Gnomes

Each turn in Gnomes is a window of total freedom: you can reposition your gnomes as many times as you like before committing, making placement the central tension rather than reflexes or a timer. Developed by DYSTOPIAN and released April 4, 2025, the game frames every run as a village defense against a goblin horde across procedurally generated biomes, with the map literally expanding day by day as you push deeper into enemy territory.

Runs are structured around a day/night rhythm. During the day you grow crops, build up your economy, and prepare defenses; at night the goblins attack in waves. Between encounters you are offered randomly dealt upgrades—relics, plants, tools, and buildings—each of which interacts with the others, so the strategic work is finding combinations that compound well. No two runs share the same map, biome layout, or enemy arrangement, and distinct biomes bring their own hazards, resources, and enemy types.

• Guilds give each run a different starting gnome, economy, and signature relic, shifting strengths and weaknesses from the first move.
• Relics, crops, buildings, and tools all interact, rewarding players who spot synergies across categories rather than within a single system.
• Procedurally generated biomes carry map-specific enemies and hazards alongside variable resources.
• Defeating the goblin king unlocks Endless Mode, which continues the run with exponentially scaling nightly waves until the player is finally overwhelmed.
• Maps and guilds are unlocked progressively across runs, broadening the available strategic space over time.

After launching to an overwhelmingly positive reception in April 2025, DYSTOPIAN shipped several hotfixes within the first weeks, then a quality-of-life and UI overhaul in June. Version 1.1 added global language support in July, and version 1.3 in August brought new maps and relics, followed by performance and QoL patches through November. The major 2.0 update arrived in March 2026, adding further maps, guilds, and relics, and controller support entered beta in June 2026.

Gnomes sits at the lighter end of the strategy-roguelike spectrum in session length and visual tone, but the synergy-hunting and guild variation give it enough decision density to hold players who want a tightly replayable puzzle rather than a punishing survival crawl.