Reviews - discarga

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

This game is an odd one, presenting you with a complex, sometimes scary and morbid world and an equally complex and morbid character gallery. What begins as an adventure of exploration with a handful of spells at your disposal soon expands to involve some rather difficult strategy as you, the player, travel the game space, attempting to build up power by setting up farms and mining.
The narrative is one of the more involved ones I have encountered in playing games, although it's complexity and the fact that you often have to forgive how rambling some of the sisters and brothers of the void are, like oracles, they speak not in straightforward messages. Nor will the game be anywhere near obvious in what it wants you to do or what the "good thing" to do is. This will test the patience of gamers spoiled with straightforward "white knight kills black knight" narratives. The deception, not knowing whom to support and the world are, in my mind, two of the games key features. It is a fantastic journey to walk through the void and experience it. It is especially different from most other games I ever played. It is a very innovative game which tries hard to create an actually meaningful expression which is different.

The main drawback, in my mind, is the difficulty of the game, which isn't helped by the quite complicated spell system and the difficulty in using it properly, especially in combat, when stressed.
With the problems and weird, unusual things mentioned above, which likely will deter people, this is still a warmly recommended experience.
Do note that the developer has released an "easy mode" patch.