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[El Quia]

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

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.