seventeen other unfortunate souls need food soon, or they’ll starve. My current vegetable supply? Zero.
These guys are so dead
But just as I’m scrolling through the building menu to see if there’s a Graveyard construction, my first magical event unfolds: Santa comes. His gift, disappointingly not wrapped in green and red paper but in a simple wooden box, contains just enough veggies to see us through.
And that’s just the tip of the wand in the whimsical world of Fabledom. Just when you think you’re in for a regular medieval strategy game, magic beans sprout in the middle of your town, or a witch drops a skeleton curse that doubles all your inhabitants’ hunger (and turns them into skeletons, because why not?).
Just as I was enjoying the sight of a friendly cyclops skipping around my kingdom, spreading happiness buffs to every inhabitant, I notice him veering dangerously close to the bottom left corner of my screen. My eyes leap from the screen to my coffee cup. Three and a half hours have passed; it’s now freezing cold.
Verdict 8/10
After about 35 hours of gameplay, Fabledom strikes me as this gorgeous game that’s all about chilling out and building your city while schmoozing with the neighbors. But of course, you gotta jump through hoops—raise the population, build specific structures, and hoard a ton of resources. All in a day’s work.
But you can check off all those objectives in Fabledom little by little without too much hassle—except for the one massive headache of feeding the fablings, the world’s inhabitants.
It’s all about where these fablings live, where the food is stored, and where they work. If the commute between their workplace and home is too far, they won’t make it back in time to eat and might kick the bucket. This is the main hurdle in Fabledom, and for those looking for a laid-back experience, it might feel like the one mechanic that’s out of sync with the game’s overall design.
If you’ve dipped your toes into Civilization but found it too brain-bending for your chill-out sessions, Fabledom is the snug alternative you’ve been waiting for. It’s got its own flair to guarantee a fresh experience, not just a watered-down clone of an existing game. Think Let’s School, but actually cozy and transported to a medieval fantasy realm.
**A PC review code was provided to Bonus Action for the purpose of this review**
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