If you don't hear from me much over this week (or for the rest of this month), it's because I'm dedicating my time to playing GNOMES. A new tower defense roguelike hybrid from developer DYSTOPIAN with ever-expanding biomes to battle through. DIsclosure: the developer sent me a key.
The feeling I got from it instant reminded me of the unholy addiction I had to the also excellent Loop Hero. Thanks to the clean retro style and the brilliant way it really hooks you in. GNOMES definitely looks simple on the surface but it's surprisingly deep.
Here to start a run you pick a guild which changes up what buildings and "towers" (GNOMES) you can build, pick a biome that changes what enemies and hazards you'll face and then attempt to progress for as long as possible. The biome level you pick will just keep on expanding with every new wave, with enemy spawn positions also constantly changing around. Thankfully, there's lots of objects you can buy and put down to change enemy wave paths, and your GNOMES can be moved around too each wave as you'll attempt to keep them away from your home.
Since the map keeps on expanding, you have a lot of room to grow during a run. This is necessary with the enemy wave paths changing each time, along with all the different types of enemies you'll be facing. It really does get quite challenging in the later waves.
After each wave is done you get access to the shop. Here you'll be spending up all your gold to buy up different crops and other assorted objects, which help you to earn gold to then purchase more upgrades, special relics, crops, new GNOMES to defend with and more. Part of the challenge here is that you can only stack up a limited amount of different items to build, so spending your coins wisely and attempting to plan ahead is how it gets you.
The crop system is a big part of the fun here. There's an assortment of different crops that all do different things like spreading fertile soil to let you place more, each give different gold amounts, some have a special adjacency bonus, some might buff up nearby GNOMES power and more. Some crops will even just continually spread across the map until it's full, especially useful if they deal damage when enemies trample over them. Although some crops can end up a double-edge sword, as they'll block your GNOME positioning too.
The result is that you can make some really powerful combinations, and the game really is different each run depending on what you pick.
Over email the developer told me "We're just two dudes taking on the corpo giants with a $0 budget, no publisher or game engine" and it seems they've struck some gold here. After releasing on April 4th, they've already managed to hit over 11,000 sales on Steam.
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Highlights:
- Turn Based Tower Defense - On your turn, you can move your gnomes as often as you like. Use different combinations of relics and plant abilities to help them survive the night.
- Relics, Crops and Upgrades - Each plant, relic, tool and building creates a different possible synergies. Manipulate your environment an and exploit the resources the map provides you. Grow your economy quickly, but don’t forget to defend it.
- Diverse Procedurally-Generated Biomes - Distinct biomes with procedurally generated environment, map specific enemies, different hazards and resources. Every run is different.
- Guilds with Unique Starts - Each guild stars a different type of gnome accompanied by their own starting economy and a game changing relic. Every guild has different strengths and weaknesses. Some will struggle where others thrive.
- Endless Mode - Test your strategy against randomized waves of enemies that become exponentially more difficult every night. After you defeat the goblin king for the first time, you're given the option to continue your run until the goblins overwhelm you. How many nights can you survive?
Tested on Linux with the latest Proton 9.0-4 it works perfectly. An absolute must-buy. I was instantly hooked.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
scaine a day ago
The feeling I got from it instant reminded me of the unholy addiction I had to the also excellent Loop Hero.After reading this sentence in the second paragraph, I immediately purchased the game. I then went back and read the remainder of the article.
Loop Hero was such an enjoyable game! I jumped right into the game, started playing and felt like I was making progress. The more I played the game, the more I learned how to lengthen the duration of my runs. Loop Hero had a low bar of entry, but a depth of game mechanics that kept me coming back for more.
Sounds like GNOMES will be the same kind of experience. Looking forward to playing this evening after work.
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