To whoever likes Dwarf Fortress...
 

But hates it's user-hostile interface and its (lack of) graphics. There is this fun little game I've been played lately, called Gnomoria, that could interest you.

The game can be described as a graphical, mouse-driven interface Dwarf Fortress, but with gnomes. While the game has, IIRC, less than a year of development, it is already in a very playable alpha state. It can be bought at the site, as well as on Desura (and it has already been Greenlit on steam), and you can start playing right away.

While there are still things to be added to the game, what it's there is already fun to play, and offer a lot of options. And while the Dwarf Fortress inspiration is VERY STRONG, the game also does its own thing.

So far I played a few games, after some catastrophic failure to keep my gnomes alive, and had great fun. But should also be noted that there is not much aggressive wilderness out to kill you, no carps of doom, no megabeast ruining your hopes and dreams. But you will get goblins and golems spawning from time to time messing up with your gnomes, sometimes really bad. Also, the development is going through a combat focus phase, so all that stuff is being worked on, and the developer has already said he will put more enemies and animals out there, so I guess that kind of FUN will only get more and more FUN :p

The interface, although not yet perfect (and a bit unresponsive at times, specially the buttons), it is really A BIG upgrade over the horrible, horrible DF interface, and does not require any third-party program to play it without going insane.

About the rules and stuff, you will still need to check out the wiki, which is a lot less detailed than the DF one, for obvious reasons. But there is enough info to get started, and it's not completely necessary to play, only to get you started. Even then, the game does give you a hint here and there (click those ? buttons!). But yeah, most of the time the hint is not really of much help.

The game is still rough, and it feels at time like it needs more content, but it will be added. The developers talk with the community a lot through their forums, and share ideas, comment on plans and the like. It's really nice, and you may get your suggestions heard.

Even though it is still in development, I only had two crashes so far, although the game has a number of bugs. Regularly, it is a good idea to restart it, because all the windows in the game start taking its sweet time appearing and going away. But also sometimes a savegame will have some bug in it that will cause it to crash the game when loaded. And savegame compatibility between versions is not guaranteed, of course. But hey, what can you expect of a game in alpha?

It's not without its faults, though: the micromanaging can get brutal, at times, and I wish there were more optional convenience shortcuts, like a manager to whom you can order some production to be made and s/he would distribute your orders through the workshops, taking taking of crafting also the needed base materials. And the pathing is a bit silly at times. There is still a long way to go with this, but I think this is all due to the early stage of development.

The developers are pushing updates regularly, so new content, bug fixing and general polish is added with enough frequency.

Also, the site has a demo available here, which you can try. It's limited to the first 6 ingame days (less than half a season), so you will only see the early game. But it will give you a nice view of how the game plays and check out if it is the game for you.

So yeah, if anyone else plays it (or if you get intrigues enough to try it), let's share anecdotes, stories and strategies! And for those that are not playing it, if the idea of Dwarf Fortress sounded interesting to you but were daunted by all the hurdles the game throw at you even before you start dealing with learning how to play the game, this game can be for you.

I am really enjoying the game, the similarities to Dwarf Fortress cant be ignored but it has it's own things as well that make it sorta unique. Golems will wreck your crap if you just mine wide and far too fast and they will beat up your poor Gnomes when they spawn next to them and who knows how long it will take your army to get there.

I am looking forward to having some guns on a Gnome squad and setting up a nice shooting room so that I can murder goblins as they try and get into my sweet mine. I am going to start a new game soon so shall try and remember to take some screenshots and throw them up.

I freaking hate the goblins and their lucky hits to the neck of my gnomes... and I am talking gnomes that can deconstruct armor into its component bars with just a hit if his hammer, here! :P

I should upload screenshots, too... glargh, I will need to launch the game again and look for interesting-looking screenshots :p

But I have these:













Enjoy!

You said it :D Noted, even if I think I'll wait until it at least reaches the beta status and there's more content added and bugs squashed.
The landscape(-design) reminds me a bit of the old Transport Tycoon coupled with Settlers btw.

It's quite playable right now, really... you can always at least check out the demo!

Sure will throw a glance at it, just to see how it is :)

I'm afraid you guys lost me at the point I need to pay to play this game.

The lack of graphics in DF is actually a plus for me. There already is a graphical set for DF, it is simply that about nobody care to use it...

Twice now I have started a new world and ended up with Lapis Luzili inside my mountain at high levels. I must be pro or something :smile2:!

Lapis lazuli is nice with its blueness and all, but not really that great for mining great minerals, because it doesn't really have anything beyond tin... until it hits the rare platinum. So, it's good that it ended up being in the upper levels, really... you don't want to reach -50 and bitch about not finding iron because lapis lazuli is evil :p

Hey nothing wrong with Tin I need that to make Bronze..wait can I make bronze weapons armour and tools yet? And are they better then copper/malachite? To the wiki!

Edit: Yes yes you can and it is better!

I am not saying there's anything wrong with bronze, just saying that I prefer having iron ore-bearing stone at -50 rather than stones that can't have iron in it :P

And yes, Bronze is useful, but I don't tend to replace all my copper with bronze because by that time the goblins are already bringing iron weapons :P

Goblinite is the most economic metal ever :P

My new fort is The Violence Kingdom...I hope this isn't a sign that I am going to be mega attacked the one I dumped was The Lustful Kingdom I like that name so I might use it on a later fort.









Below the bedrooms are a few levels with just stairs going down so I can get to the levels with goodies in them and just below the entrance is a tiny room that has a training room in it. I have one guard at the moment who is a builder, he is set on Militia so he can go build if needed but I removed hauling so he wont rush off to move rock so when he isn't building he is training and killing goblins with his axe.

Some events at the kingdom known as The Greedy Famine.

We finally got a nice industry going, a nice population and gnomes were happy.

And so it came to pass that while manufacturing stone statuettes to exchange for stuff at the market, a legendary statuette was made.



It was not without stupid gnomes being stupid, though, like this fellow, a great miner and mason, deleting some ramps and isolating himself in a tiny piece of land... and getting thirsty... and never, EVER, lowering himself to drink from the lake because, you know, gnomes don't do such a thing. Really, they don't. They are incapable of doing... it ended as we all expected (because I didn't knew this happened until the gnome died :P)



Of course, all this prosperity and peace brought the petty goblins, seething with anger and jealousy at the prosperous gnomes, wanting to bring sorrow and tears to the peaceful Greedy Faminians. The army valiantly fought, but was wiped out in the initial assault. After that, it was each and every gnome in the kingdom, fighting tooth and nail to protect what it was their and avenging their fallen comrades. The bloodbath was hideous, and even one of the goblins got a name for himself for all the death and horror he brought to gnomekind.



As you can see, he was finally brought down, as well as his hateful companions. But the price paid for that victory was too high.



Fortunately, it was near the end of the season, so as soon as the cold season started, we found a big group of gnomads arriving at the fortress brought by tales of prosperity and wanting to help us recover after the tragedy. I immediately created a new army, with gnomes ready to follow on their predecessor's bloody steps if necessary to protect The Greedy Famine from the depredations of goblins and golems. As soon as they don their weapons and helmets (because the rest of the armor was destroyed beyond repair during the previous goblin incursion), a chance to prove themselves appeared, in the form of an iron-clad goblin.



During the fight, Humm paid the ultimate price.



But finally, the goblin was killed.



And there was much rejoicing.