Gnomoria
2016
- simulator
- strategy
- turn-based strategy (tbs)
- indie
- fantasy
- survival
- sandbox
- single player
The story
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!
What it’s like
Chunky 16-bit pixel art in a bright, warm palette, with grassy greens and earthy browns that go murky and cold once you dig below the surface into stone tunnels lit by torchlight. The view is a top-down grid of tiny sprites, and the camera pans and zooms in slow, unhurried steps, so the sense of place builds gradually as walls, workshops and sleepy gnome workers pile up. Sound is light and folksy, with plucked strings and gentle ambient birdsong on the surface, giving way to hollow echoes underground. The vibe is cozy and busy, a little whimsical with an undertow of low-level anxiety when a hungry winter or a raid looms. Pacing is leisurely and self-directed: you set priorities, watch a settlement grow, and check in on a few tiny characters who get quirky, sometimes comic, moods and mishaps. Violence exists as skirmishes with goblins and other threats, rendered in small, cartoonish sprites, with no gore and only mild, abstract peril. It suits a slow weekend, a background session with a podcast, or a relaxed evening with a cup of tea, and it is for players who enjoy building, planning and tending a little world at their own speed.
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