Gnomoria is a sandbox village management game where you help lead a small group of gnomes, who have set out on their own, to thrive into a bustling kingdom! Anything you see can be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere. Craft items, build structures, set traps and dig deep underground in search of precious resources to help your gnomes survive the harsh lands. Build your kingdom and stockpile wealth to attract wandering gnomads to your cause, but be wary of also attracting enemies!
This review is written after a season ( a few hours of play ).
Gnomoria is a game of creating a small kingdom of Gnomes, which in turn will create stories for you. When I play a game, I like to think about if this game tells me a story I haven't experienced before, whether it's made up and told to you, or if the game systems themselves create this story on the fly. Gnomoria is a game of the latter.
Art: Very suitable and clear enough
Feedback: Quite lacking at the moment
Rules: Quite clear, providing enough depth and somewhat forgiving
Sound: Lacking
Procedures: It is easy to go from thought, say "I want to build a dining hall", to action. It is just as easy to go from idea to plan. This is the area where Gnomoria really shines.
The game has you plan out construction and development of an initially small gnome party of about seven. The gnomes dash around the area and attempt to perform the tasks you set them in a satisfying pace. As you plan out farms, dining halls, workshops, tree felling and mining, the area grows into an industrious gnome kingdom. As mentioned above, doing these things, planning them and watching it all fall into place is one of the major benefits of Gnomoria. I didn't play long enough to experience the threat of "Invaders" - goblins and golems coming to ravage your Gnome kingdom, but the threat of survival is present in a dwindling food and drink supply. To keep this challenging and to keep a threat level requiring long term planning and short term emergency solutions is key to keeping Gnomoria entertaining in the long run.
Gnomoria is lying confidently within the spectra of kingdom simulators, such as Dwarf Fortress and Towns. It tells similar stories, but there is no reason someone, save the hardcore DF player, who enhoys either of those two titles wouldn't also own Gnomoria.
Gnomoria is early in development but is already bursting with potential. It has a threshold in it's learning curve, a problem I presume will be eliminated with time