Indie developer Darenn Keller has just released a new demo of his upcoming cozy, minimalist, survival city-builder Dawnfolk, and holy cow after just five minutes of playing I want more than anything for this game to release on mobile. Which it might! If the icons on the game’s press kit are to be believed, iOS and Android are in the cards for Dawnfolk in addition to PC and Switch. The game tasks you as the one to rescue your lands from darkness, both literally and figuratively. Each level in Dawnfolk is made up of a grid of squares, many of which are shrouded in darkness. As you rebuild your city and bring in new citizens, you can slowly light up darkened squares and expand your city’s footprint. At its core Dawnfolk feels like an incremental management game similar to something like Factorio as you’re building new buildings to harvest new resources as well as harvesting resources from the land itself. However, there’s a very interesting and dark overtone to the whole experience, and lots of interesting bits of lore that are just waiting to flesh out the story of this little universe. Check out the game’s latest trailer.
If this looks familiar to you, then you’ve possible come across Dawnfolk at some point over the past couple of years under its previous title Lueur and the Dim Settlers. Lueur is your literal guiding light in the game, and dim settlers are, well, the people settling in this dim world, so the old title makes a lot of sense but Dawnfolk is far catchier in my opinion. Anyway, the game has been in the works since it first found life as a game jam project back in August of 2022, and the plan is for it to release in early 2025. The new demo is available on Steam right now and lets you experience what the gameplay is like through the early Story chapters, as well as unlock a taste of the Puzzle and Challenge modes that will be in the full game. It’s designed to be a lovely experience on Steam Deck specifically, but also plays just fine on my laptop. But OH BOY would it be an awesome iPhone game. I highly encourage you to check out the demo and please join me in crossing your fingers that Dawnfolk will end up on mobile devices at some point following its early 2025 release on PC.