In a magical world, dragons are not terrifying monsters to be feared; they are, instead, helpful companions who work hard and bring joy to all those around them. Our Dragon Shelter preview explores this new farming game with a delightfully whimsical twist.

Dragon Shelter is a Farming RPG with its own little twist: you're not the only one working on your farm. As time goes on, you will encounter elemental dragons who can help you grow crops, cook food, and breathe new life into a nearly-dead town — albeit with some problems along the way.

Things aren't that great when you first get to town. A Town Reborn

Just as many JRPGs start with your hometown burning down, many Farming RPGs start with you moving to a dilapidated farmhouse. Dragon Shelter is no different; you start the game on your farm, collect some berries, and go to sleep.

The next day, you're tasked with heading to town and exploring. Things are... dire, to say the least. The town's population is a grand total of five people, all of the buildings are in disrepair, and everyone is (rather understandably) depressed.

Dragon Shelter notably diverges from the Farming RPG formula by having a run-down town that needs to be restored to its former glory.

Thus begins your mission. Talk to the townspeople, and they'll each have some task for you to help out with. This, in turn, helps you by opening up access to new crafting recipes, new cooking recipes, and more. Eventually, more townspeople will move in, further expanding the town's services.

Dragon Shelter notably diverges from the Farming RPG formula by having a run-down town that needs to be restored to its former glory. This isn't like Stardew Valley with a busted bus and a run-down, abandoned Community Center; virtually nothing in the town is in good shape, and it's up to you to fix it.

Cooking by yourself can be tedious, but your dragons will help out once they join you on the farm. Farm to Table

Naturally, you'll want to get to farming as soon as you can. The farming system in Dragon Shelter has many elements familiar to Farming RPG veterans, but it also has some key differences that won't become apparent right away.

Before long, you'll encounter your first dragon: the Water Dragon. Dragons are companions who require care, food, and rest, but they're not layabouts; each dragon will help out in its own way. The Water Dragon, for example, can water your crops for you as long as its elemental energy holds out.

A dragon's element matters in another way: each new dragon unlocks access to new elemental seeds, and you must ask the dragon to specially prepare farm plots to grow these seeds. The resultant plants, in turn, can be used to brew potions at the Alchemist, cook new recipes, or restore your dragon's energy.

Unfortunately, even the rarest food items don't make much of a profit on their own. I actually found one crop that lost me money, strangely. You'll typically make more money by cooking food and fulfilling orders for townspeople, but that presents another problem.

Cooking is done through a minigame where you need to fuel an oven or stove, prepare ingredients, cook them, and plate them. It's fun for the first few times, but it becomes a pain when you need to make food in bulk.

Fortunately, your dragon(s) can and will help you cook, unless you ban them from the outdoor kitchen. I eventually got into a routine of tending to crops or harvesting crafting materials while my dragons cooked, and that made me much more money in the end.

The crafting UI isn't the best in the pre-release version of the game; it's difficult to tell how much of each item you need to craft something. A Gradual Breakdown

I spent a good chunk of time learning the inner workings of Dragon Shelter and progressing through quests, but I eventually hit some problems — small, at first, and then serious.

To start, it gets more and more difficult to get resources over time. I had sold a bunch of the Fireflies crafting material in the early game as they didn't appear to have a use; later, they turned out to be critical for multiple quests, and I had to wait several days before I collected enough.

Even basic materials such as wood can be a pain to find after a while. Trees regrow painfully slowly, and your wood supply gets burned up by both cooking and crafting. That slowed me down even further. I was awash in money, but I couldn't progress quests for lack of a few logs.

Worse still, bugs popped up that killed my ability to progress. I lost the ability to "leash" the Water Dragon and bring it to town at some point, so I couldn't complete a quest where I needed to bring the Water Dragon to town. I also lost the ability to play my flute for townspeople, cutting off yet another quest.

Eventually, it got to the point that I was totally unable to progress at all. To be fair, I was on a pre-release version. I ultimately suffered from a collection of tiny, annoying bugs gradually building up; a solid Day 1 patch could resolve most of these issues.

The livestock system ius a bit simplistic, but it works well enough for a game of this style. Dragon Shelter Preview | Final Thoughts

The vision of what Dragon Shelter wants to be is very appealing to me. The execution of that vision, however, leaves much to be desired — at least in the pre-release version of the game that I played.

The lack of crafting materials and the amount of time needed to cook food eventually caused me to resort to using developer cheats to speed things up. Navigating through all of the jank to complete the game before launch felt impossible, and it turns out I was right.

Aside from the aforementioned resource shortages and bugs, Dragon Shelter had some other fundamental cosmetic problems. The UI was clunky in several places (especially the shops), the requirements for progressing some quests were unclear, and you could literally walk out of bounds in some places.

My personal experience with Dragon Shelter felt like playing a beta rather than a finished product. Wild Forest Studio could come out with a heck of a Day 1 patch that cleans up all of these issues — I've seen it happen before — but I can't be certain.

Dragon Shelter could be a great game with some bug fixes, a bit of polishing on the game world, and a mild overhaul of the UI. If it looks like the kind of game that interests you, I'd wait until the wrinkles are ironed out on this one.

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Dragon Shelter was previewed on PC via Steam with a code provided by the publisher over approximately 70 hours of gameplay. All images were taken during the preview process.