Gnomoria Review (Beta)

Disclaimer:  I have never played a Sandbox Village Management game before, so this review is coming from the experience of a newbie.

Due to the fact that I never played a sandbox village management game, Gnomoria quickly became one of the most intimidating games I have encountered. It wasn’t that the game was necessarily hard, but the learning curve was ridiculous due to the lack of in game tutorials. After looking up a few fan tutorials however, I manage to follow some basics steps that help set the game in motion. Although the game continue to be overwhelming, I found Gnomoria to be one of the most dangerously addicting concepts I have ever experienced.

Gnomoria gives players control of 9 renegade Gnomes who are out to build themselves a new village. A simple concept, but one that isn’t too welcoming to new players. I know I mention this earlier, but the lack of in game tutorial really hurts the appeal of this game to consumers like myself. This isn’t a game where players can simply press keys and figure it out. It takes a lot of time and knowledge to understand how the game is suppose to be played. I had to look at online fan guides in order to get a hint to what I was suppose to do. However, I did find the game to be a lot of fun after I climbed the ridiculously high learning curve.

To build a new village players must give commands to their Gnomes and set them in action. They do this by simply clicking the activity (Dig, Mine, Stockpile, etc.) and selecting the area where they want the activity to occur. Once this is done, players must proceed to set the action into motion. This is done by either pausing, playing, or speeding up time. This is one of my favorite features of the game because it allowed me to take the experience at my own pace. There was a lot of things on my mind when I was playing Gnomoria, and it was nice to pause the experience in order to plan my next chain of commands. Gathering materials, building structures, and defending my new home against the impending Goblin invasion was a very fun task that could of turn into a stressful experience if I couldn’t get the time to simply plan things out. I know this isn’t a new concept, but it greatly lowered the steep learning curve that this game has.

Another aspect that I liked about the game was the steady increase in prosperity that came to my village over time. The more work that was put into my village, the more I received from it. Your village becomes richer as a whole when you invest more time into the game. Whether you simply cutting birch wood trees or mining for riches, everything can add value to your village in some way. This gradual progression would constantly inspire me to put a little more work into my village. This only add to the already addicting personality that this game has. This type of reward system shows how much love Robotronic has for their game and the genre.

One thing that is a bit disappointing is the overall presentation. I never expect any game to blow me away in terms of visuals due to my belief that graphics don’t make a game superb. However, the overall look of this game was just uninspired to say the least. It gets the job done, but it doesn’t really strive to hit any artistic merit of it’s own. However I will say that the soundtrack for the game is pretty solid. I think it’s only fair to note however that the game currently remains in beta. If the developers decided to fix the mechanics before visuals then I have no problems.

Overall, Gnomoria is a very fun and addictive experience. The lack of direction did set me off track for quite a bit, but I found the game to be highly enjoyable when I invested more time to learn it’s purpose. The game is one of the most mechanically sound games I have experience in years, and this success easily overshadows the lacking presentation. Gnomoria may still be in beta, but it is quickly on it’s way to become the next biggest gaming addiction to hit the PC Market.