Watch On
A clever little tower defense game released earlier this month, and the demo, at least, is damn good. In Gnomes, you’re put in charge of a little horde of angry bearded dudes in red hats who must build their beautiful little garden and then defend it from a goblin invasion. They are surprisingly vicious.
After each wave, the arena gets larger and the enemy spawn points change, and you’ve got to place money-generating crops alongside the little houses and trees you use to funnel goblins into killing fields. Gnomes, being clever gardeners, also know how to place useful weeds that benefit them and harm goblins foolish enough to break through them.
It’s a simple setup that generates enough complexity that Gnomes has sold more than 10,000 copies and holds a coveted 98% positive user review status on Steam with 563 reviews as of press time.
A few hours with the demo convinced me that this was something special, given that each playthrough blends both procedurally generated and predictable-if-vicious bespoke content. Each run has you choose a gnome guild, which determines your starting economy and gnome, but diverges wildly from there as a different set of relics, tools, plants, buildings, and new gnomes becomes available in the shop between each round.
I can’t speak highly enough of the randomized map, too. It’s just cool stuff that as the world expands it adds new terrain—thick little forests and patches of uncoverable swamp that goblins can traverse but you can’t. You can even get relics that alter the world on their own! I got one that turned every spot a gnome was placed into fertile soil by the next round, ready for fresh crops to be planted.
You can find Gnomes on Steam for $10.
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